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A review by faurenzil
Tower Lord by Anthony Ryan
1.0
I liked the first book, even though I agree with some reviews complaining about punctuation and style in general. Even with those issues, the book was very good read, as the story was good.
I can't say the same about Tower Lord. It started out nice, but every next page it was worse and worse. Author seems to have unlimited reserve of pathos. Every single event in the book is the greatest, biggest, most emotional etc. which of course led to them having absolutely no effect on me. And of course the punctuation issues are still here.
The second half of the book, and especially the last 20% or so, was incredibely boring. Everything happened exactly the way you expect. It was too long and either nothing was happening or something already mentioned way way earlier finally happened (the book again has a short chapters at the beginning and after each part, set at the end of the timeline of the whole book).
On top of that there was a big load of bullshit in the story, things that clearly showed author doesn't know what he is talking about, f.e. how fire spreads in a natural forest, not maintained by people, how organisation of army he describes would have to look like - no, you don't just take 40000 people and start marching, not caring about supplies and no, you can't ride your cavalry for half a day, whole night, then again some time during day and charge straight to battle, on the same horses - by the way, did it even occured to you that in such army they would have spare horses and lots of them? I can overlook when one such thing happen in a book, but when there is something like that in each chapter, I can't focus on the story anymore, at some point it's just impossible to buy whatever author is now selling.
Another bad part of the book are characters. I'm not saying the first book was great with that, the main character is not really that interesting - but there were many secondary characters, that were not all good and positive (for example the king or his daughter). Here pretty much every positive character is positive to the last breath. Not a single flaw or even weakness. If someone does something wrong, it's because he is forced. Everyone wants the best for their country. Everyone is willing to sacrifice for the people around them. Everyone is also very modest and think they are bad and terrible, while everyone around them are constantly showing signs of respect and devotion toward them. Noone is selfish. Except, of course, the negative characters, who on the other hand do not have any positive traits. Ahh, this was so frustrating. Even the big enemy, who was preparing for years and was so cunning and perfect in the planning, is represented by an idiot, selfish, coward general who spends time thinking about his greatness and with prostitutes. Come on! And so much repetition, the same situations, similar stories for several different characters...
I don't remember when I was ever angry (or that angry) after finishing the book. Well, this one made me angry. Angry that I wasted time (I don't like unfinished books, but I admit I had to skip pages during the last 5%), that I wasted money on this and that the potential I saw in the first book was completely lost here.
I can't say the same about Tower Lord. It started out nice, but every next page it was worse and worse. Author seems to have unlimited reserve of pathos. Every single event in the book is the greatest, biggest, most emotional etc. which of course led to them having absolutely no effect on me. And of course the punctuation issues are still here.
The second half of the book, and especially the last 20% or so, was incredibely boring. Everything happened exactly the way you expect. It was too long and either nothing was happening or something already mentioned way way earlier finally happened (the book again has a short chapters at the beginning and after each part, set at the end of the timeline of the whole book).
On top of that there was a big load of bullshit in the story, things that clearly showed author doesn't know what he is talking about, f.e. how fire spreads in a natural forest, not maintained by people, how organisation of army he describes would have to look like - no, you don't just take 40000 people and start marching, not caring about supplies and no, you can't ride your cavalry for half a day, whole night, then again some time during day and charge straight to battle, on the same horses - by the way, did it even occured to you that in such army they would have spare horses and lots of them? I can overlook when one such thing happen in a book, but when there is something like that in each chapter, I can't focus on the story anymore, at some point it's just impossible to buy whatever author is now selling.
Another bad part of the book are characters. I'm not saying the first book was great with that, the main character is not really that interesting - but there were many secondary characters, that were not all good and positive (for example the king or his daughter). Here pretty much every positive character is positive to the last breath. Not a single flaw or even weakness. If someone does something wrong, it's because he is forced. Everyone wants the best for their country. Everyone is willing to sacrifice for the people around them. Everyone is also very modest and think they are bad and terrible, while everyone around them are constantly showing signs of respect and devotion toward them. Noone is selfish. Except, of course, the negative characters, who on the other hand do not have any positive traits. Ahh, this was so frustrating. Even the big enemy, who was preparing for years and was so cunning and perfect in the planning, is represented by an idiot, selfish, coward general who spends time thinking about his greatness and with prostitutes. Come on! And so much repetition, the same situations, similar stories for several different characters...
I don't remember when I was ever angry (or that angry) after finishing the book. Well, this one made me angry. Angry that I wasted time (I don't like unfinished books, but I admit I had to skip pages during the last 5%), that I wasted money on this and that the potential I saw in the first book was completely lost here.