[Review] Blood Song by Anthony Ryan

Wednesday, June 18, 2014 K.Z. Freeman 0 Comments

Mixed feelings. 

They happened when I heard this book put in the same boat as The Name of the Wind. They happened again when I actually read the damn thing. They happened hard. 

The problem with the boat analogy, however, is that in my opinion, The Name of the Wind scrubs the deck so that better books may walk it and tell the poor deck-scrubber to get out of the sodden way. 

This is not that "other book". But neither is it a bad book. 

I was swept away by the wind just as I was with Blood Song, and I will be checking out the sequel, Tower Lord. Yet there's just something missing...

What is missing, to be very honest, is imagination.

While the book tells a story well and puts forth character development over everything else, it is not unique or spectacular in any shape or form. Sorry, it's just not.

Just like when I began reading The Wind (and the slightly worse Wise Man's Fear), I was really hoping for something phenomenal in terms of what actually happens in the book. But contrary to popular thinking, seeing is not believing, seeing is where belief stops because there's no more need to it. When I read this book I stopped believing that "coming of age" stories are something I should put my fate it. Or even read at all.

The prose is so rudimentary it (at times) almost felt as though I was reading 50 Shades in fantasy form. Sometimes this is great, while here it just comes off as lacking. That feels like a pretty bad insult, but god dammit that's how it felt! Come on! Do at least one complex sentence. We're not bloody children that can't paint an image in their heads unless the sentence gets slightly less simplistic!

Still, the book is OK. I know the above paragraphs don't make it seem so, but it has its charms. Namely that it's a terrific timesink.

7/10