Chris Eicher
This is not a 'bad' book, but definitely wasn't for me. I very nearly DNF'd this one halfway through due to the amount of names. The number of named characters in this book would make Tolkien or GRRM blush. I played a 90 second clip of this book for my wife and she started laughing and told me to turn it off after we got to something like the 12th gobbledygook name over such a short period of time. Around 3/4 of the way through the book I more or less knew who all the, at least major, players were. I ended up liking this book, but I can't say anything more than that. I think the prose is (setting aside the overabundance of names) really quite good and feels unique in a good way. The characters are interesting and Maia is easy to root for, if a bit flat. I did find it hard to believe several of the turns in this book. I understand this is 'cozy fantasy' and it should be read in that frame, since if you don't, there's no way you could imagine the court not absolutely tearing Maia apart. I guess I'd finally come to the conclusion of: this book is frustrating because much of it I really enjoyed, combined with a lot that I really didn't, and ultimately I come out slightly positive but feeling I definitely wanted more. I read a review that this book is "zoom meetings, the book" and it's a lot of good zoom meetings I suppose, but it's still zoom.
This is not a 'bad' book, but definitely wasn't for me. I very nearly DNF'd this one halfway through due to the amount of names. The number of named characters in this book would make Tolkien or GRRM blush. I played a 90 second clip of this book for my wife and she started laughing and told me to turn it off after we got to something like the 12th gobbledygook name over such a short period of time. Around 3/4 of the way through the book I more or less knew who all the, at least major, players were. I ended up liking this book, but I can't say anything more than that. I think the prose is (setting aside the overabundance of names) really quite good and feels unique in a good way. The characters are interesting and Maia is easy to root for, if a bit flat. I did find it hard to believe several of the turns in this book. I understand this is 'cozy fantasy' and it should be read in that frame, since if you don't, there's no way you could imagine the court not absolutely tearing Maia apart. I guess I'd finally come to the conclusion of: this book is frustrating because much of it I really enjoyed, combined with a lot that I really didn't, and ultimately I come out slightly positive but feeling I definitely wanted more. I read a review that this book is "zoom meetings, the book" and it's a lot of good zoom meetings I suppose, but it's still zoom.