Unabridged Audiobook
Great story. I love the author. 1st time I havnt like a narrator for his books tho. Not sure what it is. but still great listen
Some people criticize the plot and main character for being a bit one-note, and that is fair. I found it a nice change of pace from the very busy or faster stories. Maniye herself is having an identity crisis and is quite young, and I see her lack of development as partially a symptom of her character - young, inexperienced, changing, unsure. The cast of characters around Maniye is amazing, and absolutely steps in to fill the void of the main character. Think of Maniye as the vehicle that drives the story while all the powerful people around her try to use her for their own ends. All that being said, maybe replacing one of the "captures" with some other type of story event, even holding all other plot and character development the same, could have been nice. The combat scenes are great. Shifting between human and animal forms, Tchaikovsky paints a vivid picture of every bloodletting. I'd love to see a movie for th combat sequences alone! I don't see the racial element as problematically as others - yes, many of the indigenous peoples are portrayed "savagely," but it follows with the large carnivore/scavenger tribes. Snakes, horses, boars, deer, and others are described differently. The fact that most of the book's plot is spent with and driven by the savagery though, which didn't help the situation. I look forward to the next book to see what other tribes we'll learn about. Worth a read, but if you're a fan of AT, it's a bit different than his others.
Good but not great
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