My Favorite Books

The Walking Drum
Ender's Game
Dune
Jhereg
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Curse of Chalion
The Name of the Wind
Chronicles of the Black Company
The Faded Sun Trilogy
The Tar-Aiym Krang

Tuesday, January 18, 2022

Review: Age of Ash

Age of Ash Age of Ash by Daniel Abraham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The descriptive prose building the world in which this story is set is absolutely beautiful. It was simply a joy to explore city of Kathamar and some of the denizens therein from the POV of the struggling street rats. All of the flawed characters were sympathetic and easy to identify with although there is plenty to dislike as well … the two main being Alys and Sammish who are part of a ‘crew’ of pickpockets that are thrown into the intrigue of the powerful city rulers with a mystery … and that is really what this story is about … the mystery … so if you are looking for any action, there really isn’t much and even the mystery takes a while to pick up and get going (about half way through the book). 

Alys tries very hard to follow in her dead brother’s footsteps, not seeing his flaws even as she takes them on as well. Her friend Sammish struggles with how to help Alys get back to the person she fell in love with and ends up working for the other side. Neither of them are strong enough to operate outside of the shadows; which is probably the reason there isn’t much action. While the main characters do evolve and most of their story is completed by the end, it still feels like a story left unfinished when you get there … just enough to pull you into the sequel (maybe).

I was given this free advance review copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#AgeOfAsh #NetGalley.

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My Ratings Explained ...

  • [ ***** ] Amazing Read - Perfect story, exciting, engrossing, well developed complex characters, solid plot with few to no holes, descriptive environments and place settings, great mystery elements, realistic dialogue, believable reactions and behaviors; a favorite that I can re-read many times.
  • [ **** ] Great Read - Highly entertaining and enjoyable, exciting storyline, well developed characters and settings, a few discrepancies but nothing that can’t be overlooked. Some aspect of the story was new/refreshing to me and/or intriguing. Recommended for everyone.
  • [ *** ] Good Read - Solid story with a 'good' ending, or has some other redeeming feature. Limited character development and/or over reliance on tropes. Noticeable discrepancies in world building and/or dialog/behavior that were distracting. I connected enough with the characters/world to read the entire series. Most of the books I read for fun are here. Recommended for fans of the genre.
  • [ ** ] Okay Read - Suitable for a brief, afternoon escape … flat or shallow characters with little to no development. Over the top character dialog and/or behavior. Poor world building with significant issues and/or mistakes indicating poor research. Excessive use of trivial detail, info dumps and/or pontification. Any issues with the story/characters are offset by some other aspect that I enjoyed. Not very memorable. May only appeal to a niche group of readers. Recommended for some (YMMV).
  • [ * ] Bad Read - Awkward and/or confusing writing style. Poor world building and/or unbelievable (or unlikeable) characters. Victimization, gaslighting, blatant abuse, unnecessary violence, child endangerment, or any other highly objectionable behaviors by Main characters. I didn't connect with the story at all; significant aspects of this story irritated me enough that I struggled to finished it. Series was abandoned. Not recommended.