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A review by sergek94
The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman
adventurous
funny
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.75
This was The Fantasy Guild Book Club pick for June 2022!
“I was so scared, I half wanted to piss myself, but the difference between the strong and the weak isn’t that the strong don’t piss themselves. It’s that they hitch their pissy pants up after and go through with it.”
If you're looking for a fantasy book that scratches that classical fantasy questing itch for you, then this might be a potential choice. This book has quite the overabundance of that since our main character, Kinch, owes his guild a debt that must be repaid through robbery, but his latest objective leads him down a new questing path that puts him on a dangerous path, when he comes across a woman called Galva, a knight, who is on her own quest that is drastically at odds with his guild's ambitions. Kinch's fate becomes entwined with hers and together they embark on an adventure that expands into a questing group navigating a very dangerous and exciting world, trying to find a missing queen, who went off the grid after the city she was in got ransacked by giants.
Our main character Kinch isn't our typical knight in shining armour protagonist, since his strength lies in his intellect and wits, and ability to charm people with his tongue. It's not a surprise since he is a member of a thieves' guild and that is where his assets lie, alongside stealth and nimble agility. The book adopts a first-person point of view and Kinch is our narrator, hence his character is the one that is most thoroughly developed though the voices of his companions are still satisfyingly strong and individuated.
Despite the dark reality of the world, there is a distinct humorous streak in this book that makes it hard for the reader to take things too seriously, which is interesting because the stakes are quite high for most of the book and we lightly skip around from one funny moment where everything is light and casual to a tragic one where characters we have been following for quite a number of pages meet brutal ends, at which time the author delivers well targeted one-liners that make the reader feel the sting of the tragedy with shocking vividness in a way that catches one off guard, only to hop right back into light banter-filled humour land.
The writing here is quite powerful and Christopher Buehlman is certainly gifted with his lexical capacity.This reads like it came right out of a medieval-inspired fantasy realm and it that adds bonus points to immersion. Despite believing this has an objectively decent writing style, I'm afraid it didn't really work well for me because it exhausted me in the end. Despite it being a seemingly plot-drive fantasy book, it somewhat reads like an exploration of chaotic tangents with an overabundance of metaphors and roundabout ways of getting a point across, which made it difficult for me to keep my attention sustained.It was a fresh and original aspect during my early reading phase of this book but it eventually wore me out and I was just waiting for it to end without truly being invested in the story.
Additionally, all the questing and journeying felt overstretched and that says something because I'm typically a huge fan of classic questing fantasy, but the way this was written, with all of its density took away from my enjoyment of the book. There were certainly some warm and enjoyable moments that kept my mood high while reading, but somehow, these aspects don't quite "save" this book for me.
I was leaning on giving this 3 stars but upon further introspection I realized I can't truly bump it into that category, because despite it being relatively fresh in my mind at the moment, I don't see this book sticking with me in any meaningful way. I wish I had consumed this in audiobook format, perhaps I might have appreciated it more. There is definitely potential here and I do recognize that this is a good book, but perhaps it wasn't the book that was quite for me during this stage. There is a possibility that I will re-consume this story in audiobook format should I decide to read the sequel once it comes out, because a part of me truly wants me to like this more. I'm giving this a 2.75 rating.
Don't let my review necessarily deter you from reading this though, since I do recognize that it's a good book for the right people.
“I won’t be your dog, but if you’re half the wolf I think you are, you’ve found a fox to run with.”
“I was so scared, I half wanted to piss myself, but the difference between the strong and the weak isn’t that the strong don’t piss themselves. It’s that they hitch their pissy pants up after and go through with it.”
If you're looking for a fantasy book that scratches that classical fantasy questing itch for you, then this might be a potential choice. This book has quite the overabundance of that since our main character, Kinch, owes his guild a debt that must be repaid through robbery, but his latest objective leads him down a new questing path that puts him on a dangerous path, when he comes across a woman called Galva, a knight, who is on her own quest that is drastically at odds with his guild's ambitions. Kinch's fate becomes entwined with hers and together they embark on an adventure that expands into a questing group navigating a very dangerous and exciting world, trying to find a missing queen, who went off the grid after the city she was in got ransacked by giants.
Our main character Kinch isn't our typical knight in shining armour protagonist, since his strength lies in his intellect and wits, and ability to charm people with his tongue. It's not a surprise since he is a member of a thieves' guild and that is where his assets lie, alongside stealth and nimble agility. The book adopts a first-person point of view and Kinch is our narrator, hence his character is the one that is most thoroughly developed though the voices of his companions are still satisfyingly strong and individuated.
Despite the dark reality of the world, there is a distinct humorous streak in this book that makes it hard for the reader to take things too seriously, which is interesting because the stakes are quite high for most of the book and we lightly skip around from one funny moment where everything is light and casual to a tragic one where characters we have been following for quite a number of pages meet brutal ends, at which time the author delivers well targeted one-liners that make the reader feel the sting of the tragedy with shocking vividness in a way that catches one off guard, only to hop right back into light banter-filled humour land.
The writing here is quite powerful and Christopher Buehlman is certainly gifted with his lexical capacity.This reads like it came right out of a medieval-inspired fantasy realm and it that adds bonus points to immersion. Despite believing this has an objectively decent writing style, I'm afraid it didn't really work well for me because it exhausted me in the end. Despite it being a seemingly plot-drive fantasy book, it somewhat reads like an exploration of chaotic tangents with an overabundance of metaphors and roundabout ways of getting a point across, which made it difficult for me to keep my attention sustained.It was a fresh and original aspect during my early reading phase of this book but it eventually wore me out and I was just waiting for it to end without truly being invested in the story.
Additionally, all the questing and journeying felt overstretched and that says something because I'm typically a huge fan of classic questing fantasy, but the way this was written, with all of its density took away from my enjoyment of the book. There were certainly some warm and enjoyable moments that kept my mood high while reading, but somehow, these aspects don't quite "save" this book for me.
I was leaning on giving this 3 stars but upon further introspection I realized I can't truly bump it into that category, because despite it being relatively fresh in my mind at the moment, I don't see this book sticking with me in any meaningful way. I wish I had consumed this in audiobook format, perhaps I might have appreciated it more. There is definitely potential here and I do recognize that this is a good book, but perhaps it wasn't the book that was quite for me during this stage. There is a possibility that I will re-consume this story in audiobook format should I decide to read the sequel once it comes out, because a part of me truly wants me to like this more. I'm giving this a 2.75 rating.
Don't let my review necessarily deter you from reading this though, since I do recognize that it's a good book for the right people.
“I won’t be your dog, but if you’re half the wolf I think you are, you’ve found a fox to run with.”