I’m going to be experimenting with some new themes and such here on The Mad Reviewer so if things are wonky/glitchy for a few hours don’t be worried. I should be finished all the tweaks by 8:00pm (that’s Saskatchewan time). If there are still glitches after then, please let me know and I’ll try my best to fix them.
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
In the aftermath of a colossal battle, the future of the Seven Kingdoms hangs in the balance — beset by newly emerging threats from every direction. In the east, Daenerys Targaryen, the last scion of House Targaryen, rules with her three dragons as queen of a city built on dust and death. But Daenerys has thousands of enemies, and many have set out to find her. As they gather, one young man embarks upon his own quest for the queen, with an entirely different goal in mind.
Fleeing from Westeros with a price on his head, Tyrion Lannister, too, is making his way to Daenerys. But his newest allies in this quest are not the rag-tag band they seem, and at their heart lies one who could undo Daenerys’s claim to Westeros forever.
Meanwhile, to the north lies the mammoth Wall of ice and stone — a structure only as strong as those guarding it. There, Jon Snow, 998th Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, will face his greatest challenge. For he has powerful foes not only within the Watch but also beyond, in the land of the creatures of ice.
From all corners, bitter conflicts reignite, intimate betrayals are perpetrated, and a grand cast of outlaws and priests, soldiers and skinchangers, nobles and slaves, will face seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Some will fail, others will grow in the strength of darkness. But in a time of rising restlessness, the tides of destiny and politics will lead inevitably to the greatest dance of all.
After loving the first four books, I’ll admit that I really wanted to love A Dance with Dragons. I really, really tried. But it was such slow-going. It took me over a month to finish this book which should be a warning sign right there.
The problem, I think, at this point in the series is a little something called character bloat. There are too many characters. There are so many different houses and players entering into the war for Westeros that it’s simply become ridiculous. I can hardly keep track of them all and I’m not bragging when I say I have a good memory when it comes to books. Some points of view could have been cut from the book entirely. Did Quentyn Martell really have to have his say? Arya’s story barely went anywhere.
If it was just a slow plot I could handle it but it feels like the characters are going in totally different directions. Daenerys is an indecisive, idealistic moron compared to the strong, sure young woman she was in previous books. Jon Snow keeps swinging between rigidly sticking to his oath as a man of the Night’s Watch and totally violating it by siding with a king. Tyrion…well I don’t know what to think of him anymore. It’s okay that characters change and explore themselves. That’s what makes a story good! But it’s not okay that they randomly go in a whole different direction with pretty much zero explanation.
Despite all this, when I actually sat down to read A Dance with Dragons I didn’t mind it all that much. Some parts were pretty darn good. Although George R. R. Martin lost some of the things that made his series great in the beginning (his ability to kill off main characters ruthlessly, for one) he still has that amazing world-building. We learn so much about Westeros and the rest of Martin’s world that it almost makes up for everything else. The history of all Seven Kingdoms and the impact on people and other places was fascinating. I loved learning more about the world’s history! It added more depth to Martin’s world.
Yes, I will read The Winds of Winter when it finally does get published. Will I be looking forward to it as much as I did this book? Probably not. I’m just hoping that the next book will be better and that we’ll go back to that magical spark George R. R. Martin had in A Game of Thrones.
I give this book 3/5 stars.
(Cover picture courtesy of the Graceling Wiki.)
Eight years after Graceling, Bitterblue is now queen of Monsea. But the influence of her father, a violent psychopath with mind-altering abilities, lives on. Her advisors, who have run things since Leck died, believe in a forward-thinking plan: Pardon all who committed terrible acts under Leck’s reign, and forget anything bad ever happened. But when Bitterblue begins sneaking outside the castle—disguised and alone—to walk the streets of her own city, she starts realizing that the kingdom has been under the thirty-five-year spell of a madman, and the only way to move forward is to revisit the past. Two thieves, who only steal what has already been stolen, change her life forever. They hold a key to the truth of Leck’s reign. And one of them, with an extreme skill called a Grace that he hasn’t yet identified, holds a key to her heart.
Each book in the Graceling Realm series is a little different. The first book, Graceling, is first and foremost about a Graceling’s (Katsa) struggle to remain free in a world where Gracelings are the property of kings. The second book is about Fire, a part-monster who has to struggle with the gift of her beauty and mind control that makes others suspicious of her and her motives. And finally, this third book is first and foremost about Bitterblue, a queen who really is trying to rule and heal a broken realm to the best of her ability.
