“I went into this book expecting it to be one of those much hated dry readings I pick up occasionally that do not delve into any characters minds and read as if the reader is a computer reporting on what is happening without speculating on character motivations and thoughts. Run-on sentence aside, I found this book to be quite the opposite.
Sure, you aren't given much character thought and you don't delve into the psyche but sometimes I think more books should be like that especially if it requires getting rid of walls of italic text. Or pages and pages of useless character commentary. So, a breakdown of the book... as best I can do with my tendency to ramble.
It's an epic world all right, because I had the same problem reading every other epic novel: it's impossible to understand what the hell is going on at the beginning of the book. It doesn't help that at the beginning you are thrown enough words, names, and titles to qualify for their own novella with almost no explanation as to which names and titles you need to remember and care about. It took a while for orientation to set in and many of the characters ended up dieing anyways, making my memorization pointless.
As I said above, you don't get much of the characters thoughts in the narration and instead you are supposed to infer from their actions and words what they are feeling at that moment. It works for me, although other people used to 'hard core, dark and gloomy heroes with enough angst to fill several buckets' who narrate every single passing thought they have may find it hard to get into.
Another point blocking the immersion into the world is fantasy authors' obsessions with unpronounceable names. As with other novels of this genre and style, I ended up skipping over the names in my head, barely glancing to check who I was reading about. 'Winterbirth' also suffers from 'Made-upnameitis' where every race or object in the world must have an equally unpronounceable name and nickname, only occasionally making any sense at all. I really don't understand this disease as the deciding factor should be whom your narrator is (even vaguely) because Joe McBob the Racist is not going to say 'African American's' no matter how much you want your book to be politically correct.
Once I entered into the action-filled part of the book I found myself drawn into the world and the characters. Unfortunately, as I read on with more understanding I noticed that Ruckley has the habit of waxing poetic sentences that make no sense written in a paragraph and sometimes seem downright ridiculous and melodramatic. Most of the dialogue is like this as well but I can forgive that because the setting almost called for it and the informal dialogue makes up for it. Putting poetic and grammatically incorrect sentences in the middle of a paragraph without using the artistic license of action, drama, thought, etc. I cannot forgive. Many, many times did these horrendous things toss me out of the story to reread because they made absolutely no sense and stuck out like a green thumb.
Enough ranting about the writing and storyline, what about the characters? As with most books I enjoyed the supposed bad guys more than the good guys. And, no, the other reviews that mentioned 'no one is a bad guy' are not correct. I can see what Ruckley was trying to do with the POV switches and motivation but it fails. It fails so much. *ahem* First set of characters are normal, naive people who become thrust into a war they are not prepared for and witness their lives crumble around them. Via Deus Ex Machina (in fact, many of them) they escape the wretched fate of everyone else and live on to fight another day. *ahem* Second set of characters are bloodthirsty religious fanatics who want to reclaim the land that was taken from them many years ago. On top of this they wish to convert the people to their way of thinking, believing it is the only way to live, and damn, it's a nasty, coldhearted religion indeed.
So, really it was no contest as to who was the good and who was the bad. The lines are blurred a bit, with the religious fanatics not being faceless beings and some of the good guys in suspect of their motivations and morals but when you boil it down there are some pretty definitive lines there. I did find that the bad guys had less stereotypes then the good guys and their characters seemed more developed... but several of the good guys are undergoing 'becoming a man' stage so I'm not sure if this is a fair comparison.
There's not much to say about the plot because it's a pretty straight forward religious takeover. I was angry at the itty bitty italic bits before every chapter because they ruined half of the plot points before they even happened so that was kinda stupid but otherwise the plot is unremarkable.
The world is interesting and you are never sure whether or not the gods and magic actually exist -a nice change from blatant magic toting in other novels. I did feel like I was missing an entire prequel series to this one as many of the characters allude to relationships and epic plot points that are never mentioned again and do nothing to satisfy your curiosity. I was most interested in the other species of the world and was mildly irritated that they were only mentioned in passing instead of described in full... but that's probably just me.
The book ends on an unbelievably bad cliffhanger... mostly because you know exactly what's going to happen since those itty bitty italic bits spoil the surprise and also because it cuts off in mid scene, leaving the reader puzzled and confused. Well, I was, at least. I mean, I can understand wanting to end the novel on a dramatic note but after pages and pages of the characters suffering through the wilderness we get a tiny tie in with barely three pages and then a dramatic ending as if we're supposed to wait for the other questions to be resolved in the second book... which they more than likely won't because supposedly everything is better now that the heroes have reached civilisation and received barely a paragraph of explanation as to how and then another PLOT POINT begins at the end of the book!
It would have made more sense to have the heroes arrive at the city. Exhausted but relieved they listen to everything that has happened while they were out fighting for their lives. Man hero says something inspiring and dramatic, everyone marvels at how much he has changed. THEN have a cliffhanger ending where no one knows what's going on. This enables the second book to have a nice prologue with the other scenes from Character No One Cares About explaining why they're freaking out and not interrupting the flow of the story like they previously did. It also enables the author to put a useful prologue in the book instead of whatever-that-thing-was at the beginning of this one. At first I thought it was supposed to be some sort of tie in to the book itself... like, 'what's going on?' 'READ the BOOK and find out!' but instead all of the information from the prologue was explained better and more coherently in the actual novel itself. Making the prologue entirely pointless.
Anywho, rants and complaints aside, I rather enjoyed reading 'Winterbirth' as a placeholder novel while my Brandon Sanderson book came in. I wouldn't suggest it as casual reading because of the 'epic' scale but it's a nice change from some other 'epic' fantasies out there. I know it sounds like I hated the book but that's just my really terrible writing style; finding negatives since I could write. I recommend this book and will be picking up the next one in the series if only to find out what happens next and how it will begin considering the... weird cliffhanger moment. ”
BarkingPup wrote this review Thursday, September 10 2009.
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