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The Books of Dust and Bone #1
The Bones of the Past
The Night Guard walk the streets of the old kingdom of Bialta seeking out threats that are beyond the abilities of the common soldier. Nial is one such threat a girl changed into something other and on the hunt for human souls. Salt, a sailor recently rescued by the Night Guard, has been inducted into their ranks. He s a quick study, but as new threats multiply all around them, will he have what it takes to survive?
Bialta is not alone in its woes. Sacral, a city that vanished in the distant past, has reappeared where it once stood at the heart of the Wastes. Like many of Sacral s people, Maura is content living a quiet life, ignoring the outside world. But she finds herself desperately fighting to save her home as war comes to the city returned.
Meanwhile, across the Great Desert, creatures are stirring. Carver, the last living master of the magic known as fleshcarving, has won the support of the tyrant of Tolrahk Esal. Together they will unleash his twisted creations to sweep across the land and forever disrupt the balance of power.
In this epic tale, there is no good and evil. Armies march, demons feed, and deities unleash their powers on a world that will never be the same."
Bialta is not alone in its woes. Sacral, a city that vanished in the distant past, has reappeared where it once stood at the heart of the Wastes. Like many of Sacral s people, Maura is content living a quiet life, ignoring the outside world. But she finds herself desperately fighting to save her home as war comes to the city returned.
Meanwhile, across the Great Desert, creatures are stirring. Carver, the last living master of the magic known as fleshcarving, has won the support of the tyrant of Tolrahk Esal. Together they will unleash his twisted creations to sweep across the land and forever disrupt the balance of power.
In this epic tale, there is no good and evil. Armies march, demons feed, and deities unleash their powers on a world that will never be the same."
517 pages, Paperback
First published May 30, 2017
About the author
Craig A. Munro
1 book59 followersCraig A. Munro has worked in a variety of fields, including government, language instruction, tech blogging, and construction—all while completing a couple of years of med school at the University of Nice and eventually earning a BSc from the University of Ottawa (yes, in that order). He has lived in countries across Europe, North America, Asia, and the Middle East and has recently returned to Ottawa, Canada, where he pushes paper for the federal government. The Bones of the Past is his first novel.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
March 17, 2017
DNF @40%
I have a rule. If a book isn't catching my attention, I'll give it a chance until I get close to 50% but once I hit 50%, I have to finish it. So I have a very small window to actually DNF, and this one unfortunately makes the cut.
I commend Munro for his creativity - it's clear he has a LOT of ideas - but creative ideas alone do not a novel make. This story is full of neat ideas but things like shifting POV from paragraph to paragraph, and stilted characters unfortunately made this read like a first or second draft. It seems as though all of the planning went into building up the world, when more care needed to be paid to the plot. The result being a series of disjointed events and characters I just didn't care about. And if I don't care about the characters, a book gets increasingly difficult to read.
It doesn't help that the magic system is seriously overpowered. There must have been about a dozen battle scenes I read in the first half the book in which a single character overpowers dozens, if not hundreds of baddies all with the help of magic. It felt like watching a video game character mow down enemies right after the player inputted a bunch of cheat codes. It's really fun for bout 5 minutes, but ends up ruining the game if you use them for too long.
Also, I'm not sure if the eARC I received was formatted incorrectly, but character thoughts were in no way set apart from the third person narrative voice, which was always enough to jolt me out of the story.
1 star for effort, and .5 for having won the "Sword and Laser - the Sequel" contest that got this published.
I hope this finds an audience that appreciates it.
_______________________
Thanks to Netgalley and Inkshares for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I have a rule. If a book isn't catching my attention, I'll give it a chance until I get close to 50% but once I hit 50%, I have to finish it. So I have a very small window to actually DNF, and this one unfortunately makes the cut.
I commend Munro for his creativity - it's clear he has a LOT of ideas - but creative ideas alone do not a novel make. This story is full of neat ideas but things like shifting POV from paragraph to paragraph, and stilted characters unfortunately made this read like a first or second draft. It seems as though all of the planning went into building up the world, when more care needed to be paid to the plot. The result being a series of disjointed events and characters I just didn't care about. And if I don't care about the characters, a book gets increasingly difficult to read.
