Really didn’t get on with much of this book. The individual parts felt largely fine – strong character work on occasion, and at least a workable adventure the rest of the time, but I didn’t like the plot. Having to venture across an ocean with a super strong ancient evil-ish vampire dude plus a ~paladin and some other guy, and a sorceress who has lost her magic to get that magic back – doesn’t sound so bad, does it?
But man. Man. It felt so off. So contrived. You know the feeling of “the author can just pull whatever and explain it away”? I got that feeling a lot. Why does the super strong evil vampire go along with the whole thing? Handwaving. Ciani’s character and motivation? Please self-insert here, or you’ll have a bad time. Also ugh, standard annoying paladin.
This book is part of the 2022 Backlog Incident.
