The Winter Knight & Other Tales

Information

Status

Hiatus

Author

Ovid Delgado

Reviews

Community Reviews(2)

• VelaraRoyal Road

  ★★ 2.0

  This is part of a series of reviews where I read the first 50 pages of the book and give a verdict on if I wish to continue reading.
  Sadly, I do not. The story has promise, which it squanders. Obviously I can't speak to the quality beyond the first 50 pages, but without a significant revision I can't recommend reading them. If the concept intrigues you I'd suggest skipping the first section, in hopes later chapters are capable of fulfilling the promise of the pitch.
  Favourite Part:
  The language: the author's use of the English language is imaginative and evocative. Some of the lines flow like poetry, and give you beautiful images of the world you find yourself immersed in.
  The author frequently makes use of language that is rarely utilized, in way that is masterful.
  I'll also give an honorary mention to the world-building. Sure, a lot of it is presented in treacle-like exposition, but what we get, is imaginative, and intriguing. The world has real vigor to it, with the feel of multiple cultures with their own distinct cultural practices.
  Least Favourite Part(s):
  The flashbacks. Dear god. The flashbacks. The most egregious examples occurs in the first chapter, when Leresai realizes she's being followed and riders are approaching her, and we get a multi-paragraph flashback about how she got her nickname.
  Painful. It bled all of the tension from the scene, and was completely unnecessary. Allowing us to learn about her nickname though other's using it would have been far more interesting. Though less egregious, this trend holds true for all the subsequent flashbacks as well.
  Dishonourable mentions aught to go to the grammar and pacing as well. While the plot has the potential to be interesting, we've got an "Elven" assassin eager to dispose of a political target, we're brought into her story quite early, and forced to experience all the tedium of getting to the target with no pay off (at least in the first 50 pages).
  I'm willing to tolerate a slower pace, so long as the
• Tana NariRoyal Road

  ★ 1.0

  Even the sex scenes felt like I was watching paint dry. Except maybe the part about tasting urine while going down on a woman... and maybe the guy wetting himself in fear. Those scenes were just odd.
  Once again, the whole "delete the first three chapters" advice to new authors is in full effect and underlined several times. Delete the first 10 chapters. And maybe more, but 10 is where I stopped reading.
  We start with a bunch of made-up words about things and places that aren't important (still not sure if 'manna' is a typo), we go on to an arrogant brat of a main character who has no redeeming characteristics, though the story constantly describes how awesome she is... she abuses (via a form of body-control magic... couldn't even get an interesting fight scene in there...) what might be a decent person, but we don't have any reason to care about him, either.
  At least chapter 5 moves on to different characters. Unfortunately, I also have a hard time caring about any of them. None of the characters are likable, there are no interesting motives, little by way of personality, and everyone just stands around talking at each other about stuff that doesn't matter. Usually in order to serve the author's need to provide more info-dumps. Imagine Lucas at his worse, and wishing Jar Jar would show up just to have something stupid to watch.
  As to the story? Well, what story? We have some criminal pretending to be an elf, but not doing anything interesting. We then move on to different characters in Ch 5, and then another set in chapter 10. Thus far, no sign of an overarching narrative.
  I assume there will be some effort to pull all these disparate characters together in some future convergence of plot threads... but I stopped reading at chapter 10 because I couldn't force myself to continue any further.
  Obviously, I can't recommend this mess. I still don't know what the story's about.