I'm going to start by wondering why this was still on NetGalley, when it was released in November 2017, but hey I got a free book, and you get a review.
The maps at the beginning remind me of the world maps I make for my Dungeons and Dragons campaign, lots of hexes that make up the world. I do love a good map at the start of a book.
Trigger Warnings
It literally opens with dubious consent; the woman isn't really in a position to say no. He then cast amnesia on her so she forgets it happened. This is the opening of the book.
Violence. Systematic misogyny. Every day misogyny. Slavery. Gore. Zombies. Racism. Death. Slurs. Self harm. Ableism. Murder.
Synopsis
The protagonist, Kaze, was previously royalty but is now a necromancer. As such, he is no longer welcomed in most societies. Kaze does some heroic stuff (with the exception of how the book opens) to protect innocent people from attacks by ghouls and trolls and the like, then finds his old friend who has a daughter, Aline. Kaze then does some more dangerous heroic stuff. Oh and there's some plot about the gods dying or something along those lines.
Characters
We are introduced to Kaze the hero when he is rewarded with sex for saving a girl. This is the opening chapter. Aline, introduced a couple of chapters later, reminds me so much of the Twitter thing not so long ago about how women are often described in books (mostly written by men) as just having breasts. I admit to summarising one paragraph in my mind as "She boobily titted on her breasting way" and naturally it was followed by a man saying how pretty she was. I'm also not entirely convinced that after hearing depressing news that Aline would immediately jump into bed with Kaze, but that happened too.
I quite liked Heldritch, the grumpy butler of one of the gods. I didn't feel like any of the characters had any real personality though. Since it was mostly dialogue (more about that later) it's difficult to get into the head of characters, to know their motives and thoughts, or even just body language and physical reactions to anything at all.
Plots
Although not really a plot as such, I think the magic system is interesting. The caster yells out what type of magic they use, followed by the name of the spell. It does feel a little D&D like, when a player yells "I cast this spell!" when combat gets exciting. I'm not entirely convinced by it, but I did think it interesting.
As for the plots themselves... I don't know. The idea that the gods are dying could be fascinating, but it just feels a bit glued on. Kaze is not a good protagonist; the opening chapter puts him in a terrible light. He does dubious things, and has terrible relationships with women. I wasn't rooting for him like I feel I should have been. When he does the trials (not going to give spoilers as to what they entail) I was just a little bored; it felt like it took away from what might have been a great main plot of the attacks on the villages. Preventing attacks, lots of skirmishes, a big battle of villagers and typical creatures found in fantasy... That would have been awesome. Instead it was just one guy who could summon a sword using his blood.
Writing style
There is such a thing, I have discovered, as too much dialogue. I've read books that have been heavy on dialogue, but this seems to have such little narration beyond stating who is talking and how they are saying it. There's also a lot of repetition; people have a tendency to scream or cry in upper case.
The chapters open with a little detail about time and location, like "Ellana's living room, Thursday evening" as an example. This is useful since the book does jump around a bit in both time and place; there are flashbacks and several locations. I'd probably liken this to Law and Order when you get the black screen and white text, but a little less jarring.
Summary
With a few tweaks (especially to the portrayal of women) I think this would make a good script. As a novel, it doesn't quite work, but I think it would perhaps work better as a series on YouTube. Despite an interesting magic system and some really good world building, I'm not sure I would read the rest of the series.
There are definitely some great things about this book - the magic system, the gods, clashes with different royal families - but there just isn't enough great things for me to really like it. The opening put me on edge so much, I couldn't shake it for the rest of the book. Even now, a day after reading it, I'm still uncomfortable at just the thought of it.
Time it took to read
Two and a half hours
Would recommend to
Someone who would be able to put aside the depiction of women in the book. The magic and fantasy elements are great if you can do that.
Enjoyed with
Green Day's God's Favorite Band and Thornton's mint chocolate.
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