Bloodring

One of the books I picked up at Page One, Bloodring is... unusual. The pattern is mostly fantasy, with just a hint of the mystery present in "urban fantasy," but the setting is really post-Apocalypse (seriously, after "seraphim" came down, bumped off most of humanity and started leading battles against the forces of darkness). I might call it a fascinating read, but I hesitate to call it good. I'm a little torn on that, in a critical sense.

I like the characters. There's a lot of the setting and worldbuilding that I find interesting. The jewelry crafting, stone-centric magic and descriptions show a certain familiarity that's nice to see.

There are some oddities to the writing that put me off, including the unusual amount of time taken to get to the protagonist's name and some descriptions that go from thorough to rambling. A number of the unique world details seem... questionable, including the seemingly sudden origin of neomages, the human populous' reaction to them, their odd place as being the only "race" that can call the seraphim whilst being "soulless," and some of the technology that remains. Also the whole mage-heat thing was... very overused and poorly explained. A reaction like that should have some purpose.

Still, while the negatives warrant more words, I'm interested enough by it all to press on with the series. I'm also curious about the (upcoming?) RPG based on the setting - d20, though it seemed to already fit pretty well what I'd seen of the Unisystem/Armageddon book.

Comments

  1. yunafonfabreJuly 23, 2011 at 4:39 AM

    I like the series, especially about the first half of Bloodring. I'd actually rather have had more slice-of-life material -- it was much more interesting than a fantasy adventure!

    ReplyDelete
  2. marinredwolfJuly 23, 2011 at 1:37 PM

    I don't want to be spoiled, per se, but... I find myself wondering if a lot of things get explained better as the series progresses...

    ReplyDelete
  3. yunafonfabreJuly 23, 2011 at 1:48 PM

    ... some things, yes. I'm looking forward to the roleplaying game and sourcebook for more than one reason.

    ReplyDelete

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