A Promising Premise Undermined by Weak Execution
I came into this book with high hopes as the amazon reviews suggested an adult Redwall, or Disney's Robin Hood meets Game of Thrones. I've been searching for an Anthro Fantasy full of rich lore, culture and distict characters. Unfortunatly this novel suffers from the same issues that many anthro stories do. Its surface-level traits, endless telling and no emotional immersion.
The amount of telling became overwhelming. Jakama is a fox, Shamos is a deer, or deerling, Danby is a boar, but aside from an occasional tail flick or antler reference, they act like humans with animal stickers slapped on. There's no sense of instinct or culture. A boar stamping the ground in frustration, a fox twitching at the scent of blood, or a deer's antlers knocking in a doorway with a tense movement would have been showing, but instead I was constantly told.
This world doesnt feel animal-humanoid. It feels very generic and human, with a light coat of fur. By 30k words, I still can't tell if this is about Anthro's, Humans or both, because the execution never commits.
Jakama's real hook doesn't even arrive until Chapter 8, when he mentions his mother. Ceezar wants to bring peace, King Luna wanders in a detached storyline that hasn't connected by 30k words, and I'm still unsure what the actual story is supposed to be. There's a relationship arc developing, between Ceezar and his top General, but it doesn't work because I am too distant from the characters. When they share something meaningful, it's already lost because the telling keeps me outside the moment.
The prose is repetitive and deeply needs an editor at the structural, dev and line level.
Examples: “He was a light tan human with medium-length messy dark brown hair. His arms held thick hair, but Calig wore neatly trimmed facial hair on his face.”
or Chapter 12's opening, “A large flat plain in between the Kingdom of Lakes and the Kingdom of the Moon. It was flat and surrounded by mountains, located in the middle of all the kingdoms.”
These were not isolated instances but present through the entire book.
The Dialogue was one thing praised by the hype for this book, but I found it uneven. Sometimes it was tolerable, but often over the top or reliant on repetitive jokes. Ceezar especially suffers. His name is also a huge detractor from his character, I am unsure if the Author made the connection deliberately or not, but given Ceezar is the emperor and his name is so close in sounding to Julius Ceasar it immediately pulls me out, and his behavior swings between forced nobility to cartoon parody. An execution scene early on reads unintentionally comedic and dry, more like Zapp Brannigan then serious emperor.
Head hopping is frequent, with many mid chapter perspective shifts, that left me unsure who I was following, and this added to the distance.
Pacing is actually one good thing I can comment on with this novel. It never felt like it was dragging, but the fight scenes are too long, and often feel like filler, especially the ones with Ceezer feeling more like something from Farcry Blood dragon with a bromance then historical fantasy. The issue with some of these scenes though is they feel like they dont add anything for example chapter 8's battle felt like it was only there to add action, but added nothing to the scene, again chapter 13's tavern fight felt like padding instead of a driving point for the story.
The setting felt really thin. Chapter 13 they talk about a famous cider in the tavern but never give it a name, a story or an identity on why it is so famous, something like "Brewed from the apples of the burning lands and fermented with phoenix blood," anything would have been better. Theres little to no culture, traditions apart from gladiator battles, but nothing specifically anthro. The world is left feeling like a stock medieval backdrop or a fantasy/medieval world starter kit.
This reads at a YA level, but the story swings rapidly into heavy violence and other content that pushes the boundary of things that can be said in a review. The mismatch is really abrupt, one page feels like a teen fantasy, the chapters with Jakama, to Ceezer's grimdark content. This doesnt feel deep, it feels... confused about who its targeted at.
The hype compared this to Redwall, but the comparison doesn't hold. Redwall worked because everything had cultural flavour, food, songs, tradition and instincts. This novel tries to be a darker, more adult version of Redwall, but without anthro integration or cultural depth, it misses the mark badly.
Theres potential here, and the pacing keeps it from being a complete slog. But the constant telling, lack of anthro depth, late and unclear arcs, flat relationship building, poor editing, repetative prose, long fight scenes, generic world and tonal mismatch with unconvincing characters weighs it down. At 30k words, continuing feels more like a chore then an adventure.
Picking it up, I really wanted to like this book. It's not unreadable, and I am sure there will be those who are looking for the slapstick comedic value this has mixed with its grimdark tone, but it well and truly misses the mark, especially for Anthro fiction.