Right now – Here (albeit belatedly) is the review of “The Blade itself” by John Applecrumble..
Preamble...
I decided the other day to (as I have
said) read a list of books that I downloaded – In Alphabetical
order and only skip the ones that I have heard of and I know I won't
like, I probably made a giant mistake ALREADY by skipping “Catch me
if you can” (The one that was made into a Leo Dicaprio film) but ho
hum, I am going to carry on! - I will skip Harry Potter and The
Hunger Games and 50 shades of Grey (if it was on the list, it isn't)
and books that I really KNOW I will hate – I really don't like
starting a book and not finishing it! - The main reason for me doing
this is to find new Authors for me to read, and to find and enjoy
books I really wouldn't normally pick up, People say all the time I
should read things, and I always politely (Like everyone does)
succeed and say “Oh yes, I will add that to my “to read” list!
- I have heard it's excellent” but never do – and another reason
is so I can review them here, not for your entertainment – but
simply because I haven't really written anything for a long time and
I feel totally out of practice, and to that end – here follows the
review of book #1 on my “books of shite” list “The Blade
itself” by John Applecrumble.
Review
Something you cannot escape from
straight away when you read this fantasy novel are comparisons the
Game of Thrones series by George RR Martin – When I was searching
for a book cover for this very blog I noticed these almost
immediately, so when you read this you know pretty much what you're
going to get – A large city in the “Middle” of the world that
runs the world, Skirmishes on the border... Kings... and a threat
from the north and one from the dark skinned people of the East...
Its all there but its a fantasy book, so its going to a fantasy
version of our world – because that's what people do.
I must admit I did struggle with the
book (and the writing) at first, It took me till I was least a
quarter of the way through the book to get into it, and I am glad I
did – Each character has their own chapters (Like George RR Martin)
but each of them think subtly differently – and because the
Northman Logen thinks a certain way, reading his chapters writing
style sort of grated on me – Logen is a sort of hero of the north a
named man, who is a bit of a legend – he supposedly is a great
warrior who somehow beat a great many men in battle, but when he does
fight you wonder how – its until later on that particular secret is
revealed (and I won't spoil it for you) – but the book follows the
politics and the everyday life of these characters giving you a
history of why they all end up where they do, and they all come
together as the book goes on – and meet up and war is of course
brewing (as opposed to winter coming). It has interesting characters,
although there seems to be a bit a lack of strong women characters –
I have seen people say that George RR Martin is really not very good
at writing female characters and you know that's pretty much standard
for the fantasy genre author – they're just not very good with
women, that's why they're writing fantasy novels and not having sex
with a lot of women. Another problem I had with the book was the word
“shit” is waaaaay over used and I mean REALLY overused – I
would word count if I knew how, but I pretty sure the book is AT
LEAST 14% shit, I mean the word shit, not shit – its really not a
bad book.
I really didn't know what to expect
from this book (Or indeed any of the books I am reading on this list)
because most of them I know nothing about, I will have only seen the
cover when I read it – and not judging books by their covers is
something we're told not to do from day one, but lets be honest –
we really do don't we?
All in all it was a good first book in
the trilogy, I will maybe read the rest of them, so I must have
genuinely liked it – I am really not a masochist, So bearing all
that in mind, and the sketchy and jarring writing style of the first
quarter to half of the book I will give “The Blade itself” an
above average 6 out of 10
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