It doesn't help that the magic system is seriously overpowered. There must have been about a dozen battle scenes I read in the first half the book in which a single character overpowers dozens, if not hundreds of baddies all with the help of magic. It felt like watching a video game character mow down enemies right after the player inputted a bunch of cheat codes. It's really fun for bout 5 minutes, but ends up ruining the game if you use them for too long.
Also, I'm not sure if the eARC I received was formatted incorrectly, but character thoughts were in no way set apart from the third person narrative voice, which was always enough to jolt me out of the story.
1 star for effort, and .5 for having won the "Sword and Laser - the Sequel" contest that got this published.
I hope this finds an audience that appreciates it.
_______________________
Thanks to Netgalley and Inkshares for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
April 25, 2017
I'm an epic fantasy fan that ranges from Wheel of Time to your classic D&D Dragonlance fiction. I've read and played a fantastic amount within the genre. This gifs sums up my review of the book:
Fucking Metal.
Seriously, I tore through this book and couldn't put it down. Let me walk you through what you are about to get into:
This is NOT some "coming of age" young adventurer story, where some plucky 10 year old undergoes training in the Blade Heron Style of Ass-kicking by some mentor that happened to come to a town in the middle of nowhere, where he's some secret prince destined to save the world.
In every possible way, this book breaks most of the classic epic fantasy mold by playing with the fate of kingdoms. The characters are all "higher-level" for those that understand the DnD reference. They start off brokenly powerful and end up brokenly powerful. That's the best part of this book!
This allows Munro to deal with the fate of nations, the fallout of gods, the desperation to cut a deal with a demon, all to survive.
The book follows a few characters, Carver, being one of my personal favorites. It's so rare to have a villain cast in the role of a protagonist and yet... come to root for them. I'll leave the spoilery bits off on the review but it's worth the read.
Particularly if you are ready to move beyond "plunky young-adult secretly finds that he's the guardian of the future and lovers fall at their feet." There's none of that here. Bad ass, complex characters doing whatever they can to survive in the face of high-end magic's horrors.
Read this shit.
Fucking Metal.
Seriously, I tore through this book and couldn't put it down. Let me walk you through what you are about to get into:
This is NOT some "coming of age" young adventurer story, where some plucky 10 year old undergoes training in the Blade Heron Style of Ass-kicking by some mentor that happened to come to a town in the middle of nowhere, where he's some secret prince destined to save the world.
In every possible way, this book breaks most of the classic epic fantasy mold by playing with the fate of kingdoms. The characters are all "higher-level" for those that understand the DnD reference. They start off brokenly powerful and end up brokenly powerful. That's the best part of this book!
This allows Munro to deal with the fate of nations, the fallout of gods, the desperation to cut a deal with a demon, all to survive.
The book follows a few characters, Carver, being one of my personal favorites. It's so rare to have a villain cast in the role of a protagonist and yet... come to root for them. I'll leave the spoilery bits off on the review but it's worth the read.
Particularly if you are ready to move beyond "plunky young-adult secretly finds that he's the guardian of the future and lovers fall at their feet." There's none of that here. Bad ass, complex characters doing whatever they can to survive in the face of high-end magic's horrors.
Read this shit.
Read
September 22, 2018Thiiisss is one of those reviews that I let slide for way too long, I do apologize to the author as this was an author request. I’m still playing catch up a bit, but I’m getting through my pile!
I listened to this on audio, but I went ahead and bought the ebook as well to snag some of these names because there are so many. I’ll save you some time, if you only want either the ebook or the audio, do the ebook. I say that for a couple of reasons, the narrator has a super deep resonating voice and that rings through all of his male characters, it makes them sound kind of the same and it can get confusing when the pov’s switch, and they do that a lot. Secondly, there’s just so much to take in, this is an enormous book and the audio would be much better suited for a re-read.
This is a book of epic scope and it’s been a serious challenge trying to string it all together into a review. There are at least 4 different locations for over 10 POV characters and it isn’t clear how those POV’s were going to be related to each other through much of the book, they were their own separate worlds operating outside of one another through much of the book – to make it more complicated I can’t even really nail down a “main character”. So, here it goes!
