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The Wayfarer Redemption
Mar. 10th, 2011 10:51 pmShort review: A heroic war story of a similar type to The Black Gryphon, in which a people threatened by a strange monstrous enemy discover that what they believed about their world and its history is not what it seems. However, for this sort of story, I liked The Black Gryphon much more. The different races were interesting and there were some beautiful descriptions in some places, but it's hard to like the characters so the story feels slow... I can't really recommend it. There's also some sexist aspects and a lot of violent scenes.
Writing: As said before, I found that the characters weren't people I could like easily... at the beginning you get a feeling that what they believe is wrong, which has a plot reason, but it means that it's hard to sympathise. I also felt that there were a lot of places where the book could have gone into detail about what a character's feelings were and had some interesting story, but it just skimmed over the surface so the emotional connections didn't feel deep. It feels more like a description of what people did than what they felt, which I guess is just not the kind of story I like.
From a winged person's perspective...: The winged people in this book are interesting... they had some habits that seemed false for me but also some that seemed realistic. There are some beautiful parts like how one of the children's wings had to be sung into being. ( May spoil the story ) They come into it quite late though so for most of the book you don't see them, and I felt in general that there were a lot of opportunities to explore what "being a winged person meant" since the book was all about conflict between races, but I didn't see it at all. Most of the time you see them they're being injured. I don't think there's enough of them in here to recommend it just for that.
Trigger warnings: Rape. Mistreating women. A lot of horrific war violence that's described graphically, including a lot of damage to wings. Some characters lose their wings in the war.
( More thoughts... )
Writing: As said before, I found that the characters weren't people I could like easily... at the beginning you get a feeling that what they believe is wrong, which has a plot reason, but it means that it's hard to sympathise. I also felt that there were a lot of places where the book could have gone into detail about what a character's feelings were and had some interesting story, but it just skimmed over the surface so the emotional connections didn't feel deep. It feels more like a description of what people did than what they felt, which I guess is just not the kind of story I like.
From a winged person's perspective...: The winged people in this book are interesting... they had some habits that seemed false for me but also some that seemed realistic. There are some beautiful parts like how one of the children's wings had to be sung into being. ( May spoil the story ) They come into it quite late though so for most of the book you don't see them, and I felt in general that there were a lot of opportunities to explore what "being a winged person meant" since the book was all about conflict between races, but I didn't see it at all. Most of the time you see them they're being injured. I don't think there's enough of them in here to recommend it just for that.
Trigger warnings: Rape. Mistreating women. A lot of horrific war violence that's described graphically, including a lot of damage to wings. Some characters lose their wings in the war.
( More thoughts... )
