Finally I'm continuing (and hopefully soon, finishing) my Chronicles of Ancient Darkness journey. Let's see what awaits Torak, Wolf and Renn next. Spoilers ahead.
When a meteorite lands in the Forest and scorches most of the life out of the woods, Torak, Renn, Wolf and Dark will have to find a way to restore life to the forest by restoring a powerful sacred tree. However, in their way stands Naiginn and his cult following.
Honestly I was lowkey disappointed by this one. I didn't hate or even really dislike it or anything, but I've come to expect better from this series. This just felt awfully bland and forgettable if you ask me.
Torak and Renn just weren't very interesting in this book to me, I guess that Torak's spirit walking ability is still neat, but his arc of slowly fading and eventually being restored in this book just felt predicable and I didn't particularly care about reading his and Renn's relationship here. We already know that they love each other and it's predictable as hell that things are going to stay that way despite Torak getting worse, so I didn't feel that much excitement for them here. Heck, even Wolf didn't interest me this time around.
Who I found much more interesting here, and in my opinion has a more interesting arc, is Dark. I don't know, I just found him genuinely fascinating to read POVs from and his story felt a bit less predictable than the main three's. I also like how the story doesn't punish Dark for not wanting to forgive his asshole father. Maybe it's just because I've gotten tired from the Torak/Renn/Wolf POVs by now, but Dark made for a welcome change of pace.
Naiginn in my opinion is also just a very forgettable villain. He's just an irredeemable demon, that's it. Even the bear demon of the first book felt more interesting to me because it wasn't just a demon, it was also an animal. It felt like a genuine force of nature. Naiginn meanwhile just feels like a lesser, anthropomorphic humanoid version of the same idea. I honestly had enough of him after the previous installment, but I guess he's here to stay for now.
Also the whole Chosen Ones cult seems to turn on Naiginn on a dime which just felt a bit weak to me. How interesting would it have been that, even after Naiginn was defeated and he was proven to be a demon, the cult still took his side against Torak and the rest? That could've provided some neat setup for the conflict in the next book, which could then be about defeating the Chosen Ones. But instead the whole cult mentality seems to leave these people the moment Naiginn is gone, and that just felt weak. We all know how cults work and how deep their roots can go especially in the most dedicated members, how hard it can be to break away from them. To have pretty much all Chosen Ones turn against Naiginn this easily felt weak and like missed potential.
So yeah, I didn't hate this book and it did keep my attention, but I kept wishing for more while reading it. The parts that got me hooked the most were the chapters with Dark, the rest wasn't bad but it feels a bit weak compared to earlier installments.
Rating: 3/5
No comments:
Post a Comment