Sacral is a city that had been teleported out of existence by it’s ruler and goddess, The White Mother. This had been a gift, not a punishment, they were taken into an other worldly realm outside of the planet to be granted 1,000 years of peace, but everyone knew of the fabled return to the land their ancestors once called home. The beginning of the book coincides with Sacral’s return to the world, and what that means for the kings of neighboring realms.
Sacral’s ruler is king Ansyl, an archmage that’s been ruling over the city for centuries under the guidance of the White Mother. Shortly after their return, the city is visited by a nation from Aboleth begging for their aid. Their homeland was being ripped apart by inhuman monsters and they’ve run out of places to turn. The White Mother supports them and instructs the king to send out his best men to go and fight the problem. Ansyl sends out a commander named Jenus to lead a team of mages, Chosen, and the military elite to go deal with the problem. This leaves Maura and her husband nervous because the city is losing most of it’s defenses. They are assured nothing will go wrong, but many, many things go wrong. The city gets attacked and what remains of the city guard and military are overwhelmed by the onslaught. Maura rallies the citizens of Sacral around her with makeshift weapons and start to build defenses around their homes – they then start kicking ass and taking names.
Over in the realm of Bialta, a young girl named Nial was beaten near to death by her father. When she approaches the point of death her soul meets a demon in the dark, and the demon convinces Nial to let herself be bound to the demon. When she wakes up afterwards she has entirely new powers and the two ‘girls’ are merged into one entity with both personas taking turns with the control over the girl’s body depending on which one of them was needed for the situation at hand. The girl and the demon, Zuli, start sacrificing people to harvest their souls – because Nial is young and mostly innocent, she refuses to take part in murders of innocent people, so they start to prey on the scum of the city.
Salt was a sailor who visited the wrong prostitute, she turned out to be a demon and after a night of exhaustive sexual excursions he wound up in the middle of a ritual to harvest his soul. It was stopped mid-way by the cities Night Guard, an elite fighting force that’s capable of dealing with demons. Shortly after he was recruited into their ranks and is now helping the Night Guard search for the person who is leaving mutilated bodies all over the city with dark magic residue (that’d be Nial’s doing).
Meanwhile, in a different part of the world a man named Carver is making obsene mutated animals from his test subjects. He’s working for a man named Drokga who is a tyrant ruling in Tolrahk Esal. He’s a power hungry man who wants to be a legend, he’s not happy that he’s feared and commands respect now, he wants that reputation to carry through the ages. Carver makes warped versions of dogs, horses, people, dragons and other things to help build up this nutjob’s army. Carver himself is cruel and sadistic, but not in the way I usually see. He doesn’t take pleasure in making people hurt, he just does it out of curiosity, he likes knowing what makes animals tick and he likes taking them apart. This is still just the plot and I’ve only just barely scratched the surface, this is an insanely intricate book and it took a long time for these POV’s to start to have meaning to one another.
I think my favorite character grouping was Nial, Zuli and Skeg. Nial and Zuli first approach Skeg out of a business arrangement where they would give him bodies to sell and in return they would have a safe space to perform their rituals and also get taught what magic Skeg knew on the side. This morphed from a cold and distrusting business arrangement to a family like atmosphere, Nial even started calling him uncle after a while, and there was genuine affection flowing from both sides. It was a warped fucked up family of murderers who really cared for one another. Weird, but it worked for me.
Carver was an uncomfortable POV for me to read about, animal abuse is one of those things that really makes me squirm and it happened a few times here. There are also slaves where Carver is living and their lives are atrocious, this POV brought out the darkest aspects of the book and put them on display.
I had some problems with believability in Maura’s POV, she goes from housewife, the a commander of a small army, to being pushed to be a Queen in a very, very short period of time, a few days at most. She was an interesting character though, and I enjoyed the fact that she was already married and in a very healthy relationship with her husband. Her husband Beren was a runesmith and very good at his trade, if he wanted to be rich he could have but instead he paid his workers well, gave them good benefits, made fair trade deals etc. So, they didn’t end up living in a mansion with people waiting on them but they were both happy with their lives despite all that and preferred it that way.
