Peter Loewen

First half: 8/10
Second half: 5/10.

The writing is pedestrian, but not bad. The world is obviously incredibly multidimensional and well thought-out. The plot in this book was just mind-numbingly slow. In all three main plotlines, the setting NEVER CHANGED. It just wore me down. I kept thinking something epic was going to happen. There were a few good and well-written action scenes. But man, such a massive book for so little to actually happen.

The writing is quite good, the characters are interesting, especially Ruth. The setting is mysterious and compelling. I read a fair number of mystery novels, but not a ton, and the plot here is somewhat unique, which I was enjoying. I almost never figure out the “whodunnit” in mystery novels (which is good... the surprise is the driver for me), but this one drops a monumental unmissable hint at the 68% mark. I kept hoping I was wrong about the murderer and that another twist was coming, but it didn't. I wanted this Ruth Galloway series to become my next favorite mystery series, but now I'm skeptical. Tell me they get better and I'll forge ahead.

The more I think about it after having finished this a couple of days ago, the more this is 2-stars instead of 3 for me.

Basic thoughts:

The final “act” (ie, last... I dont know... 15 chapters (?!?) I was completely checked-out... all the this chamber, that chamber, this other one, all random numbers, seemed completely arbitrary. What our objective was, who we were trying to save from what, etc, etc, just got completely incoherent for me. (sidebar: I devoured and loved all of the main Malazan novels, so I don't think my cognitive capacity was the problem here).

There is one huge plot twist. If you're looking for more than one, this isn't your book. There are a couple of other mild ones the author maybe intended to be surprising, but honestly they were visible from a long way away. Some might just call this “competent plotting”. Point is, this isn't a “twists and turns” fantasy novel.

A big turnoff for me was the new “rules” that were liberally dispensed in the last act. Nothing matters. This happens because X. This cannot happen because Y. There are far better ways to reveal the universe's rules than this, and for heaven's sake, don't do it in the last 20% of the book.

A certain class of characters in this book were very cool and had the potential to really make the story special, but alas, that didn't happen. Maybe there's some payoff for them in the sequels, but I won't be around to find out.

The basis for an intricate and interesting library fantasy world exists in this book, but as many have said, the repetitiveness and tedium of endless chamber traversing, flat characters, and a nonsensical romance at the centre (don't get me started) make it a miss for me.

Meh.

The best part of this one is the dialogue involving the kids. Very funny and well written.

The rest is entirely predictable and fairytale-ish. There's very little depth here. Standard morality tales. Hate is bad. Love is good. Boring.

There's one “big reveal”, but it is telegraphed quite early on and fairly easy to predict, so not very surprising. And the consequences of it are fairly minor.

As so many others have said, it's saccharine and obvious.

If you want a simple, gentle, mildly amusing read, this is that.

Writing: 4/5 - what's there is good, but there is a LOT of filler. Could have been 25% shorter. Much of the inner monologue for all the characters amounted to very little.

Characters: 3/5 - The main character (who I guess is central to the subsequent books based on the series title?) does almost nothing in this book. I live in BC, so was hoping for a sense of immersion and description of the majesty that I know is the Kootenay area where this is set. Very little of that is given. There's a town. A lake. Forests. A settlement. Could have been anywhere from how the book is written.

Plot: 3/5 - some neat devices and overall a tightly-crafted mystery, but so few characters that the whodunnit reveals aren't very impactful. The reveal could have been surprising, but it wasn't at all.

There were some bright spots. The last 10% was pretty exciting, with some actual surprising reveals.

Most of it felt like a bit of a slog for me, mostly because:

(1) it had way more of a YA tone than i expected. I naiively thought from other reviews that it was a more grown-up fantasy story. YA can mean a lot of things besides the characters being YA's... for me it meant there was constant explicit disclosure of what everyone was feeling and thinking all the time. There was no subtext. Like the author's expectation that the reader could understand anything themselves was extremely low and had to be told “he felt worried”, “he felt X”, “she felt Y”. And some very dumb adolescent boy descriptions of the female characters. Like disney-princess-level stuff. And a lot of very basic moralizing like, “he was his friend... of COURSE he could trust him.” That kind of adolescent view of the world typical of YA writing.

(2) magic system was fairly annoying to read about. Lots of magic and blasting things, which is fine. After awhile i found the constant reveals of new things the magic-users could do, could not do, “in this situation i can do this, but not that”, and there was absolutely no reason why they would know most it. They just told you it was this way. Throughout the entire book reveals of what this magic could do or not do were happening, so i always felt like, well, there's no way for me as a reader to know if this thing that happened makes sense or not, because some new rule about how the magic works would just be arbitrarily proffered.

Tell me if it gets way better in the second book. Otherwise i'll try a different series.

Meh. Way too many things happen for no reason. The powers of the powder mages aren't very interesting. They're like low-tech steampunk soldiers mostly and any enemy who knows their weakness (which is also the fuel for their power... it's in the title of the series) could (and at one point does) pretty much disable them. To say nothing of the nonsensical use and non-use of people-melting powers of the Privileged. They're said to have godlike powers that can move the land and sea, yet end up in sword fights, get killed by normal bullets, forget to put their power-gloves on sometimes, etc. It's all pretty silly and won't satisfy readers who enjoy richly-constructed worlds and peoples and magic systems that make sense and care about a map of the world. This one also suffused with earth-talk and earth technologies, which took me out of feeling like I was immersed in a fantastic world. It mostly feels like 1500s France, complete with an extremely catholic-sounding religious order, but not France, and with some magic-ish people thrown in.

P.S. the reviewers who point out the misogyny and pathetic female characters here are spot-on. If that stuff bothers you (and it's so ham-fisted here that I can't see how it wouldn't), steer clear.