K. E. Mills

Almost 700 pages where we follow the exploits of an emotionally stunted hero. Did I need the full saga of Hekat's life to understand her motivations? No, no I did not. The plot of the book is essentially a Cinderella story: a slave from the savage north becomes empress because she is chosen by god. This is a good concept on paper except that the protagonist is extremely unlikable, and this is mostly because she is a sycophant, and it makes it really difficult to care about what happens to her. She does everything, and claims it is for her god. She is the exception, and claims that it is because she was chosen by god. Do the gods exist? Who knows? Who cares? At the end of the day the conflict comes from three people who all claim the god speaks through them, but are hearing drastically different things. This has the effect of making the character seem crazy. I get it, she was unloved as a child, and she is determined to never be a slave again, but that is not enough to garner sympathy by the end of the book. Like, I read Medea, and still had sympathy, but the difference is that Hekat's actions do not feel just, and it is difficult to care. She has a lot of hubris ( like any tragic hero from your High School lit class), there is a lot of misplaced confidence in her decisions on all fronts. She became empress because she has so much arrogance that everyone thinks that she knows what she is doing, but the plot has to literally flex itself around this ridiculous conceit, until things fall apart. If she were a bit more of a character, and maybe if she had a bit more interaction with the guy who inexplicably fell in love with her, the majority of the book wouldn't have felt so pointless. I was reading this trying to figure out how she was succeeding, because she shouldn't have been succeeding, and whenever she succeeded ( because she is a sycophant) it is proof that she was "in the god's eye," but as a thinking reader of fantasy, supernatural powers do not prove the existence of a god or demons in the world, and I think it is interesting that there is nobody who is definitively "demonstruck" people point fingers, like in the Salem Witch Trials, but who is demonstruck is determined more by who holds different beliefs to you. That was the really realistic thing about it, god isn't a character in this book, god contradicts himself, not everyone has the same god. The world is clearly built influenced by classical civilizations like ancient Rome and Greece, as well as with the philosophy of imperialist societies, especially christian ones. The voice of god swings back and forth between New Testament God and Old Testament God, and the voice of god and the motivations of god change with both the individual and the needs of the new world. The last couple of chapters that are told from the viewpoint of her son were a much better read for me, and really redeemed the rest of the book. The problem is that grimdark is not my trash. I do not like seeing horrible people succeed and good people fail. I also have issues with racial coding in fantasy because a race of people with vitiligo, and brown-skinned people with blue eyes is... problematic especially from a white Australian author. I think that people who have problems with the dialogue are, right, the characters talk weird and it is draining to read.… (mehr)

Based on the title I thought this would be about someone who would become a mage, not someone who becomes the princes errand boy. The title of the story threw me off, and I was continuing to read hoping that somewhere the prophecy you throw the main character into the mage role. Maybe actually have the main character performing magic outside of his race, or learn about his own races magic. I'm not sure if I was taking the title to literal but it seemed to just confuse me.

The plot isn't bad, and the character interaction is good but it's just plain boring. Like many of the other people who have put reviews on here, I continued reading hoping that the story would get a little exciting but it never came about. The ending of the book was just like the rest of the book, it didn't really revolve around the main character and left me saying... "Really that's all"?

I usually give a book 3 stars if I just can make it to the end, but the complete confusion and inability for the story to make me want to turn the page makes this a 2 star book.… (mehr)