CBR15Bingo: Relation “ship” (cargo ships and relationships)
Bingo: (left to right: Dwelling to On the Air)
Will Kempen is on the run and on a mission: find the man who had his mother murdered and take him down. Unfortunately, his mission leads him directly into the hands of those who want him dead. After being rescued off of a sinking ship by Violet, the two of them are taken back to the hall of the Stewards (protectors of the light and fighters against the Dark King). Will and his mother are of a bloodline that will unlock the power of the light, preventing the Dark King from returning despite the best efforts of his dark acolytes.
All of this happens within the first hundred pages. Look, this book is long, and I’ve read plenty of Donna Tartt. But the middle slog of this book was just that: a slog. My colleague loaned me this book two months ago and I finally finished it after reading bits of it on and off for the past six weeks. However, once I got to the sixty-percent mark, it really opened up and flew.
The character development is sort of interesting, but honestly things didn’t pick up for me until over halfway through. And then it gets really interesting. Which is a good thing because everything I’ve been told and read about this book is that it subverts tropes. I’m not going to say whether or not that is true but, regardless of what you want to call it, the latter half of the book almost makes up for the slow middle. Almost.
I need less Steward nonsense and more James “Evil General of the Dark” chewing scenery. Violet and Will are great. Justice is as boring as his name suggests.
If you like lots of world building and watching characters figure their shit out in what feels like real time, have I got the book for you. If you like a good, Sanderson-esque plot twist, then you will enjoy this. Granted, the only Sanderson I’ve read is the Mistborn trilogy, and I see plenty of parallels with that. I’m not going to claim one is better than the other. However, when I did make it through the dreaded middle wasteland of the second and third Mistborn books, I felt like I’d earned my gold star for the week.
Apparently, the sequel drops in November. I’m not crazy hyped about it because I need a break from Steward magical military bullshit, but I am hyped about the non-Steward relationships, especially Violet and her brother Tom.