The worldbuilding in this was super intense, there are so many cool ideas and neat sorts of magic I won’t be able to name them all. There are handfuls of mages wandering around the world at any given time, and they all tend to specialize in a particular aspect of magic. Fire magic for warlocks, teleportation, necromancy, healing magics, rune magics etc. There are ants the size of dogs that build cities and castles for kings. There are
Although I liked the writing, I had a lot of problems with the pacing. There were so many POV’s that just kept coming and coming with many of them not related to one another and with no clear relation to the story when they are introduced, and some of them are introduced pretty late in the book as well. It makes for a book that you need to have a little patience for, it takes a while for everything to come together and start to build a bigger picture. It also takes a very long time for POV’s to circle back around and sometimes I’d forget what had happened, or I’d be invested in one person’s story only to switch over to a different POV.
This was a very ambitious book, when I looked up the author I was surprised to see it was a debut. I think that at 500+ pages and everything it tried to do it was an impressive first book. It needed to be reigned in a little bit in some places, and it nee
Audience:
multi pov
epic high fantasy
lots of magic
grimdark
posessed pov
in depth world building
longer books
super-powerful mc’s
demons
NOT for people who don’t like cursing
Ratings
Plot: 12/15
Characters: 10.5/15
World Building: 12.5/15
Writing: 11/15
Pacing: 8/15
Originality: 11/15
Personal Enjoyment: 7.25/10
Final Score: 72.25/100 or 3.61 recommended for target audience
I listened to this on audio, but I went ahead and bought the ebook as well to snag some of these names because there are so many. I’ll save you some time, if you only want either the ebook or the audio, do the ebook. I say that for a couple of reasons, the narrator has a super deep resonating voice and that rings through all of his male characters, it makes them sound kind of the same and it can get confusing when the pov’s switch, and they do that a lot. Secondly, there’s just so much to take in, this is an enormous book and the audio would be much better suited for a re-read.
This is a book of epic scope and it’s been a serious challenge trying to string it all together into a review. There are at least 4 different locations for over 10 POV characters and it isn’t clear how those POV’s were going to be related to each other through much of the book, they were their own separate worlds operating outside of one another through much of the book – to make it more complicated I can’t even really nail down a “main character”. So, here it goes!
Sacral is a city that had been teleported out of existence by it’s ruler and goddess, The White Mother. This had been a gift, not a punishment, they were taken into an other worldly realm outside of the planet to be granted 1,000 years of peace, but everyone knew of the fabled return to the land their ancestors once called home. The beginning of the book coincides with Sacral’s return to the world, and what that means for the kings of neighboring realms.
Sacral’s ruler is king Ansyl, an archmage that’s been ruling over the city for centuries under the guidance of the White Mother. Shortly after their return, the city is visited by a nation from Aboleth begging for their aid. Their homeland was being ripped apart by inhuman monsters and they’ve run out of places to turn. The White Mother supports them and instructs the king to send out his best men to go and fight the problem. Ansyl sends out a commander named Jenus to lead a team of mages, Chosen, and the military elite to go deal with the problem. This leaves Maura and her husband nervous because the city is losing most of it’s defenses. They are assured nothing will go wrong, but many, many things go wrong. The city gets attacked and what remains of the city guard and military are overwhelmed by the onslaught. Maura rallies the citizens of Sacral around her with makeshift weapons and start to build defenses around their homes – they then start kicking ass and taking names.
Over in the realm of Bialta, a young girl named Nial was beaten near to death by her father. When she approaches the point of death her soul meets a demon in the dark, and the demon convinces Nial to let herself be bound to the demon. When she wakes up afterwards she has entirely new powers and the two ‘girls’ are merged into one entity with both personas taking turns with the control over the girl’s body depending on which one of them was needed for the situation at hand. The girl and the demon, Zuli, start sacrificing people to harvest their souls – because Nial is young and mostly innocent, she refuses to take part in murders of innocent people, so they start to prey on the scum of the city.
Salt was a sailor who visited the wrong prostitute, she turned out to be a demon and after a night of exhaustive sexual excursions he wound up in the middle of a ritual to harvest his soul. It was stopped mid-way by the cities Night Guard, an elite fighting force that’s capable of dealing with demons. Shortly after he was recruited into their ranks and is now helping the Night Guard search for the person who is leaving mutilated bodies all over the city with dark magic residue (that’d be Nial’s doing).
