The Steel Remains

Gave up at 14%.

Meh ...

I had to drop this one midway. I adored the Kovacs novels even when they threatened to become formulaic but somehow Morgan's fantasy failed to grip me in the same way.

The characters seem well-constructed enough, the dialog doesn't become too boring or predictable and the setting is nice. I was still curious about what awaits Ringil in the second half of the book but didn't care much at all about what was going on in his world. I think that's the biggest failing here, at least for me.

Being a huge fan of The Black Man - probably one of my favorite scifi novels ever - I was quite disappointed with Morgan's fantasy and have quite a long list of grievances. First of all, the lack of originality - there's nothing really new here, and it reminded me not necessarily of other books, but a lot of RPG games (perhaps Morgan is a gamer like myself). Second, and probably the worst, is the lack of credibility: the characters sometimes act in certain ways not because their inner will asks for it, but because of exterior causes: the author's need to move the story to his chosen path. What annoyed me most was the main character himself, Ringil: he is supposed to be a hardened, fucked-up war veteran in his 30s (I think, maybe late 20s), but all the time he behaves like a 16 yo brat, with 16 yo passions (mainly fighting his parents. Really, true war veterans have other inner demons than... their mum and dad). Some other characters (Seethlaw and Arctech) also behave nonsensically - and at times I felt the world itself (the society) doesn't make sense. For example MINOR SPOILER> 4000 years before, the Kiriath invaded the planet in scifi ships and fought the magical Aldrain... and now the world is dominated by Medieval humans. When the hell did the humans show up and took over the world from much more advanced races? And... how??? It makes no sense, both in an evolutionary way and a historical one. END OF MINOR SPOILER.
Two other things bothered me: unlike many other readers, I did not feel Ringil's homosexuality to be unnecessary - it did explain correctly some of his anger and complexes. And there are only 2 gay sex scenes, so that controversy is actually way exaggerated by some. But why is a second character out of 3 (main characters) also... a lesbian? Isn't it really just a show off from the author?
The second thing is the writing. Most of the book, Morgan writes fast pacing, good straight on and fluently, but quite often he tries to be artistic and he fails badly with overlong, stuttered over complicated phrases.
In a more neutral observation, I felt the world building was good and captivating, but under-developed. I hope it is developed more in the rest of the series.
On the good side, though, it is not a bad book. It is a great read for a summer (or winter) vacation - entertaining, fast, action packed, with some well written characters (Dragonbane, Jhiril and, mostly, Ringil himself), with a dark-grim world, in general with good writing and an extraordinary end twist I did not foresee and I utterly loved.
Highly recommended for Morgan's own fans (but with lowered expectations compared to his scifi) and for Abercrombie's fans (feels very similar to his books). Also, in some ways, it is a good choice for the Witcher fans (mostly those of the games, which are darker and more cynical than Sapkowski's books), because Ringil is in many ways a Geralt - the book even starts with a typical Witcher mission.
So, is it good? Yes, but not very, and not memorable. Is it bad? only in some ways, that just jade its appeal, but not really spoil it. Will I read the sequels? Yes, I definitely will.
And, you ask, is it too gay? Definitely not :)

of all the crop of “grimdark” fantasy around in the last ten years or so, these books are by far my favourites. They are indeed grim and dark, but also have engaging characters, a well realised fantasy world (OR IS IT?) and a pleasing strain of black humour. Very good indeed.

I dunno. This book was really hard to get into. Nothing much happens until the final third, and a lot of the setup is confusing. I was intrigued by the world-building, but the characters mostly fell flat for me (not to mention the 3 main characters all seem to have the same exact voice; in my opinion it only fits one of them, and it's not the main guy). A gay male protagonist would have been so much more genre-busting if I thought the author did it for any other reason than to be shocking. I felt like I could see his hand a little too much throughout–everyone else in the book constantly uses pejoratives when discussing our “hero,” the hero himself is a rather one-note bottomless pit of self-loathing, and overall the sex scenes seem more about power and mastery than anything else, which makes it trope and not “twisting” (much less “taking an axe to”) “genre cliches” as suggested by the enthusiastic cover blurb.

I'm torn about this one. There was a lot of really neat stuff later on, but I had to go past a lot of stuff that felt like a twelve year old trying to be edgy and provocative. I don't mind modern cursing in my fantasy, but this felt like a square trying to fit in by saying fuck every other word.