The Raven Scholar is actually pretty good; I was a little surprised because I sometimes don’t have great luck with the popular best-sellers, even in genre fiction.
The characters are mostly what drive things, Neema and Cain are a lot of fun, both individually and together, Sol has some good personality for being a magical being fragment, and a lot of the rest of the supporting cast has enough definition that as an ensemble, they’re interesting to watch. Most everyone has some kind of tragic backstory, especially Yasila and her kids, and that gets old. Especially when you’re maybe supposed to be sorry for someone, except they’re being unpleasant, so why bother. Nisthala is also terribly underdeveloped for how important she’s supposed to be by the end; I get why she has to be hidden for most of the story, but then to have to believe or care that she matters isn’t great. There’s no reason to root for her, except that you maybe dislike the folks she apparently doesn’t like more. The setting is kind of generic fantasy kingdom with a sort of vaguely Zodiac animal spirit based system, that’s not really fully explained but still sort of makes sense in a Sorting Hat and Houses kind of way. Neema, like Ravens, is a stereotypical bookish scholar often obsessed with her next monograph project; Cain, as a Fox person, like chaos but endearingly, Ox are strong and focused, Tigers fight, Dragons are the mystical magical ones, etc.
The one other thing that did bother me, at least for a good long while, was that the story can’t really seem to commit to being one thing for long; first it looks like it’s going to be about one set of characters, then nope, never mind, they’ll be secondary. Then it’s a political intrigue murder mystery, but then again maybe we’ll be tournament for the throne sort of thing, wait is the murder still not solved?, or maybe, nah, let’s go with supernatural apocalypse suspense, but is that a hint of romance, except interrupted by possible body-snatching (of more than one sort) and some hostile takeovers. It does eventually come together, but that does also mean some angles don’t really get the development they kind of need before getting on to the cliffhangers.
Since this is apparently part one of three, there will be plenty to go on starting next time. It’ll be especially interesting since usually part 2 of 3 is where it all goes wrong, and there is much going wrong by the end of book 1.
