The Prince of Ravens

The latest installment of the one-upvote Reddit recs. This was recommended a few times alongside A Tale of Stars and Shadow, the series that kicked off this whole one upvote shebang.

There's a subgenre that's becoming very popular now, everywhere but particularly within self-published circles, that I'm dubbing “softcore epic fantasy” - a hopeful, less masculine, more gender-universal adventure story, often very emotional and angsty, and with strong found family elements. Maybe this is part of a merger of traditional, bulky, sprawling masculine epic fantasy stories with the increasingly popular young adult, romance, and cozy genres. But I've noticed a lot more books like this coming out since 2019 or so. Imagine Robin Hobb, but far more wholesome, upbeat and fulfilling.

I think this trend is, all in all, good. When this is done well - as it is in ATOSAS - it is wonderful; you get a lot of angst that pays off at the end, characters that are fun and relatable, and a very simple, clean, well-organized story. Here, it's less effective. Emerson writes well, but my reading experience alternated between “oh my, this is actually really good” and “this tantrum has gone on for far too long,” favoring the latter.

While I like the effort to simplify the often sprawling and complex plots of epic fantasy, this one went too far. Very little happens between the initial adventure and the final battle, and parts of the middle of the book felt empty and did not pay off at all. This setting is really the highest of high fantasy - I saw people call this “low fantasy”, and they couldn't be more wrong. Often, that's a problem, because there are really only three characters in this book, and they all are written pretty close to archetype. I think a book which such few characters has to make each character exceptional, and while they're not bad, they're not amazing either. There's very little to develop other than the character relationships, which have a jagged progression, and the world, which Emerson doesn't do a lot of. There is a villain, and there are two supporting characters who are introduced at the end, but they're not developed all that well.

I like the general gist of this book, it's interesting I like the world and characters, and the writing is competent. It's better than some of the more popular self-published epic fantasy (Bound and the Broken, Echoes Saga, Battle Mage, etc.) that's gone moderately viral over the last few years. But I think the simplification of the story is a step too far in the wrong direction, and I think this is best suited for an easy guilty pleasure night read. While I feel somewhat attached to the story, I can't say I love it. 7/10.