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A review by daffz
Prince of the Icemark by Stuart Hill
3.0
This book was a lot weaker than any of the others in the Icemark series, and that's a shame. I almost feel like the author wrote himself into a corner by writing a prequel to the rest of the books. It meant he couldn't introduce many new characters because there would be no explanation for their disappearance in the books that took place later, it also meant that the end of the story is already pretty much known by the readers.
A few new characters were introduced, but none of them were very memorable. By far the most annoying one was the cat, it's introduced as a "witch's cat" with special powers and it gets three seperate fight scenes within the book and kills a fairly important character. This cat gets so much focus during the book that I almost started to wonder if it wasn't the real main character. It just felt out of place and weird.
Redrought himself was a little bit of a disappointment too. He felt very different as a main character than his daughter did and I didn't feel like I got to know him very well during the story. It also seemed to me that the way girls were described through his eyes was rather sexist. The book kept acting like girls are aliens who are impossible to understand and talk to as a guy. It would've been one thing it it had been just his insecurity, but an older female character agrees with him. It's an overdone thing and a bit of a pet peeve of mine.
So while it was nice to see more of Icemark's backstory and see more of Thirrin's mother(!), the story itself was weak and the characters fell flat for the most part.
A few new characters were introduced, but none of them were very memorable. By far the most annoying one was the cat, it's introduced as a "witch's cat" with special powers and it gets three seperate fight scenes within the book and kills a fairly important character. This cat gets so much focus during the book that I almost started to wonder if it wasn't the real main character. It just felt out of place and weird.
Redrought himself was a little bit of a disappointment too. He felt very different as a main character than his daughter did and I didn't feel like I got to know him very well during the story. It also seemed to me that the way girls were described through his eyes was rather sexist. The book kept acting like girls are aliens who are impossible to understand and talk to as a guy. It would've been one thing it it had been just his insecurity, but an older female character agrees with him. It's an overdone thing and a bit of a pet peeve of mine.
So while it was nice to see more of Icemark's backstory and see more of Thirrin's mother(!), the story itself was weak and the characters fell flat for the most part.