(I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review).
(This review may contain spoilers).
I have a few mixed feelings about this book. I thought the blurb sounded really interesting and I did find this book to be a really entertaining read.
Although I did find myself absorbed into this book in parts, there were a lot of areas I found difficult to read. It took me a while to understand what was going on in a general sense… but even by the end of the book, I couldn’t figure out what the Factions were; or what role they were supposed to play.
There were quite a few intriguing parts in this book, such as the main character’s connection to the Munti princess. I would have liked a bit more detail about the dream the main character had at the beginning.
I was intrigued by the different planets and how they related to things from the Bible/Christian faith… though I would have liked to know more details about that, too.
It would have been good to learn more about the planet that the character was on. I wasn’t sure if it was meant to be part of Earth’s own past, or parallel universe, or another planet altogether. It was interesting to see the amount of politics that were going on… though I did think that the King came across as kind of weak at times.
I did find there was too much summarising of events in this book. There were also a few too many characters. I kept losing track of who was who, which made it difficult to form an emotional connection to a lot of the characters.
It was good to see that the main character did have to go through training, even though I think some of those scenes could have been shown and not told. There were a lot of intriguing moments that I felt didn’t really get expanded upon.
I found a lot of the style of writing to be hard to get my head around, especially with the elements of dialogue, where it wasn’t always clear what the character was thinking and what he was speaking. I also noticed that the narration switched into third and second person at various points.
There was a lot of intrigue in this book, but the atmosphere seemed to come across more as a dream. I couldn’t say I’d read the second book in this series… not unless there was a lot less confusion.
Ink of Blood 