Author: David Gemmell
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 362 Pages
Release: April 1984
Review
Fantasy is my favorite genre and I've been trying to read more titles from the vast collection that exists. This author and series came up in discussion in a group here on goodreads, so I decided to give it a try. And while it was not my favorite novel, I am glad that I read it.
The things I like most about this novel are the pacing and the magic. Now, the pacing wasn't perfect for reasons that I will mention in a minute, but I did appreciate the fact that it was fast paced and didn't have a lot of pointless slow time in the middle. And the magic, while not explained in detail, was really fascinating. It was mostly used by the Thirty, a group of men who separate themselves from the world and come close to the Source. There were several moments within the novel where these guys did some fascinating things that had me really intrigued. It would be fun to have a novel just focused around them, actually.
There is little character development within this novel, which is my main drawback. And I think some of that has to do with pacing. Since everything is so fast paced there isn't a lot of time to really build the characters and give them layers. I never felt like I knew any of them very well because every time I was starting to connect with one the story would hop into the head of another. This seems fairly common for fantasy written around this time (1980's and 1990's).
And the romance in this was insane. It wasn't the main focus of the book, which was good, but it still managed to annoy me. The characters meet, don't like each other, suddenly impress each other, and are in love. And this all happens within around fifty pages. Had there been a little more character development for one or both of the characters involved in the romance before they met I might have been more ok with how it progressed. As it was, I was more annoyed than anything.
Overall this was a good but not great read for me. It had a lot of interesting ideas and I think the world has a lot of potential, but the lack of character development kept me from ever being able to fully connect. There are more stories within this series but I don't know that I will be continuing. If I do, it likely won't be any time soon. A good book, but nothing that kept me invested.
The things I like most about this novel are the pacing and the magic. Now, the pacing wasn't perfect for reasons that I will mention in a minute, but I did appreciate the fact that it was fast paced and didn't have a lot of pointless slow time in the middle. And the magic, while not explained in detail, was really fascinating. It was mostly used by the Thirty, a group of men who separate themselves from the world and come close to the Source. There were several moments within the novel where these guys did some fascinating things that had me really intrigued. It would be fun to have a novel just focused around them, actually.
There is little character development within this novel, which is my main drawback. And I think some of that has to do with pacing. Since everything is so fast paced there isn't a lot of time to really build the characters and give them layers. I never felt like I knew any of them very well because every time I was starting to connect with one the story would hop into the head of another. This seems fairly common for fantasy written around this time (1980's and 1990's).
And the romance in this was insane. It wasn't the main focus of the book, which was good, but it still managed to annoy me. The characters meet, don't like each other, suddenly impress each other, and are in love. And this all happens within around fifty pages. Had there been a little more character development for one or both of the characters involved in the romance before they met I might have been more ok with how it progressed. As it was, I was more annoyed than anything.
Overall this was a good but not great read for me. It had a lot of interesting ideas and I think the world has a lot of potential, but the lack of character development kept me from ever being able to fully connect. There are more stories within this series but I don't know that I will be continuing. If I do, it likely won't be any time soon. A good book, but nothing that kept me invested.
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