I love how Kristin Cashore never paints her characters as perfect, even in the end. Bitterblue is first and foremost a flawed character and she grows because of it. She has no clue about Monsea aside from what her advisers tell her and even when she tries to gain independence they block her at every turn. She has a hard time relating to the average person even though she thinks she’s getting better when she starts sneaking out. It’s only when she truly looks inside herself and at her kingdom that she becomes the queen Katsa and Po meant for her to be.
Bitterblue is pretty much my favourite character in the whole novel, but the secondary characters are well fleshed out. Sapphire is fascinating, Fox is full of surprises and we even see how Katsa and Po have changed eight years into their relationship. There aren’t really any stock characters and that’s one of the main reasons why I love Kristin Cashore’s writing. She may take forever to write her books, but she does an amazing job with them.
I can’t in all honesty call the plot fast-paced yet it kept me up later than I intended. There are a lot of twists and turns as plots are uncovered and Bitterblue is forced to act and react to them. Everything we thought we knew about Monsea is turned on its head and there are stirrings of revolution in the other kingdoms.
Speaking of politics, that’s another one of Kristin Cashore’s strengths. In her fantasy world things don’t stagnate, they change as they do in this one. New technologies and ideas are developed, just like they really were in the Middle Ages. Tyrannical kings are toppled, new realms are discovered as exploration technology improves and medicine gets better. There are actual consequences for the actions of nobles and kings! It’s just a fascinating concept for fantasy and I’m so happy that Kristin Cashore takes her time to consider the geopolitical consequences of everyone’s actions.
If you loved the first two books in the series, you’re pretty much guaranteed to love Bitterblue. It’s that simple.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
Yesterday I spent Christmas with my family and consequently got a lot of books as presents. (We’re a pretty bookish family—my father got more books than I did!) The only book I didn’t get for Christmas was The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson. That was recommended to me a while back and I picked it up as I did my last-minute Christmas shopping on the 23rd.
Anyway, here are my new books:
Frankly, I’m really excited to read all of these. So excited, in fact, that last night I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning to finish Bitterblue. The review is to follow shortly.
The Devil’s Concubine is a book I reviewed for Wayzgoose press and I asked for it for Christmas because I had only an ebook copy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happier with ebooks now than before when I didn’t have a Kindle, but I still prefer paperbacks. Ingenue is the second book in the Flappers books by Jillian Larkin and I’m really interested to see where the stories of the girls go. The same goes for Onyx by Jennifer L. Armentrout because of the cliffhanger at the end of Obsidian, the first book.
Song of the Nile is yet another second book and this time it encompasses a period of time that’s very rarely written about: after Cleopatra Selene married King Juba. I’m interested to see how Stephanie Dray fills in the gaps in the historical record and I’m hoping that she does as good a job as she did in Lily of the Nile.
The only book that I really know nothing about was Earth Bound, a gift from a friend. It’s not the sort of thing I would normally pick up on my own time because there’s going to be a love triangle (it’s mentioned right in the blurb), but I’ll try my best to read it with an open mind.
If you celebrate Christmas, did you get any books as presents? Which ones? Do you see anything you like here?
Merry Christmas!
Instead of the usual simple holiday message I thought that this year I’d spread the Christmas cheer through a series of stories highlighting the kindness of strangers. The following stories are about what seem like everyday acts of kindness to the total strangers involved, but they made a huge difference to me. So I hope that on this Christmas you’ll read these stories and be inspired to perform little acts of kindness all year long.
Breaking the Silence
I couldn’t have been more than 7 or 8 when a relative of mine took my sister and I out to lunch in the city. My little sister is only 3 years younger than myself but I’ve always acted like her protector, especially around this relative. He could be gruff with us kids and sometimes was downright cruel, as he was on this particular occasion.
The restaurant (I don’t remember what it was called) was having a buffet and this relative piled food on my little sister’s plate. I was able to escape this because I could serve myself. I quickly finished my lunch, but my little sister, who wasn’t really hungry to begin with, couldn’t finish. She said she was done eating and asked our relative if we could go, but he said she had to finish everything on her plate. He then went for a cigarette break, leaving my sister (who was now crying) and myself at the table. Continue reading