‘Range of Ghosts’ by Elizabeth Bear

Mount Readmore Book Review 2018, 159/200

Audiobook Edition

Finished on 11/24/2018

Goodreads

Genres: Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, High Fantasy

The Khan is dead, kicking off a tide of chaos across the steppe

Spoiler-ific review

I’m keeping this review short because I’m in the middle of NaNoWriMo and I want to preserve my hands for typing.

I highly recommend you read this book and the series.

This is a re-read for me, coming back to this after several years and after reading books 2 and 3 in this series. If you want my net-total review for this series, check out my review for Steles of the Sky. 

I think this is the least refined book in this series.I liked it to be sure, but it was not my favorite. It wasn’t bad by any means, but it lacks a certain joie de vivre in comparison to the other books in the series. I personally think the second book in the series Shattered Pillars is the best book in the series.

Characters: Strong. This is a character-focused book in a character focused series. All the characters have strong motivations and frailties. They are enthralling to read about.

Plot: Not as strong as other books in the series. The characters are constantly on the back foot, so the bad guys take a commanding lead of the plot. This made the characters feel reactive, instead of active.

Pacing: Strong, and the strongest in the series. The other books in the series contain more cliffhangers and jerky pacing, giving them a slower and unsteady feeling. This book felt steady throughout.

Setting: This book’s setting is the best high fantasy setting for any story I’ve ever read. Set in a fictitious pseudo-Mongolian setting, the characters breathe their many and various diverse Asian cultures.

Net total, I strongly recommend you read this book and this series. The author did a good job in this book of avoiding introducing too many point of view characters, a problem prevalent in the other books in the series.