Review: Conflicted
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 11 15, 2011
GoodConcepts are interesting with a sorcerer society, changlings and created beings.The interplay of the Covenant versus the societyThe way that the sorcerer society maintained control through limiting knowledge.BadNot enough time spent on developing the concepts.Even after all the training you still don't have a good idea of what the Shadu really are, partly because all that information is imparted to the main character off screen. It leaves them feeling empty.Unfortunately this is kind of the problem with the whole book many of these great concepts just never get fully developed they leave the reader feeling underwhelmed about the whole setting.Characters are just brutalized everyone gets raped, tortured and abused now I don't mind it a little but when that seems to be the formula that applies to everyone it just loses the impact of the events and instead of adding to the story if just makes you move away from it. I am sure in the next book Yar-Soga will get raped and tortured if the author follows true to form.Characters that have great potential like Yenaga the teacher for the Shadu had great potential but then is just killed as soon as she becomes more than a wooden cutout.Killing off all the characters. Every few pages a character is killed off no one makes it out alive this gets repetitive after a while and stops you from ever really getting attached because you know they all die.Ending ThoughtsI really liked the book to start I thought it had great potential but the lack of detail on the world makes it hard to get immersed in it. Then you have the constant use of world changing events when you have a character raped it should be dramatic a major part of the plot not just something to do to make the world seem "dark". I think that the author could use a good editor who would just tell him to slow down and fully develop a something before he skips off on the next great idea. And to not use rape and torture as everyday occurances.