The Black Company is a military fantasy novel filled with unlikable characters and strange worldbuilding. The book manages to make these things part of its identity, but unfortunately fails to develop most of its characters and to make some parts of the story engaging.
The Black Company is a private military group. When the story starts, it’s hired to contain riots in the city of Beryl, but soon the situation in the city starts to escalate rapidly and get out of control, leading them to make a complicated decision: if they want to stay alive, they must toss honor into the fire and betray their employer. The betrayal, however, doesn’t improve their situation by much since they [...]
The Bear and the Nightingale is a fairy tale about a Russian girl that gets lost in the woods and meets an ancient, cruel bear. It’s also a story about religion, depicting a battle over the imagination of the people, changing their beliefs and behavior. The novel, written by Katherine Arden, offers a touching tale packed with layered characters and discussions.
The book opens with a story being told at night. The people in Pyotr’s house – a Russian boyar – gather to hear old Dunya tell the tale of a maiden who is sent to the forest to marry the king of winter, Frost, because her jealous stepmother wants her to die. The forest is cold and silent, and yet the maiden doesn’t [...]
The Water Knife, a sci-fi thriller written by Paolo Bacigalupi, presents a dystopian world that is disturbing in its verisimilitude. The novel, however, is ultimately dragged down by shallow main characters, having to resort to shock value to hold our attention.
The story is built around three main points of view: there’s the journalist Lucy, who needs to find out the story behind the murder of a dear friend; there’s a young woman, Maria, who wants to leave the militia-controlled area where she lives in; and the water knife, Angel, a mercenary hired by private companies to “cut” and divert water from certain regions.
The world of The Water Knife is set in a [...]
The Name of the Wind is a brilliant fantasy novel that is as deeply concerned with social inequality as it is in love with song and music. It’s mostly narrated by an unreliable man with an ego the size of an overgrown draccus, and whose melancholy imbues the story with an important dose of pathos: the tone makes it clear that, despite all his wondrous adventures and wonderful achievements, he’s not spinning a happy tale.
The prologue’s main purpose is not to introduce a character or setting but to build a somber mood: it goes on to describe the silence that permeates a certain inn, analyzing its layers to expose the sadness at its core. It guides the reader to focus on things [...]
Written by Keith Donohue, The Boy Who Drew Monsters tries to insert discussions on parenting and autism in a horror story. The way it portrays Asperger’s Syndrome, however, is questionable, to say the least, and the fact that the overall narrative is marred by repetition, baffling characters, and artificial situations only makes things worse.
In the story, Jack Peter is a ten-year-old boy who has Asperger and Agoraphobia, living isolated with his parents in a house on the coast of Maine, in the United States. While his mother, Holly, works to support the family, the father, Tim, takes care of him. Jack’s only friend is Nick, a boy who was present when Jack suffered [...]
Written by Dan Chaon, Await Your Reply tries to raise questions about identity, but unfortunately forgets to develop them, deciding instead to focus its attention on a boring group of shallow, static characters.
The story is told through the eyes of three main characters: we follow Lucy’s point of view, a student who ran away with her history professor, George, with the promise of getting rich; but also the young Ray, who discovers he is adopted and, after running away from home, finds his biological father and enters the world of crime; and finally, we have the bitter Miles, who is searching for his twin brother, Hayden, and one day acquires new clues as to his [...]