Malazan Empire: polishgenius - Viewing Profile - Malazan Empire

People say that Sanderson is a machine, but I feel like even now and again Sullivan stands in league with his output.

QuickTidal, on 20 April 2026 - 11:15 AM, said:

Finished.

It's fine-ish. It's DEFINITELY amateurish, the prose is stunted most of the time. Nothing about the world or the characters is embellished or overly interesting, or compelling. The School could be any stone castle...there's barely any descriptions about anything really. Like she walks into a purportedly ornate room and the description is about 2 sentences. An almost obscene amount of effort is spent on internal monologues and dialogue, with so much less on the setting or anything around the characters. Even the opening is a test where they walk across a long thin stone bridge from the main keep to the barracks and the description is so just not there...it may as well have been a stone bridge across a beige chasm with beige all around...when I say NOTHING is described, I mean it.

Also, I dun no if it's that I'm an old fantasy nerd, but every single "twist" that shows up near the end of the book was telecast to me in moments in the first few chapters, including the biggest reveal...and it's not like subtly hidden, if you're paying even mild attention she's shouting them at you....like "what a weird little passage about a specific book to bring up in a paragraph and then forget about, right?"...oof. It makes me realize that a lot of the reason this book is so popular is that it's ported regular romance readers into fantasy and since they've not read much fantasy before, a lot of this feels new to them? I dunno.

The spicy scenes (there are mainly two) are probably the best thing about the book? Decently written and would be titilating for any gender to read, and as I don't come across many of those in my fiction travels it was nice to read someone do them decently well.

Will I read the rest of the series? No. There is simply not enough fresh in this story to keep me interested when other authors have done these tropes so much better. Even the Dragons (which initially kept my interest) are not done justice.

I will, however, keep trying out romantasy authors to see if any of them land better.

I'll grant I haven't watched any of her fights, except for a brief snippet of Carrini quiting. Interesting point about her not blatantly overpowering her opponents---though Khelif certainly realizes that if she blatantly displays superior strength and (the best-fitting English word here would be "manhandles" but I want to be clear I'm not using it in the sort of derogatory way Rowlings refers to her as a "man") physically dominates her opponents then it may undermine her claim to not have an advantage because of her condition.