These reviews concern books as they are published , and will not appear until I am confident the books are available through the major chains. As an editor, I'm all too aware of how much change there can be between the galley or proof and the published version. My review must serve you, the reader, by reviewing what you can obtain. I do not ordinarily give much of a plot summary. It's rather like claiming that all vertebrates are the same because they've graduated from a simple notochord to a flexible, multipart bony sheath around the spinal cord.
Character is important.
Without character, all we're doing is struggling with bad epic free verse, not reading fiction or telling stories. Once again, though, character is not everything. But the characters must engage the environment and, through the environment, the reader. I demand both plausibility and fitness. But it takes a lot of work to make the idea and the milieu mesh.