che potenziale!
tre protagonisti così promettenti! veterani decorati, eroi di una guerra incredibile contro una razza rettiliana, ognuno con il proprio diverso bagaglio di traumi, shock culturali, abbandoni e tradimenti:
una giovane semi-aliena di 200(?) anni
un nobile reietto
un selvaggio delle steppe
così tanta diversità in cui scavare profondamente...e invece no!!
queste tre persone così diverse pensano nello stesso modo, agiscono nello stesso modo, parlano nello stesso modo e cioè come un adolescente meschino ottuso e volgare

poteva essere un capolavoro ed è solo una cialtronata di 1400 pagine, fanculo!!!
e a proposito di cialtroneria:
concludere (ripetutamente) un azione che non si sa come chiudere con "e dopo tutto si fece buio" è veramente da cialtroni!!!!!

PS: copierò questo commento su ogni libro della trilogia perchè proprio come non c'è nessuna differenziazione ne crescita nei protagonisti non ce n'è nei tre libri

ancora fanculo! ( )

I enjoyed the book but there was a lot to criticise: You have a fairly standard format; the 3 heroes being separate at the beginning of the story with alternating chapters dedicated to following each one. But it takes forever for them to inevitably meet up which becomes frustrating after a while. Then there is the inclusion of the bizarre sex scene/dream sequence where Ringil starts of fighting and ends up sleeping with the Dwenda who are supposed to be the terrifying awesome boogeymen! After building them up throughout the story to be so enigmatic and almost immortal and deadly is seems crazy just to take all that away by having a character have sex with one! I could have done without that whole sequence.

Having said that the character of Ringil is very strong and carries a lot of the book along with Arteth whom I really enjoyed as well and hopefully will b developed much more in future. The fight scenes are very good but suffer in comparison to Joe Abercrombie (but then doesn't everything?), the plot is not unnecessarily complicated and being quite short for a fantasy novel moves at a nice swift pace.

There is A LOT of history and references to previous events/character though and to begin with I felt quite lost but more of this may come to light in the next instalment and I still think I prefer that a 1000 page novel which includes the history of everything and everyone. Plus it actually has a proper ending another rarity in a fantasy trilogy.

The lower end of 4 stars but will definately read the next one.. ( )

That is what I would call real hardcore fantasy. And this world is even more FUBARed then world of Dragon Age 1 which is probably definition of graphically dark, bloody and violent soul-breaker. Definitely not for everyone.

I can't say this book is superbly written, too much arrhythmia in storytelling for my taste. But the world, the heroes... somehow it all FEELS. ( )

DNF at 36%.

I picked this one up mainly because I was interested in the author of "Altered Carbon" (still unread by me). I like dark fantasy well enough, but I am beginning to suspect that I have been spoiled by Glen Cook. In other words, I tend to compare (sometimes without even being aware of it) all the dark fantasy books I read with the Black Company series. Some books can take it, and some cannot. This one belongs to the latter category, unfortunately.
- The writing was ok, but not impressive.
- I don't mind anti-heroes, far from it, but these were simply not interesting enough.
- I don't mind violence and sex in my books, but there is a difference between violence and sex as important elements in the story and "let's shock the readers as much as possible and make them feel like voyeurs, because it's DARK fantasy." Not my cup of tea. ( )

Socially progressive dark fantasy ( )