Though barely a teenager, Wyl Thirsk must now assume the role he has been destined for since commander of the Morgravian army -- an awesome responsibility that calls him to the royal palace of the crown prince Celimus. Already a cruel despot who delights in the suffering of others, Celimus enjoys forcing his new general to witness his depraved "entertainments."
Comment: Another book I purchased years ago (in 2011 to be exact) with the hope it would be a great first book in a trilogy and I'd have more to read afterwards.
In this fantasy story, we follow the adventures and misadventures of Wyl Thirsk, the son of the Morgravian general. His father dies in battle and the king Magnus, who is also a friend, promises him Wyl will be general like his father, even though he is only a young man at the moment. He also promises his son Celimus, the future king, will be a blood brother to Wyl, just like the two old friends have been. The biggest issue is that Celimus is a cruel young man and Wyl, upon arriving at the riyal city, can't seem to hide his opinion. Everything comes to a final twist when old king Magnus dies and his son is now free to do as he pleases. Betrayals and hidden plans follow but Wyl has a secret: Wyl had a kind gesture towards Myrren, a woman condemned and killed for being a witch, and she bestowed a gift on him. When the unthinkable happens, Wyl's gift is finally revealed and he can't believe what he is now able to do. Will there be any way to escape Celimus' influence and terrible pursuit?
There will be some spoilers included ahead!
High fantasy isn't usually the genre I look for the most but here and there, something does catch my eye. However, I must confess that, once more after so long in the pile, I was no longer as excited to read this one and, having had another book in a different genre by the author in 2019 and it being only average to me, I was really more interested in just getting another book out of the pile.
I'll start with what I liked the most: the world building of any fantasy world, no matter the actual genre, is probably the best thing about any fantasy story. It can be true author would use influences of other authors or things but to me it is always such a thrill to think someone had to think and imagine and plan so many details and situations, and often in big books as fantasy ones tend to be, that can certainly be a feat. There were elements in this world I liked, not as much for their uniqueness but for the sheer ability to place them all together in something that somehow made sense.
That said, no fantasy world is as captivating if not for the characters in it and in that regard, I must start my complaints... Wyl is a great hero and protagonist because he is one of those amazing characters who can be only good! Even in doing things we might label as being in "grey areas", his attitude and moral code never falters. The issue is with everyone else, or someone is bad or someone is good but no one has true complexity. Besides, the really bad characters always do awful things and I started to become incredibly annoyed at their actions and reasoning.
The book has four main moments, the way I see it: a prologue, in which we see Wyl's father die and king Magnus making promises; the first chapters when Wyl is starting to live in the royal palace and must learn how Celimus truly is like; then a few more chapters as Wyl must deal with the events following Magnus' death; and then until the end, the events following the big twist caused by the "gift" he received from the witch. All this happens in sequenced chapters, without any graphic clue as to the jump in time, except the chapter's number. It could be a bit confusing to get used to place situations in time in the early chapters.
The plot is very basic, Wyl has to maintain his good deeds while trying to fulfill the promises of helping Celimus any way he could, although Celimus is a master manipulator and doesn't want to change, while also dealing with military issues and then, to act as general when a possible renewal of the war against a neighbor kingdom - the reason his father died - might bring even more problems. One way to delay this might be a truce with the other king, an older man with no heir but with a daughter. Wyl travels as envoy to secure a possible marriage treaty but he falls for the young woman, Valentyna, and can't imagine her with someone as cruel as Celimus. All these steps and sequences are mixed up with countless secondary situations which aren't always interesting, with the addition of many characters who I struggled to like or even understand why they mattered.
Then, among so much cruelty and violence and people dying and many more unnecessary scenes which add nothing to what matters in this story, we finally learn what gift Wyl really received from the witch. It was actually quite exciting to be honest, so Wyl can change bodies if he is killed. When this happened, I was surprised the author would kill off the main character too (others had already been killed for the sake of drama) but then what an amazing twist... however, you know all those special things Wyl could now achieve with this incredible element of surprise? Spying, planning, helping friends, deceiving enemies under the disguise of a new identity?
Ahh, unfortunately in fact, Wyl is as surprised as we are and he makes mistakes, which he should prevent so others couldn't guess but then some immediately realize the truth and I can't explain how irritating that was, which means Wyl is always running against time or putting himself in complicated situations he didn't have to in the first place! This, along with the confusing parts and the annoying stuff the bad guys kept doing, kind of ruined part of the reading for me. Not even the possible romance between Wyl (in another body) with Valentyna was enough to make me change my mind.
No comments:
Post a Comment