"War eternal between the Faithful and the Fallen, infinite wrath come to the world of men. Lightbearer seeking flesh from the cauldron, to break his c"War eternal between the Faithful and the Fallen, infinite wrath come to the world of men. Lightbearer seeking flesh from the cauldron, to break his chains and wage the war again. Two born of blood, dust and ashes shall champion the Choices, the Darkness and Light."
See, this is quite a fun premise. A good god and a bad god will start a war, and each will have their mortal champion. Who are they, you wonder? Well, their identities are carefully hidden and you will have to work it out for yourself...
...so it’s a good thing that’s all fucking obvious from page one. In fact, so is everything else. Not only does this book follow a completely standard fantasy recipe (not always a bad thing), but it makes sure to spray paint the solution to every future secret revelation with huge red letters on all the walls around you (always a bad thing). Malice is perhaps the most predictable book I have read in the fantasy genre. There are no surprises, and every detail about how everything is going to go down, is impossible to miss.
Except in the eyes of the characters, that is. The protagonists in this book are so pathetically, monumentally, unreasonably, unrealistically moronic and naive that everything gets past them. And so you’re left sitting waiting for the painfully obvious to catch them unawares. Yes, they’re young and stupid. Yes, they don’t have all the information. There are many excuses one could make, and none of them even come close to mitigating these examples of cataclysmic idiocy (there is one scene in particular I will always remember from this book, which is unfortunately an example of just this). But alas, when the whole world is too obvious for comfort, the characters in it have to be kept in the dark even when it makes no sense, so that the storyline can go where it clearly must go.
It is also striking that all the young male main protagonists are so similar they might as well have been called Bob 1, Bob 2 and Bob 3. Maybe even Bob 4, depending on who and how you count.
There are quite a few interesting supporting characters to begin with. And in impressive ways, they almost without exception all manage to lose their appeal. Mostly that is because you start realising that they are all cardboard cutouts only functioning as plot devices placed somewhere for the furtherance of the author’s plan. Just like the protagonists, that is. And then one of the two that remain somewhat interesting at the end turns out to be a secret bastard prince, taking his trope-ridden archetype factor to level 437.
The writing and the worldbuilding are the best parts of the book, as they are somewhat adequate if you’re being very generous. In fact, there are quite a few decent aspects here. But literally everything Malice attempts to do, has been done so much better elsewhere.
How on earth did it come to this conclusion? Based on the number of positive reviews, I started reading the book expecting at least a fantastically fun reading experience, if not a masterpiece, and for the first third of the book I thought that was what I was getting. Sure, the writing was not particularly impressive, but it was genuinely enjoyable and a real page-turner, and I thought the rather uninteresting protagonists were just uninteresting because it was early on and they were going to develop. I thought the prologue was spectacular because I thought it was going to actually be important. I thought there would be great twists, great fights, and great fun.
Then the glaring flaws kicked in so fast and hard that I felt mistreated as a reader.
Look, there is potential in this thing. It could have been so much better. And all this said, I am still somewhat intrigued by what happens next, so I might read the second book. At least some of the characters now know who the bad guys are, I think. Mostly because the bad guys have killed their friends and loved ones in front of them. Maybe that will have made them see it?...more
I'll admit I'm considering the one-star rating for answering two of my most important lore questions in the worst manner possible, but I supp1.5 stars
I'll admit I'm considering the one-star rating for answering two of my most important lore questions in the worst manner possible, but I suppose I'll have to be rational.
Celaena Sardothien is the best assassin in the world. She really is, that is, the best. She is also good at everything else. She is extremely preWhew.
Celaena Sardothien is the best assassin in the world. She really is, that is, the best. She is also good at everything else. She is extremely pretty, which is commented on by every male character at virtually any occasion. She is great at swordplay. She is even great at playing the piano. And also, she is the best assassin ever. Really.
Now, you never get to read about Celaena demonstrating her godly abilities. But she does have them. She is, in fact, the best. At pretty much anything. Especially at being an assassin. And at being pretty. Maybe she doesn’t really need to prove to the reader how good she is. The reader just needs to accept this.
She is also a very edgy teenager. Why does that despicable prince have to look so good? He has no right to look so good! Not that annoying guard captain either. He might be a much better moral person than her, but she is the best at everything else. Like being an assassin.
And of course, she is extremely obsessed with her own looks. Gotta look perfect at all times, to catch the eye of that despicable prince and that annoying guard captain. We don’t want any functional assassination dress. Of course not! Bring the heavy makeup and courtly dresses. You need to look good when you’re the best assassin. My god, those other assassins look horrible.
Celaena is definitely the best assassin. But for a good and believable story about an assassin, look somewhere else....more
"Life isn't easy, no matter where you are. You'll make choices you think are right, and then suffer for them."
Celaena Sardothien is the most skilled assassin on the continent. Years ago, when she was just an orphan living in the streets, she was recruited and trained by Arobynn Hamel, King of the Assassins. Throughout her teenage years, she rose in the ranks of the Assassin’s Guild to become Arobynn’s chosen successor, and turned into what she is now: the most feared assassin in Adarlan’s empire.
