Yes, we have yet another fantasy book to review this week. I can explain. I put my name on the waiting list for the ebook version of this title probably 6 months ago with maybe 30 people ahead of me. I only received it in December 2023. I don't have any more books on the waiting list, so we'll read them as we find them going forward.
My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.
Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.
Note: a 2023 Read
Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames DNF 10%
The elevator pitch for this book is that mercenary bands in this world are treaded like rock bands in ours. They have names, star members, and fans. The premise of the story is that we have this mercenary band whose members have been retired for more than a decade and most the most part, have settled down into ordinary lives. However, when the daughter of the former leader of the band, herself a mercenary, is trapped in a city under siege a thousand miles away, her father sets out to save her by seeking out the old band members to get back together again. To reach this besieged city, a thousand miles away, they have to cross the Heart Wyld forest, an place filled with all sorts of monsters and cross this wild woods and reach the distant city seemingly on foot - in time to reach a city besieged by a large army and do something to save her. Okaaaay....
As you can see from my grade above, the story didn't click with me. I found the premise to be sort of lame, and while the writing sort of snarky, and I found everything else struck me as off the shelf fantasy tropes. Perhaps the most off putting part of the story was the use of swear words. I have nothing against the words, bitch, shithole, fuck, bullshit, etc. Don't mind them at all. No, it's the fact that they are so ordinary, so commonplace, so much of a part of present day life, that they inevitably knock me out of the story and setting and take back into the pressroom break room or college dorm where such words were in common usage. If you are going to create an alternate world, don't be lazy. Invent your curses.
The use of commonplace curses and phrases was symptomatic of the commonplaceness of the prose and setting. Everything encountered in the first 10% of the story I read was nothing that I haven't encountered before. It was fine, but just a generic fantasy setting with generic fantasy characters. Only the premise was cute, though I doubt it really made sense. So, in the end, I found it hard to want to pick the book back up and continue reading. Life is too short, to spend time doing something you really don't want to do, if you don't have to. So DNF. But what do I know? I had to wait six months to read a five year old book, so don't take my word for it, if it sounds interesting to you go for it. It has one sequel, and another on the way.
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