Hey Friends, Join us for this episode of the Fantasy Awash with Laura & Josh book club! We will be discussing John Gwynne's Malice. Want to help support the channel? Consider becoming a patron! / fantasyawash
Such a fun chat! I don't know if I'd go as low as 1.5, but I am with you on Malice and FaTF generally. Surprisingly, Malice would probably have been my favourite book in the series if it were better written. I found it really hard to get immersed because of the clunky prose. That said, everything after Malice just meshes into a soup of running and fighting and more running and fighting. I think the next books would probably be improvements for you two... But not enough to justify reading them imho.
LOL Oh no, I liked Malice hahaha! 😂 I can definitely understand your issues with this book though! It took me a whole year to get through Malice hahaha. The pace was so fast that I got whiplash, and there was so much information that was dumped on us that it really took me out of the story at times. I really like the tropes that this story uses, so that didn’t bother me. But you guys are so right about it borrowing from a lot of other series and characters feeling very similar lol! Also, I haven’t read all those series that you mentioned that it borrows from, so I imagine that’s why it didn’t bother me so much. Just goes to show that I have to read the Warlord Chronicles!!! 😅
I'm so geeked up about your upcoming video with 2toramble. I'm having a hard time waiting haha. After watching your reading blog I'm thinking about stopping after Morningstar. Don't think I can handle the disappointment
Well, at least you set the bar low, now it can only go up from here... right? 😂 Some of the things you two are hoping for improvement on will definitely be delivered in the sequels, especially in regards to a more dynamic cast, more complexity, and more unpredictability/higher stakes. However, the exhausting action only increased for me, and in the end I don't think the ending was as emotionally impactful as it could have been. Also, the end of book 3 will have you fuming and distraught, Laura, just saying. Very nervous to see how Spear is going to land for you both, it sounds like a true love it/hate it book lol. This was super fun though, love your guys' dynamic 🤩
One thing that I had trouble with this book was his use of the word like, I don’t remember any specific examples, but they were along the lines of ‘he drew his sword and it shone like the sparkling of sunlight on the ripples of a pond’; he used it way way too often and the similes just weren’t that good in my opinion. Of course I also had other problems with the book.
Omg! So good to hear this! This book alone has destroyed my trust in booktubers i watch like petrik, mike, phillip, daniel, etc. who praise this series so much. I really didnt like Malice. I am about 40% into and suffering through valour, and it reads exactly the same. Still, god-war this, god-war that, but there still no setup of the larger mystery and plot, and why should the reader care. The world building is very shallow. The characters are all the same and so boring. I will finish valour, but if i dont like it, i am giving up. And jk about the youtubers, i still love them. 😅
I was confident you wouldn't like it, especially so soon after reading Warlord Chronicles. I read FATF first and later that same year I binged Warlord and then saw how much was taken from Warlord. Warlord is one of my favourite series of all-time. The amount of POV characters only increases from here. I could tell them apart but there is so little variety in types of POV, they're all warriors bar 2 (I'm not exaggerating that number) by the end of the series. Generally i think the characters are serviceable, none of them would make my all-time favourite list. Gwynne is generally an action focused writer, very little of it serves the plot or builds character. I have no thoughts on the romances. They exist. The world is just a generic Dark Ages Europe but i liked the focus on more Celtic inspired cultures which i generally haven't read much of in the Fantasy that I usually read but none of it is that deep. I'd a fun time with the series, the turn off your brain kind of fun but i also used this series as pallette cleansers between other books. I haven't read anything else by Gwynne and I don't plan to. I don't get the hype around the series tbh. Ryan Cahill's Of Blood & Fire is very much a combination of Malice and Eye of the World. I like Eye of the World the most of the 3 and its not close 😅 I've been telling Jake to read Warlord Chronicles for years lol Even if I loved the series I don't think there is anything i can say to convince you to read on, most of what I like about the series is in the 2nd half. I don't think the series needed to be a quartet, i honestly think this could've been a duology. I need to get back to Spear Cuts Through Water, I wasn't prepared for it and I was reading Janny Wurts at the same time which wasn't a good move 😂
Ok, now I’m so disappointed in both of you, lol. It may be that I am the most gullible human on the planet, but I loved Malice! It totally sucked me in and I read the whole thing in a day and a half. 🤷🏼♀️
the Veradis & Nathair relationship was the only intriguing thing in book1. However, Guinn completely fumbled this story line and by book 3 is truly the most chicken shit thing I have ever the misfortune of reading
whoever told you that this is the worst book is lying to you. They get worse. And this book sucked. I've read three out of four and have no desire to finish. Waste of time. Waste of ink. Waste of shelf space. WASTE
