The Shadow of the Torturer

I liked this book less and less as I got through it, then I went and read some 5-star reviews for it, and they loved the things I did not. So you may wish to invert my reasoning!

I got tired of the archaic language - descriptions written solely in words I don't know don't intrigue me, they just annoy now (Charles Stross invokes this for me as well). It doesn't make me imagine the otherness, the Dying World vibes, it just means I don't know what's going on.

The second two thirds of the book feels like a fever dream, and I just hated it. The protagonist wanders from place to place and seems to accept literally anything he's told by anyone. Just not my cup of tea.

Weirdly there's both less torture in this than a Joe Abercrombie book, and also in some ways it's worse. The clue is in the title, though.

3.5 stars out of 5

Scoring this book is difficult. The first half I would certainly give 4 stars. Maybe 4.5 for the language. But definitely 4. But then the books goes off the rails in the second part. The writer knows this and actually adresses it.
Is the second half bad? Absolutely not. But it's not as enticing as the first part, hence the reduction of half a star.

This book, this series, is an old classic. It's fantasy, but it's sci-fi as well, and I like that in books. The worldbuilding is alluring, the main character is okay-ish. It's an obvious self-insert, and as male writers of that period were wont to do, those self-inserts are a bit of a Gary Stu. Of course every woman desires them. They don't want to, but in the end they just can't help themselves.
Were the women written badly? Surprisingly: no. They have a smidgeon of depth.
The writer has a weird view of what love is. I think he confuses lust and desire with love, even though he philosophises on the subject. If he really fell in utter hopeless love on the drop of a hat, well... he may have had some problems ;-) Then again, those people do exist, they used to be considered very romantic (cough), so...

Back to the book. I had fun. It was clearly a source of inspiration for Patrick Rothfuss and Josiah Brancroft, and many other more recent writers. Maybe even for Joe Abercrombie, with his delightful torturer (though it was better done in this book).
I had some fun, and reading more convoluted bloated sentences is sometimes good for the mind. Like a big fluffy over-achieving bottle brush that cleans out all the nooks and crannies. So yes, I had fun. On to the next book!

Seriously, this world treats women like another, lesser species. It's another example of the common male belief (male, because I've never yet read a work by a woman that depicts the future thus) that any breakdown of society will of course include the reduction of women to mere accessories.

As I finish the book, I realize it might be best if I mulled it over a bit before reviewing it. I've no training in criticism, and I don't pretend to be innately skilled at it, but I feel this book might've been just complex enough that I'm left wondering. I don't want to mistake verbosity with cleverness, and I'm just not sure where this lies on the spectrum.

I haven't decided yet if I'm gonna read the next book or not, despite the sudden interruption of an ending, and the multitude of unanswered questions.