The Assassin’s Blade is a collection of short stories set before the Throne of Glass main series, and their purpose is to introduce the protagonist Celaena and the world in which her story takes place. Each of the short stories has its own characters, locations and plot twists, but viewed as a whole they tell one single tale of Celaena Sardothien and her life prior to the events described in Throne of Glass.
In The Assassin and the Pirate Lord, Celaena and her rival Sam are sent to cut a deal with an infamous pirate lord with whom Arobynn has made an agreement. But the deal reveals itself to be far more complicated than either of them had expected. I did not like this story much, especially because Celaena is first introduced as a spoiled brat whose arrogance and stupidity threaten both her life and Sam’s. Rating: 2 stars
In The Assassin and the Healer, Celaena is sent south to spend a month training with the Silent Assassins, as punishment for events that occurred in the first story, and en route to their desert fortress winds up in a tavern in a small village called Innish. There she meets a downtrodden young barmaid who has lost everything, and most of the story is filled with conversations between the two, and Celaena teaching the other girl how to defend herself. Despite being really short, this was actually a pretty good story. While there was little real action, the story added something to the setting and the atmosphere of the world in which the series takes place. Rating: 3 stars
In The Assassin and the Desert, Celaena finally reaches the fortress of the Silent Assassins and begins her training under the steady gaze of the Mute Master. This story was particularly good because it included a lot of character development for our protagonist. Celaena learns a lot through the events of this story, and the characters and storyline introduced in the desert were a lot more interesting than the ones in the two first stories. Rating: 3 stars
In The Assassin and the Underworld, Celaena returns to Rifthold, capital city of Adarlan’s empire, and continues her service to Arobynn Hamel. As a trade delegation from the far side of the empire arrives in the city, a sinister plot unfolds, and the assassins are hired by a foreign noblewoman to deal with it. This was in my opinion the best story by far. Rifthold is the most interesting of the places we have been introduced to in this book, and the characterisation and storyline both were really good in this one. Rating: 4 stars
In The Assassin and the Empire, Celaena and Sam are trying to move out of Rifthold to start a new life somewhere else. For that, they need lots of money, and a mysterious contract arrives with the promise of making them both rich. The only thing they need to do is to kill the most powerful crime lord in the city along with his right-hand man. This was almost as good as the previous story, except for the fact that the beginning was terribly dull. Still, it was an interesting tale with a great plot twist and an even better ending. Rating: 3.5 stars
As a whole, this book was a positive surprise, and I must say I enjoyed it more than I thought I would have. It was also surprisingly light to read, even though I had expected it would be, and I didn’t have any trouble with reading a hundred pages of this in one hour. While essentially a fantasy book, it has a lot of elements from the young adult genre, something that would normally put me off reading it. Still, I somehow enjoyed reading this one quite a lot. One of the reasons behind that is the fact that is that unlike a lot of other assassin protagonists in fantasy and YA, Celaena Sardothien is actually an assassin. She kills people for money. It does sound a bit strange to be praising a book for having an assassin who actually performs assassinations, but compared to a lot of other assassin novels, this one is actually quite good. ...more
“I am a collection of the obsolete, a relic of the damned, of the lost and strayed. I am the waylaid pieces of history which saBuddy read with Athena!
“I am a collection of the obsolete, a relic of the damned, of the lost and strayed. I am the waylaid pieces of history which sank out of sight in all of our pasts. Such an accumulation of riffraff has never before been imagined.�
More than three thousand years have passed since the events described in the Great Dune Trilogy, and everything has changed. Arrakis is now a planet of running water and green growth, and the days of stillsuits and crysknives are gone. The Sandworms and the Fremen remain only as legends from the Ancient Days of Dune. Only one part remains from the old days: Leto II, the God Emperor.
God Emperor of Dune is, logically, a book centred around Leto. However, that is precisely its greatest problem. The so-called God Emperor who so valiantly sacrificed his human existence for that of an emperor doomed to serve his people by living through the ages and preserving the universe, has turned into a tyrant. And everyone sees him as such, except for himself and his fanatically loyal Fish Speaker cult. It seems as if though the book is an attempt to justify the government of Leto, and that is a task in which it fails miserably.
Because of that, one should think that there would be other people to sympathise with. People living under the oppression of Leto’s rule joining together in rebellion against the monstrous tyrant. Well� there really aren’t any. The rebels on Arrakis are led by Siona, the last of the Atreides line descending from Ghanima, Leto’s sister. But in reality, Leto is allowing the rebellion to happen while secretly grooming Siona to become another of his instruments. Siona knows this, and knows that the God Emperor doesn’t want her dead. That, of course, makes one wonder what the point is about the whole thing.
Next to Leto and Siona, the rest of the characters are few and uninteresting. There were a couple of them in particular that were a bit interesting in the beginning, but my interest in them quickly evaporated into thin air. And when you don’t have any characters that are fun to read about, the book gets terribly boring after a while.
This book is actually not as bad as it sounds. The story was intriguing at times (not often, mind you), the great writing of Frank Herbert is still present, and the fourth book is just as much of a lesson in power and politics as the first three books. But the point is that compared with Dune, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune, three of the greatest books ever written, this one is a disaster. ...more
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