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eidolem's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
A bit long and slow for the plot but good.
thesurvivorreader's review
3.0
I enjoyed reading this book, but honestly it wasn't anything too special. If it weren't for Atticus I probably wouldn't be too tempted to continue on with the series, but I'm also not like dreading continuing with the series. I think my biggest issue is that I just didn't really connect with Feist's writing at all. I'm not a fan of an omniscient POV to begin with and then add on top of that the fact that Feist uses lots of terminology I don't understand and describes action really poorly and it just created a situation where I wasn't able to enjoy large chunks of the story for the sole reason of Feists writing not working for me. I do think that the plot was solid however. Nothing too amazing but definitely enough to keep me interested. The thing that really kept me reading was Miranda. Chapters following her were few and far between, but when we did get them I was always fascinated and glued to the story. She was by far my favorite character. I also really liked Roo and I'm excited to see how he progresses as a character. Some other stand outs for me were Sho Pi, Calis, and Nacor. Calis in particular is a fascinating character and I love learning about him and his race. On the other hand Erik was a pretty bad main character. He's just so incredibly bland and boring to follow. I said the same thing about Rand though so there is always a chance he could grow on me, but for now I really dislike following Eric. The world building also wasn't the strongest in this book. The glimpses that we got of the world and the politics were so fascinating and I loved it, but it was not leaned on nearly enough. This might be because this is technically like the 12th book in the series, but I really just wish that we had gotten more. I feel like I'm left with no clear understanding of the cultures or magic in this book which is a bummer. So yeah, I'd say I loved the bits of world building we got, was intrigued by the plot, and enjoyed many characters, but found the writing to be poor and the world to not be expanded as much as it could have been. Overall this was a solid book, but it definitely didn't feel like anything too special to me.
heatherradloff's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
zoeamac's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
slow-paced
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.0
bootero's review
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
hackedbyawriter's review against another edition
3.0
It was meh. Personally I didn't like how rape was depicted in this book.
mstrpurple's review
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Compared to Feist's previous books, this comes in as (in my opinion) shockingly average. This could be my own fatigue catching up with me, but I'm not sure. Some things to note:
1) I really like how Erik is not a true noble. It reminded me of reading Pugs humble beginnings, which I far more enjoyed than Nicholas/Borric/Erlands' in the previous book(s). I also just genuinely enjoy the stereotypical big strong blacksmith protagonist.
2) As a sucker for a Bildungsroman (which Feist loves to write), this book scratched that itch. Up until the journey to Novindus happens, I was HOOKED. Once they got there, I felt less and less intrigued.
3) I really liked how there was less romance in this than some of the others. Where Prince of The Blood is one side of that spectrum, this is the other.
4) This book serves well to set up future books in the series. The last 30%ish really does start to feel like a movie you know is the first of a trilogy- where it doesn't quite feel like it's own thing.
1) I really like how Erik is not a true noble. It reminded me of reading Pugs humble beginnings, which I far more enjoyed than Nicholas/Borric/Erlands' in the previous book(s). I also just genuinely enjoy the stereotypical big strong blacksmith protagonist.
2) As a sucker for a Bildungsroman (which Feist loves to write), this book scratched that itch. Up until the journey to Novindus happens, I was HOOKED. Once they got there, I felt less and less intrigued.
3) I really liked how there was less romance in this than some of the others. Where Prince of The Blood is one side of that spectrum, this is the other.
4) This book serves well to set up future books in the series. The last 30%ish really does start to feel like a movie you know is the first of a trilogy- where it doesn't quite feel like it's own thing.
gutterpede's review
3.0
A modest fantasy story with maybe a little too much going on, but this is balanced out by the simplistic main character, Eric. It’s a great introduction to an obviously much more ambitious story that I *may* come back to some day, but for a book I picked up purely for the inside cover it held up!