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The Ruin of Kings
Sep. 1st, 2022 04:25 pmThe Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons is a chunky volume, telling dual stories of Kihrin, an important piece in a vast game of politics, magic, demons, gods and the fate of the world. It has an intriguing framing narrative, presenting it as some kind of report to a king about the fall of a citadel, with numerous footnotes by the compiler. There's a secondary framing narrative of Kihrin being imprisoned, with a demon mimic as his jailer - they take turns to tell each other the two different parts of Kihrin's history that make up the main narrative.
Since Kihrin lived both stories and the demon, Talon, has shared all his memories, this device means the first part of the story is literally two characters telling each other things they already know... The dual narratives are reasonably engaging - I liked a lot of the characters and I was interested in the story. But the brevity of each chapter and the continual shifting between the two timeframes made the story feel very fractured. It was difficult to connect to either storyline, as a result, and it also felt as both narratives were taking a very long time to get anywhere. On top of this, the number of factions, referenced characters, types of supernatural beings, noble houses, religious orders, gods and goddesses, and all sorts of other aspects of the world, the history and the potential events to come was so overwhelming and so under-explained, I really had very little idea of what was going on.
I was hoping things might pick up a bit or become clearer in the second part of the book - until I discovered the switch didn't happen until after page 600... When I subsequently found out this was the first in an intended five-book series... I'm afraid I just decided to give up.
It's not that the book was bad - the writing itself was pretty good and I was at least partly drawn in. But the structure, the pacing and the lack of explanation just meant it wasn't a good fit for me. I'm sure, though, that this series has and will continue to find an enthusiastic audience.
Since Kihrin lived both stories and the demon, Talon, has shared all his memories, this device means the first part of the story is literally two characters telling each other things they already know... The dual narratives are reasonably engaging - I liked a lot of the characters and I was interested in the story. But the brevity of each chapter and the continual shifting between the two timeframes made the story feel very fractured. It was difficult to connect to either storyline, as a result, and it also felt as both narratives were taking a very long time to get anywhere. On top of this, the number of factions, referenced characters, types of supernatural beings, noble houses, religious orders, gods and goddesses, and all sorts of other aspects of the world, the history and the potential events to come was so overwhelming and so under-explained, I really had very little idea of what was going on.
I was hoping things might pick up a bit or become clearer in the second part of the book - until I discovered the switch didn't happen until after page 600... When I subsequently found out this was the first in an intended five-book series... I'm afraid I just decided to give up.
It's not that the book was bad - the writing itself was pretty good and I was at least partly drawn in. But the structure, the pacing and the lack of explanation just meant it wasn't a good fit for me. I'm sure, though, that this series has and will continue to find an enthusiastic audience.
