Theft of Swords

Theft of Swords, aka. Exposition – The Novel?

It is really impressive how much wheel spinning is crammed into this. Just pages and pages of people explaining things to each other – their past, their plans, their motivations, everything. Even the conversations are monologues where people are explaining. Quite a feat.

Sullivan clearly loves these characters, and is very impressed with them, so he uses lots of words to tell us how brilliant they are. Their actions don't really show any of it, but the explanations work overtime.

This could have been a really good book with a strong editor, because the writing style is actually very enjoyable, and there are fun parts and characters throughout. But the plot is weak (especially in the first book, Crown Conspiracy), and the continuous explaining and the hyping up of the main characters gets boring very fast.

Seriously, so much explaining.