Before having completed Betrayal at Falador, I had written a partial review, and seeing as I now have finished both of the books I can provide a proper one for BaF.
Apart from starting off a tad slowly, the book is pretty well paced and Church provides sufficiently detailed descriptions of every small happening that occurs - he left almost nothing to the imagination, which can be good or bad depending on how you look at it. Church tends to repeat certain phrases which wore away at me somewhat (evident in both books), such as "his/her eyes were dark/black pools of hate/hatred".
I found the characters to be balanced and wholly enjoyable - massive kudos to Church for having a genuinely kickass female lead who isn't there to serve as a sidekick, Kara-Meir runs her own show and doesn't give half a damn for what anybody else thinks. She bravely defies the customs of her time to pursue her dreams - whether they were to be a white knight or just to act out her revenge on the classically evil Lord Sulla.
As for the rest of the characters, I found the majority of them, though enjoyable as previously stated, somewhat one-dimensional in their purpose throughout the novel. I'd go into it, but character limits. *shakes fist*
Overall I found the novel to be exciting, fun and at times heartwarming, and not to mention it was a huge kick to see all these RS themed places, objects etc used in a book... I still laughed at the White Knights' awe at an adamant longsword and a ring of life - I admit I thought, when they posed the question "Where did she get these?": Probably the G.E, dummies!
17-Jul-2011 11:02:41
