Reviews
Gunpowder fantasy was a genre I didn't know existed until I read Brian McClellan's fantastic Powder Mage series. I evidently like my fantasy with a side of nice uniforms. Who knew. Unfortunately for me, this didn't quite fill the hole in my fantasy heart, and overall lacked a bit of cohesion I really kind of needed to bring it together in my mind. There's two main points of view in this book: (view spoiler)[Marcus as the colonial captain of the army trying to make things work under a colonel sent by their king from their homeland, and Winter, a girl-masking-as-a-guy enlisted in the army who gets a field promotion to lieutenant. She doesn't feel capable of handling this new position she's in as she's now in command of a sizeable amount of troops she's responsible for keeping alive. (hide spoiler)] Despite being in relatively close proximity throughout the book, the two points of view never really overlap until near the very end of the book. As a result, it felt sort of like I was reading two separate stories entirely within the same book. I did like the unique setting and plot, but (view spoiler)[they're a bunch of colonials putting down a rebellion in the country they invaded, essentially, and the book's framed this as a good thing and they're the good guys. (hide spoiler)] It felt a little....weird, in that respect. It's also got kind of a slow start. Things didn't start picking up and moving towards some goal until the last half or third of the book. Stuff happens in the beginning to flesh out the main characters, but it feels a bit disjointed after you get to the actual meat of the story and things that happened and mattered before don't seem to fit anymore. One example of this is when (view spoiler)[Winter wanted to use the training ground early on to train her super green and inexperienced troops. She, being relatively low on the rank structure doesn't have much sway, but she manages to trick her way past another higher ranking guy and earn her some extra field time. It felt at the time like this was something important, or at least that it'd come back to bite her, but it never did. (hide spoiler)] There's other examples of small events that felt larger, but were never referenced again. I've added the second book to my to-read list for now, but I'm not sure I'm going to rush to pick it up, or that it'll hang with some of the others that have been waiting there longer.
Actual rating: 3.5 stars. Methinks. Introducing…the Murderous Shrimps Want to Dance then again Maybe not Super Crappy Express Non Review (MSWtDtaMnSCENR™)! ➽ Murderous shrimps want to dance because: ✔ Cool military stuff and battles and war strategy and stuff. ✔ A little magic. ✔ Great cast of intriguing characters. ✔ Traitors and scumbags and assholes, oh my! ✔ Both male and female POVs. ✔ Scrumpalicious final chapters. ✔ Slightly orgasmic book cover. Time to dance and stuff. ➽ Then again maybe not because: ✘ Way too much Lots of excessively detailed military stuff and battles and war strategy and stuff. Yawn. ✘ Too little magic. Sigh. ✘ Slooooooooow pace. Yawn Yawn. ✘ 529 pages that most times sometimes feel like 10,000. Yawn Yawn Yawn. Time to look somewhat pissed off and stuff. » And the moral of this MSWtDtaMnSCENR™ is: this book would have been slightly glorious, had there been less marginally boring martial stuff and more adequately awesome fantasy stuff. But there wasn't and there wasn't, so it wasn't. Ha. (view spoiler)[QED. And stuff. (hide spoiler)]
I've had this book lying on my shelf for a couple years now, and oh how I regret not picking it up sooner. The Thousand Names is one of those books that when I wasn't reading it, all I could think about was getting back to it. For fantasy, this book has a lot more description as to the workings of a military campaign and what it is to be a soldier, but it totally works. Military fantasy is one of my favourite sub-genres, but I never thought the inner workings of soldier ranking and the drill practices were that fascinating. Somehow, Wexler makes doing drill exercises fun. Both of the two main POV characters, Winter and Marcus, were great. I loved both of them, though Winter slightly more than Marcus. It's interesting to see events unfold from two completely different characters and both characters' reactions and emotions show the atmosphere of the military from the top to the bottom (or the middle, I suppose). I didn't really like the chapters from Jaffa or General Khotba's perspectives. However, there were only 3 or 4 short chapters with them. I have a feeling Jaffa will be more of a presence in the coming books, but I hope his character either improves, or I am wrong about his appearance. Just a minor complaint. Overall, I loved it and I'm excited to continue reading the series.
