Revenant Winds Fill Hogan's Sails!

A few days ago when I reviewed the prequel novella Tower of the Forgotten I had high hopes for this series. If the first full book is anything to go by it is going to be an absolute ripper! With his debut series The Sorcery Ascendant trilogy I thought that Hogan had produced a bit of a gem, but possibly a flawed one. The key problem being the lead character's constant internal monologues and some inconsistencies in his behaviour.

With Revenant Winds Hogan ditches any suggestion of a coming of age tale and delivers three excellently rounded characters. Aldric was a clear favourite to me having the most depth and his internal conflicts felt genuine and extremely three-dimensional. The other two also have potential to become long-term favourites and Niklaus's relationship with his rather racy and unique god felt extremely original. Even Kurio who could have developed into a cliche had hidden depths. In addition to the excellent characters this series once again features a magic system of no little depth and originality. The world-building is less pronounced but still has good depth to it as this one is more about the characters, religions and factions.

The story itself does dance to a similar tune with a relatively slow but never boring start which creates the backdrop for a quite stunning climax. If I'd offer listeners one bit of advice it would definitely be to set aside a good long session to take in the last couple of hours (or more if you're up to it!). This last section of the book is something that a lot of us will find hard to put down and each time I had to interrupt it I put my headphones down with great reluctance.

Oliver Wyman is of course beautifully suited to this genre and there aren't many who could deliver that final section with such aplomb, no-one does rumbling demon tones any better.

So, Revenant Winds has put down quite a marker for the rest of the series. The last section of this one is brutally exciting and left me wanting more . . .

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9 people found this helpful

it okei book just not for me.

This book is okei. it is fun and good fantasy world.
but it was just not working for me.

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So good

So good to listen to and a great end to a great series of books. Well narrated with great characters and would recommend to anybody wanting a fantastic story

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Awesome

Even though the story was not too complex or unique, it didn't take away anything from the experience. It felt perfectly paced, interesting in its minute details, and I could constantly feel the impending doom creeping closer, and closer... Although it soon became very clear to me that once the stakes are revealed everything and everyone will become expendable, I couldn't refrain from getting attached to our team of adventurers. We haven't got to know everything about the main characters, yet the experience felt intimate as their personality and motivation became clear through their shared thoughts and actions as well as many of their faults and mistakes were brought to the surface. The author only scratched the surface of this amazing world slowly revealing its past, piece by piece, and now I can't wait to hear more of what he has in store for us. Besides great writing I must point out that Oliver Wyman's performance was exceptional. His intonation and voice play added so much to the experience, that I can only talk about his performance in superlatives. I will definitely look for his narration from now, thank you so much, really!

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Good in parts

There is a lot to like in the background painted in the novel, but the writing is very un-polished and the characters are rather two-dimensional. It might fill a gap in your Audible listening experience but do not expect too much more than that.

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1 person found this helpful

Meeh..

This book felt like a really long prologue. Sometimes in the book it's like the characters are being contrary to what they are described as. (To me this is really annoying, but it could just be my interpretation of the writing that does not mesh). It has a good premise but the build-up is way to long. And the climax makes the whole book feel like it's just a looong build-up towards the story the author really wants to write.

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1 person found this helpful

Has keep the good stuff for later syndrome

Between the cloyingly old fashioned cliches on women characters and the way Hogan is trying to squeeze 200k words without more than hinting at the cool stuff that will be revealed in the future books of what is clearly a looooong slog, it's a nope.

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