I think too much is lost in translation for me. The character wants a thing, then the thing happens, then this other thing, the plot feels more like aI think too much is lost in translation for me. The character wants a thing, then the thing happens, then this other thing, the plot feels more like a checklist of actions than a story. Reads like poetry, great writing, but not for hundreds of pages....more
Two women find their lives tangled in a split-narrator and split-timeline story. The build up is paid off nicely, everybody involved in believable. StTwo women find their lives tangled in a split-narrator and split-timeline story. The build up is paid off nicely, everybody involved in believable. Story comes off as very YA, exposition is blunt but allows the pacing to speed up the entire book....more
I got two-thirds of the way through the audiobook before giving up. The characters are well done, believable, motivated by things I can appreciate an aI got two-thirds of the way through the audiobook before giving up. The characters are well done, believable, motivated by things I can appreciate an actual person wanting to do. The world building is well done, quickly done but a bit too academic for my tastes. Like someone wanting to show off how much they know about accurate Roman history... not a bad thing, just a little distracting for a quickly moving plot. The narration is excellent. But the dialogue dear God, I couldn't put up with it. Judging by other reviews, not everybody was a distracted and put off as me, but its still a problem I have to deal with. Though it did remind me of a good lesson I learned back in 2004. Storytime: Back in 12th grade English class, we had to write a story. A girl wrote a good story about a woman leaving her family and having to prostitute herself to survive. In one scene, the girl asks an older, mentor, prostitute how she works when on her period. The older whore, with a backstory of abuse and drugs and (important to the story, lack of education) said "When I'm on my cycle, ..." and our teacher called the girl out for this. "Is this the way this character would talk? Would this person actually use those words?" The next day our teacher gives us a scene to read from a book from the mid 1800's, written by a woman trying to promote education. The scene is a man beating his wife because his mining job sucks and he can't get out because he's uneducated and its the world's fault, etc. The message of the book is with an education everyone gets better options so we could educate everybody... but the man beating his wife is speaking the King's English, proper grammar, big worlds, complex sentences... it ruins the effect the author was going for. The character didn't sound or feel uneducated. Like the girl's story was ruined by her crack whore's word choice. Our teacher's point was to make characters be honest with their language. You didn't have to cuss or be gross, just think about how would an employee talk to their boss compared to talking to their spouse and write accordingly. In Emperor's Sword, every character speaks the same, from the Emperor to a common Roman solider to a Scottish barbarian... the monologues and speeches are just too much for me to tolerate. Just too annoying and repetitive. One character doesn't speak Latin so his language is short, simple words... so Gough obviously knew he could write characters with different diction and speaking patterns and choose not to. Once I heard this character, I gave up. **I received an advance copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review....more
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