Year of Epic Fantasy Reading: Day 8 (The Infernal City and Lord of Souls)

Title: The Infernal City/Lord of Souls
Author: Gregory Keyes
Themes: Individualism vs Friendship
Quotes: I don't have any quotes fort his one :(
Reading/Listening Time: According to goodreads I finished the first one in 2 days, the second one took me 28 days.

Review:


These books take place in the Elder Scrolls world, which is the same place Skyrim is supposed to take place in, it has a really different feel from Skyrim though. The first book in particular feels like a reverse Star Trek episode: where the aliens get beamed up to an interdementional space ship and have to learn about life there, so they can (hopefully) beam back home again.

I think a lot of the first book was really imaginative and pleasant, in a weird way. It ends on a cliffhanger so I was really looking forward to more in the second book. Unfortunately the second book has a bit of a different tone to it, it feels more like a spy-thriller (or rather, it's trying to be a spy-thriller...and not doing a very good job of it) and for some reason the main character is just automatically good at everything, even when there is no reasonable explanation for it...like she's just guessing and she always gets it right...Which I thought was kinda ridiculous...

There are probably more main characters than the story needs. I felt like the prince's storyline was really repetitive and could have been condensed a little bit, but the writer did a good job at writing the characters within the limitations of their personal perspective, or worldview, and I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I'd enjoyed the characters themselves a bit more.

I did really enjoy the world building aspect of it, especially in the context of a world that I've already been in while playing Skyrim. Seeing the other countries in Tamriel, and the Oblivion realm, and learning about them was pretty neat.


Rating: 4/5 for the first book, 3/5 for the second (probably deserved 2/5)