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I saw a comment on a social media site saying this book was a disappointment. I cannot agree. I will say that if you've never read Guy Gavriel Kay, this one may not be the best first read for you. Try The Sarantine Mosaic first. However, if you are a Kay fan, you are far more likely to enjoy this. If you know his work, and you love his blend of History tweaked, with magic around the edges, then you're the audience. This one started a little slow in a way, but it got more delightful as it went. The last third was full of "I see what you did there, sir!" moments, nods to his past works, and times when the author obviously could not help himself but to tweak the Historical into a more enjoyable path, just because he could. This isn't the best book you've ever read, but Kay's writing on a bad day beats a lot of the market on their good days, and it added much needed joy to my summer.
What can one say without spoilers? Aliens that are quite alien (as only superb Sci-Fi provides). Great writing and characterization. I hypothesize all manner of connections to The Expanse, but at the same time, this one is stand-alone enough that it would make a great sample for someone wanting to try the work of James S.A. Corey. Truly these authors create a great story together!
It has been years since I first read Elizabeth Moon's Deed of Paksenarrion. That lovely work firmly set the author in the “Fantasy” category in my mind. Years passed, and I never thought to look at SF by Moon until I saw a Redditor recommending a very unusual SF book with and older female protagonist: Remnant Population, which turned out to be excellent!
Now, I've finally turned my attention to Vatta's War (solely because it was written by Elizabeth Moon), and I am disappointed that I did not read this sooner! This is excellent character driven Science Fiction. There are events in plenty, but the meat of the book is still the central character and her interactions with others. This is realistic coming of age: not in a typical YA pubescent sense, but instead a more realistic “ just out of high school or college and adapting to independent responsibility” sort of way. The protagonist is problem solving, personnel managing, etc. amidst a chain of unexpected complications. We get the main character's self doubts, anxiety, and internal development without the fetish-like pathological level of whining about anxiety that plagues so many characters in the past decade. This balance takes more skill as a writer, and Moon has the skill to give us that. I fully intend to dive right into the sequel next!
I loved another book by C.S. Friendman, so I was excited to read this one. Then, years ago, I started it and hated the intro so much that I put it down. It took years to get back to it. There are a couple of good ideas here, but I didn't like any character in particular, and I found the plot that centered on “we macho men must sacrifice greatly to rescue the lady in distress” a bit off-putting. The basic concept of the world is good, but not the only time such concept has been used in Sci-Fi. For me this was a “meh, it's ok” sort of read. I'm unsure whether I'll ever read the sequels.
The concept seemed good, and I've seen others online talk about loving these books. I've read the first three now, and found them a disappointment. Despite the title, this should just be called “Hawk”. Fisher has a very limited role. She isn't as much of a POV character as Hawk. The writing is also not great, and the plot is transparent. I honestly do no get the love for these. There are a lot of fun ideas here that just aren't executed well.
Disappointing read. It was a slow start for me to get into this one. Even though the basic concept attracted me to the book, the characters were mostly not likeable (and rather stupid all around), and this made it hard to get drawn in. So, it took me a really long time to read. I finally started to really get into it three quarters of the way through, mostly out of interest in seeing how the author wrapped things up. However, the author simply did not wrap anything up. There is no ending and no resolution. The book just suddenly abruptly ends. We are just left hanging. I cannot recommend this book, because it feels like it is only three quarters of a book that just stops. Disappointing after such an unusual premise and setting.
I liked this book. Some parts are a little slower than others, but the sheer scale of imagination kept me hooked. This authors sheer Sci-Fi Imagination in the realms of epic engineering and technology are just pure genre goodness. This was my second book in The Culture series, and I will definitely be reading more.
Goodreads tells me 2 stars means “It was OK”. So, 2 stars.
If you already know a fair bit about the Colonial British History, the Abolitionist Movement, The Opium Wars, Etymology, and Linguistics, then move along. You won't learn anything new. This book isn't written for you. I think it would be far more enjoyable if you know nothing of these subjects.
The magic system is interesting. Definitely some dark spots. The character development is not great. It would have been nice, for example, to have more character development of Victoire. We really only get a hint of it as what feels like an afterthought at the end. Ramy almost as bad. The main characters are all walking stereotypes, and each is simply an embodiment of their culture of origin. Even that exists not in a deep way, but mostly just as a function of their difference.
It was very transparent what the author was doing, all the way through. There were a few moments of delight (mostly etymological in nature), but the ending is blindingly obvious from very early on in the book. There was only one actual surprise in the entire book (and that was in the timing of an event, not the actual event). So, for me, this is an OK Historical Fantasy with a cool linguistic magic system, very strong anti-colonial theme, poor character development of most characters, and you can see the end coming for hundreds of pages. It was difficult to stay engaged all the way to the finish, because so much was so obvious. This took me far longer to read than most Fantasy books, because it was just hard to keep slogging through for so long with no surprises and no character depth.
Slightly interesting only as a Historical document. Challenging to read, with nonstandard spellings, very indirect, imprecise language, etc. I've read many antique books, but this book, while on a technical topic, is hugely imprecise. Not one time is a single temperature measurement given. I know this book is from 1847, but the Fahrenheit temperature scale was in use for a couple of centuries before this.
I have a serious weak spot for Sci-Fi and Fantasy that comment on and make use of linguistics, social structure, and Anthropology. I also know Elizabeth Moon to be a good author, so I grabbed this once I came across someone else describing it, and I am glad I did. I read this book in a single night. This book is really different, and I found that enjoyable. We get a main character in Ofelia that is so not the usual. She's not young, gorgeous, extraordinarily strong, extraordinarily smart, the Chosen One, or any of the tropes we typically see. Her strength is strength of character, determination, and a desire to be respected. Ofelia turns the art of small stubborn moments and the sublime joy of small things into a lifestyle.
