The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman is Very intricate, evolving book with Excellent characters, dialogue, and settings. This was a pleasure to read. A solid clear voice for the storyteller that was both entertaining and epic. The book follows the journey of Kinch Na Shannack and his cheerful allies through numerous adventures on their mysterious excursion. The adventure is really strange as neither the reader not the protagonist knows the end objective, till near the climax of the story.
The book is told in a first person point of view (Kinch’s) with help from different characters. The writing is light fun, heavily loaded with jokes. I was amazed by the amount I began to really care for specific characters. I was devastated when something terrible happened to them. It was difficult to like everybody, but I truly enjoyed their presence on the pages.
The world is diverse and rich. We get to see both racial and geographical diversity and will meet a ton of fascinating characters. What detracted me from enjoying the world at its full was that the world was revealed via information unloading through Kinch’s interior talks. This reduced the pace and flow of the story a lot. There are various pieces of information on characters, races and divine beings that make us see and value the richness of the world.
The ending was quite awesome. It only sneaked up to me and I was suddenly frantically reading the extremely fast finale. It absolutely added to the interest and guaranteed much more in the next book. Despite the fact that I was able to figure out a few parts of it, the manner in which the events played out was eye-catching and had a major impact.
Kinch is a charming go fortunate mischievous kind of character who is more likely say a terrible joke in face of overwhelming danger. Being pushed into this excursion to an obscure objective with characters he doesn’t know previously. He’s in a circumstance where he’s always behind the curve attempting to catch up and make a good situation of it. He’s clever, interesting and has a specific flamboyant nonchalance to his bravado. I would have liked it more if the author digged a bit deeper into Kinch as in what makes him tick. What lies under the veneer of heroic bravado?
Overall, The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman is a solid introduction of yet another epic, dark fantasy series. I cannot wait for the second book!
Also Read: The Hive: By Gregg Olsen
