Matthew Futter's Reviews > The Blood of Crows
The Blood of Crows (The Crow's Gambit, #1)
by
by
This is a character study wrapped around a video game with lots of poetic storytelling. Anyone who’s ever played Thief: The Dark Project will immediately feel a sense of homecoming at the beginning of this book as they see Ren the student and Martin the master pull off a high-stakes, extremely challenging heist with traps, tricks, tools, and timing all playing a part.
It somehow gets even better from there. I love a novel with deep characterization and realistic solutions that aren’t always clear even to the characters who are seeking them, but where each person’s choices always make sense in the story. This book delivered on all of those fronts for me.
It also aimed to solve a few interesting mysteries, one of which was resolved neatly, though as in life, there is always more to learn. Another mystery remained open for the next book, and a third was introduced near the end. All of this worked well for me. The systems of magic, and our slowly growing understanding of it, are internally consistent, which can be challenging in any fantasy world, but we are introduced to these as the character knows them. His life is already in progress as we open the book, and his story progresses along with his understanding throughout the story. We follow along at a healthy pace, learning as he does, and even in places discovering how much we *don’t* know. Again, as in life.
I was pleased with the ending to this book, and eager to start the next one.
It somehow gets even better from there. I love a novel with deep characterization and realistic solutions that aren’t always clear even to the characters who are seeking them, but where each person’s choices always make sense in the story. This book delivered on all of those fronts for me.
It also aimed to solve a few interesting mysteries, one of which was resolved neatly, though as in life, there is always more to learn. Another mystery remained open for the next book, and a third was introduced near the end. All of this worked well for me. The systems of magic, and our slowly growing understanding of it, are internally consistent, which can be challenging in any fantasy world, but we are introduced to these as the character knows them. His life is already in progress as we open the book, and his story progresses along with his understanding throughout the story. We follow along at a healthy pace, learning as he does, and even in places discovering how much we *don’t* know. Again, as in life.
I was pleased with the ending to this book, and eager to start the next one.
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