This was probably a lot better around the time of publication. The character work was alright, plotting fine, and prose serviceable. It was fairly predictable and felt like a retread of ground, but it was readable.

A pleasant surprise overall. Probably, it was a bit padded, so much so, it might have felt so, if not for the character work I enjoyed very much. It culminates in some pretty incredible circumstances, but the story was riveting throughout, so I forgave it easily. The character work is the stand out, with the prose being solid, but not what I’d call exemplary, the voice is compelling. Difficult to put down.

It started out just fine, purporting to be something like hard sci-fi, and with a fairly likeable protagonist. Quickly, though, and throughout, the pacing becomes wild. It is so overstuffed with plot, it actually becomes exhausting. Whiplash became common. How this is just the first book in a series is baffling. As it goes on, the stretching of science to accommodate the bio tech becomes just too incredulous to believe.

As the shift becomes more found-family and expanding stakes, the incredulity continues to grow and the prose are not up to the task. I did finish it, or the three novels that were inside of it, but by the end even the twisty wildness of it all just never came together.

I had a great time with this one, more than I expected to, honestly. I, uh, actually thought it was going to be about werewolves, so I never saw the twist coming. Like the authors other novels, it has a good central conceit and the pacing works to propel the plot forward. The central mystery ends up being really fun, along with the twists and turns.

Prose wise, it’s a standard commercial affair. I think simply not knowing what the book is about in any way did a lot of the work to make me enjoy the experience. I was actually pretty psyched to pick up the next book, especially after the ending.

While this didn’t quite hold my hype from the first novel, eagerly waiting for more about what the heck was going on, it was still a solid thriller with some fun twists and turns. This was more of a 3.5 rounded up, rather than the solid 4 of the first book. Mostly because the ending kind of fizzles, despite the fact that it ought to ramp up the tension and be a cliffhanger. I felt instead that all the interesting things about it were suddenly resolved and I had no idea what was going to happen next, sure, but also, how much did I care?

Endings are hard. I did not like the previous ending and disliked this one even more so. I didn’t particularly care about most anything that happened in this instalment and there is a coda that I managed to like even less. All of my interest evaporated, and it’s more just a high octane action film, which was never the captivating aspect of the series for me whatsoever. Unfortunate. Still, it’s fun to know the whole story, I suppose.

Maybe I’m a book snob, but I pretty much expected this to suck. Always happy to be surprised, though. Especially by the prose work, it feels almost wild how much this text respects the intellect of the reader. I was expecting, I don’t know, Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance type writing. This is a cut above the commercial fiction today, let alone then. Great flow, vocabulary, and feels dynamic between character work and the unfolding, interesting plot. A couple twists cement this as a bit of a gem for me. Not enough to really blow me away, as the actual plot concerning the dragons and all but one of the characters didn’t capture my interest, despite being well rendered, but I can see why this has a (cult?) following.

Epic fantasy that feels very unique, not built off of western epics and tropes. It’s inclusive of a lot of identities and it’s got world building that pulls you right in, Constantly thirsty for more information about the various cultures, customs, and magic.

It’s got similar pacing to epics as well, especially the first in series. It’s pretty much all setup, which will appeal to some and not others. To help the pacing along, it has a more complex structure structured around the climax, jumping back in time from the end point by days, weeks, years, for all the main characters.

Again, similar to other starts of a series, there isn’t much closure, which will also polarize readers, I think. There’s a pretty large amount of plot hanging off a cliff here.

It would have been a 5 star book had there been tighter theme interwoven and the plot managed to leave things open for the next, while saying something and tying off some arcs/themes, etc.

It was great to jump back into this world. It’s unpredictable, novel, and has fantastic character work. The plot, this time, is even more cool, too. Circumstances conspire to keep lovers apart, we learn more about the Gods of the world, as well as more of the various cultures. It really develops and opens up.

A very satisfying end to a rich cast of characters, dynamic plot, wild, fascinating setting, and an epic, weaving plot. While the prose work doesn’t elevate it to all-time favourites for me, it remains one of the more interesting contributions to the genre I’ve read yet (and I’ve read a heck of a lot).