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Goddess in the Stacks (553 KP) rated The Empire's Ghost in Books

Sep 6, 2017  
The Empire's Ghost
The Empire's Ghost
Isabelle Steiger | 2017 | Science Fiction/Fantasy
6
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Good worldbuilding (1 more)
Well-rounded characters
Too many points of view (0 more)
An alright debut novel
So I’ve had pretty good luck with debut novels, overall. This one was good – not what I’d called spectacular, like those three, but good. If the sequel was out now, I’d read it. Knowing my reading habits, I probably won’t, because by the time the sequel does come out, I’ll have forgotten too much of this first book. (I strongly dislike only reading the first book in a series and then having to wait.)

What I really liked was how the author painted every character. Even the would-be Emperor, who is probably the closest to evil any character is in this book, was interesting and had clear motivations that made sense. I wouldn’t even call him evil, just ambitious. His assassin shows a different side in part of the book that also removes him from the “evil” category. I’m impressed that Steiger manager to set up several factions at odds with each other without making any of them evil. Wrong, perhaps, misguided perhaps, but not evil. Which is unusual in high fantasy.

What I disliked was there was a point in the middle where I had to set aside the book for real life – and I almost never picked it up again. Three days later, I finally did, but to me, that means I wasn’t invested in the characters or the story. I could have moved on to a different book, and I almost did. I liked most of the characters – but without liking any of them enough to truly care what happened. I also wish the pacing was a little faster, but that’s a victim of too many viewpoints, I think.

So I could go either way on this book. It was well-written but a little slow and didn’t just GRAB me the way some books do.

See all my reviews at http://goddessinthestacks.wordpress.com