4 out of 5 Stars
I noticed an increase in people reading The Swordsman’s Lament by G.M White and while I still have yet to read that one, I did back in December of 2020 read the prequel novella and I figured I would share that review here on my blog as its only ever been on goodreads (plus my blog wasn’t live back in December). Hope you enjoy!
This was a very quick read and one that while being short managed to keep my attention the whole way through. This novella focuses more on introducing you to the characters, some of whom we can guess will be important key players in later installments.
There isn’t a lot of world building but it wasn’t necessary for this story as its clear the intent was not to dive into that portion of the story yet. There was small amounts, enough to establish a world and get a general feeling of how it works, but it was left with plenty of room to expand on in further installments, just enough was dropped to make someone want to learn more about it, so I hope the world building does get expanded.
The characters as a whole are decent, none of them really standout at the moment but it was only 86 pages of story so they have the starts of being very intriguing characters and I have an urge to follow them some more. I will say I do love how we learn the origins of a certain character whom I am hoping is going to be a “villain” later on, I am very intrigued to see where his storyline goes.
There isn’t much action in this but one must keep the length in mind, so what was there was short but still inciting enough to keep my attention and hope for possibly longer action scenes. My only issue and this is an absolute personal thing, is I am not fond of fencing style battles or fencing in general so I wasn’t that blown away with it, but again that is a personal thing so if fencing is something you are into then this right up your alley. And even though its not a fighting style I prefer I still am going to continue the series because I do think it was executed well.
I’m intrigued to see where this goes next as I know this a prequel set quite some number of years before the next installment. Its a very good solid quick introduction to a new world and new characters and holds a lot of potential.
Intotheheartwyld 