This main character is humanly fleshed out as an individual going through an entirely new time of discovering she is more as a person than she thought she was (or has been permitted to be), and then also discovers the planet around her is not what she thought it was. Anyone who has been an introvert will feel some kinship with Ofelia. Everyone who has faced the stereotypes of other humans will feel some kinship with Ofelia. Everyone who has loved a woman and watched her discover new parts of herself after her children were grown (no matter how much she loves them) will feel some kinship with Ofelia. The aliens aren't what you expect, and then they are, and then they aren't what you expect again. So many authors would have felt compelled to take the entire thing in a far darker direction, and I applaud Elizabeth Moon for acknowledging the darkness, showing it to us, and not letting it steal the focus of the story from Ofelia. I think this was an author skillfully choosing not to follow the “typical” narrative path that most authors would have easily slid the premise of this story into.
And finally, to anyone asking the question, “Can you have a book about an individual who spends a substantial stretch of time alone without it being a riff on Robinson Crusoe?” Elizabeth Moon shows us in Remnant Populations that you can.
Solid intro to many topics in pottery, but not a deep dive in to any. I've seen the author in person, and she was a great presenter. This book would help any beginner decide which topics they want to delve into within pottery. Good refresher of basic info as well. There are a few terrible printing errors, such as one vase description where two paragraphs are directly printed on top one another, making them unreadable (at least in the copy I have). So, approach this publisher with caution and this author with enthusiasm.
Despite the fact that the author was really dropping hints, I didn't see the plot twists during the first two books (only seeing them as I started the third book), but I still thoroughly enjoyed the ride. I do wonder about a few lingering details, and their implications for the future of the characters, but, this trilogy was just a fun read. I enjoyed the ride along with El as she learned things.
This is not a book for everyone. Some will not enjoy a fantasy novel with fighting, with children from terrible situations being trained as warriors. For me, this was one of those books that was hard to put down. Reading a during lunch and breaks, etc. Other reviewers said the world building was unique and being the jaded fantasy reader I am, I was very skeptical. Other reviewers were correct! The world building is unique. That's all I will say, in the interest of avoiding spoilers. I recommend going into it knowing as little as possible about the setting, if you can. It was an enjoyable aspect of this book to discover the setting.
The characters! Oh, the characters are great. Depth, variety, talents, flaws, and frailties, even among magic using super warriors. Some characters I cared about, and others I just wanted to see what they would do, but it kept me interested.
The combat! There's a lot of combat. This is not a military history buff's sort of combat, but furious individual combat (on a more superhero level, some of it). I often expect there to be a lot of boring in combat scenes, but this book surprised me. Lawrence has done some interesting things with looking at how the way an angry child warrior, who can really fight, might use different moves in a fight than an adult, against an adult. It isn't smooth sailing choreography all the time, but sometimes it is brilliant. By all rights, a lot of these fight scenes should have been the boring stuff you skim through, to get past quickly, but these I actually read!
There are some wonderfully quotable lines, as others have mentioned. There are moment and scenes where you could just hear the epic soundtrack music playing as you read. This is a rough and cruel world. It is no fairytale, but good grief, it kept me so hooked, I devoured it in a single day. This was my first read by Mark Lawrence, but I'm definitely reading more!
I hesitated to post this review, because I've encountered the author around the ‘nets and he seems like an ok guy. However, for me this book just didn't do it. First, I didn't realize when I picked this up, that it isn't really a novel. It's more like several longish short-stories in one volume. I think that if the author re-developed this into true novel form, it would improve greatly. I read this book because it had an interesting premise. There was an idea there. It could have been so very good, but for me it was not great. It has the feel that it should have been workshopped with a good writing group to tighten the outline. It also seemed in need of an editor. There were a noticeable number of errors in punctuation, spelling, and word choice (using the wrong but similar sounding word, but not in a way that seemed intentional). That took away from it a bit for me.
I've read vast amounts of literature, fantasy, sci-fi, horror. I've seen despicable characters made sympathetic. I've seen other extremely down-and-out characters made sympathetic (or made unsympathetically hate-able). In this case, I never came to care much about the characters in this book. The protagonist hints at things in his past that might help us care more about him, but they aren't actually revealed. Yeah, he's from a poor, tough area in the rural American South, and I love that setting, and it should have made this aces for me, but somehow we just kept getting Big Hints. “Something bad” happened to the main character to make him the junkie he is. “Granny” is scary powerful, and he won't go around her. It was deeply disappointing that we don't get to meet Granny. There are fae in this book's setting, it seems, and they even like one of the main character's actions enough that they leave him a reward! We don't see them, just the reward they left. The rest of the book, this isn't mentioned again! Not the effects of this on the character, nothing (just a sudden fae powerup [maybe] with unspecified effects, then forgotten)! Just Big Hints and Loose Ends all around.
It seemed the entire time to me that the main character was narrating his life as if it were the life of someone else, not his own. It was a very detached first-person narration in some ways. Perhaps this was an intentional artistic choice that has just whooshed past me as a reader. Perhaps all the hinting, forgetting, and loose ends is intentionally done to make us feel more like the hot mess that the main character is, but for me that didn't connect.
At this point, I feel like, I would love to see the main character grow and progress. There are Big Hints that he may, but I just read this entire book without getting much of that. I didn't like any character enough to make me sure I want to read the next book. There are still Big Hints of things I might really like later, but there are SO many other books on my to-be-read list. So, I may check in on this author later again, because I really wanted to love this. However, every book is not for every reader, and you may love it. For me, as the stars say: “It's OK”.