Brian McClellan (1) (1986–)

I just didn’t like it. The characters weren’t that interesting or well developed beyond their major plot contributions, the story was very high fantasy in many respects in a way that felt too arbitrary and prone to a lot of deus ex machina, and the story didn’t develop in a particularly compelling way.

Some things explicitly that bothered me:
1. No one (particularly Taniel) seems to think Ka-Poel can protect herself, even though she routinely solves all their problems.
2. Why are we supposed to like or be interested in Tamas/Adamat?
3. Why does Tamas not care that there seems to be a huge war with his main enemy going on in which his side is undermanned and outgunned for what seems like months.
4. Why is there so much unexplained backstory about Tamas that seems random and irrelevant? This reminded me of Mistborn with Kelsier’s wife, but even less fitting (at least his motivations become clearer with time and alluded to early on).
5. Too many characters, none with depth.

I could go on, but it was overall a frustrating read that took me a long time and didn’t feel at all worth it.

… (altro)

The Power Mage trilogy is set of books that I've had on my to-read list for a while. Given that I managed to finish Promise of Blood in a week, I would say it was certainly a great read, and there's a lot to like about it.

The setting was one of the things that first brought the series to my attention. Having not read any 'flintlock' fantasy before, and also having a historical interest in the Napoleonic period, I was quite drawn to the backdrop of revolutionary and early-industrial warfare and politics, and I was very intrigued as to how the fantasy genre would fit into this kind of premise. Brian McClellan implements this very well, and I felt he balanced all the various aspects of Adro and its society solidly, weaving together the various branches of the military, the church, the nobles, the merchants, the underground and the people to form quite a vivid and convincing world. Both the battle scenes as well as the clandestine operations are dramatically portrayed, and the direct prose keeps the storytelling focussed and easy to follow.

I noticed that many people seemed to have issues around the pacing. This didn't really impact my enjoyment of the book, as I thought the ebb and flow of the plot was relatively organic, and the movement between the different POVs not only provided good coverage of the overall direction of the story, but also kept me engaged with the various events that were happening on both a micro and macro level. There were a few occasions where the occurrence of multiple perspectives within the same chapter was a little disconcerting, but I did not feel like the progression of the plot stumbled as a result.

The main element of Promise of Blood which did not quite work for me was the magic systems, or rather the magic systems. Like most others have expressed, the concept of powder mages and the way that their abilities work is ingenious and cleverly thought out, and I enjoyed seeing Tamas and Taniel bring their skills to bear the various scenarios, as well as the different talents exhibited amongst the powder mages. However, the magic of the Privileged was rather less satisfactory to me, especially as it was never clear what any of them was really capable of doing or how their magic worked beyond the twiddling of some fingers. I'm not sure whether this is due to the fact that the reader never gets the viewpoint of a Privileged, or whether this remains something to be fleshed out in the remaining books, but the result is that it feels like McClellan couldn't quite decide whether it should be a 'hard' or a 'soft' system and it doesn't really work as either. Similarly, the Knacked also feel a bit like skills that the author wanted certain characters to have, but didn't quite fit within the other forms of magic, so were lumped into a catchall without any real definition. Combine this with the power of potential deities and you are left with quite the confusing conglomeration.

All in all, it must be noted that this is the first novel in trilogy, and a debut novel no less. With this in mind, I found Promise of Blood a very compelling read and was thoroughly impressed with what Brian McClellan has brought to the table. Now to see what the next course entails.… (altro)