Meanwhile, in a different part of the world a man named Carver is making obsene mutated animals from his test subjects. He’s working for a man named Drokga who is a tyrant ruling in Tolrahk Esal. He’s a power hungry man who wants to be a legend, he’s not happy that he’s feared and commands respect now, he wants that reputation to carry through the ages. Carver makes warped versions of dogs, horses, people, dragons and other things to help build up this nutjob’s army. Carver himself is cruel and sadistic, but not in the way I usually see. He doesn’t take pleasure in making people hurt, he just does it out of curiosity, he likes knowing what makes animals tick and he likes taking them apart. This is still just the plot and I’ve only just barely scratched the surface, this is an insanely intricate book and it took a long time for these POV’s to start to have meaning to one another.
I think my favorite character grouping was Nial, Zuli and Skeg. Nial and Zuli first approach Skeg out of a business arrangement where they would give him bodies to sell and in return they would have a safe space to perform their rituals and also get taught what magic Skeg knew on the side. This morphed from a cold and distrusting business arrangement to a family like atmosphere, Nial even started calling him uncle after a while, and there was genuine affection flowing from both sides. It was a warped fucked up family of murderers who really cared for one another. Weird, but it worked for me.
Carver was an uncomfortable POV for me to read about, animal abuse is one of those things that really makes me squirm and it happened a few times here. There are also slaves where Carver is living and their lives are atrocious, this POV brought out the darkest aspects of the book and put them on display.
I had some problems with believability in Maura’s POV, she goes from housewife, the a commander of a small army, to being pushed to be a Queen in a very, very short period of time, a few days at most. She was an interesting character though, and I enjoyed the fact that she was already married and in a very healthy relationship with her husband. Her husband Beren was a runesmith and very good at his trade, if he wanted to be rich he could have but instead he paid his workers well, gave them good benefits, made fair trade deals etc. So, they didn’t end up living in a mansion with people waiting on them but they were both happy with their lives despite all that and preferred it that way.
The worldbuilding in this was super intense, there are so many cool ideas and neat sorts of magic I won’t be able to name them all. There are handfuls of mages wandering around the world at any given time, and they all tend to specialize in a particular aspect of magic. Fire magic for warlocks, teleportation, necromancy, healing magics, rune magics etc. There are ants the size of dogs that build cities and castles for kings. There are
Although I liked the writing, I had a lot of problems with the pacing. There were so many POV’s that just kept coming and coming with many of them not related to one another and with no clear relation to the story when they are introduced, and some of them are introduced pretty late in the book as well. It makes for a book that you need to have a little patience for, it takes a while for everything to come together and start to build a bigger picture. It also takes a very long time for POV’s to circle back around and sometimes I’d forget what had happened, or I’d be invested in one person’s story only to switch over to a different POV.
This was a very ambitious book, when I looked up the author I was surprised to see it was a debut. I think that at 500+ pages and everything it tried to do it was an impressive first book. It needed to be reigned in a little bit in some places, and it nee
Audience:
multi pov
epic high fantasy
lots of magic
grimdark
posessed pov
in depth world building
longer books
super-powerful mc’s
demons
NOT for people who don’t like cursing
Ratings
Plot: 12/15
Characters: 10.5/15
World Building: 12.5/15
Writing: 11/15
Pacing: 8/15
Originality: 11/15
Personal Enjoyment: 7.25/10
Final Score: 72.25/100 or 3.61 recommended for target audience
October 30, 2018
I'll be honest, when I first crack open a 500-page book, I half expect I will need to talk myself into continuing a few times and that the story may be slow-to-build. This was not the case with Bones of the Past. The story bolts off like a greyhound out of the gate, and Munro creates such vivid characters and an enticing world that this epic fantasy garnered page-turner status for me.
The book follows multiple storylines that cross and weave over each other as the story progresses. Without giving too much away, my favorite character was Nial, a young girl whose soul is bound with that of a demon - Zuli. The richly-developed characters balanced perfectly with the epic battles and I found myself excited to catch up with each character as they came round again.
If you are an epic-fantasy devotee, then this is absolutely the book for you.
The book follows multiple storylines that cross and weave over each other as the story progresses. Without giving too much away, my favorite character was Nial, a young girl whose soul is bound with that of a demon - Zuli. The richly-developed characters balanced perfectly with the epic battles and I found myself excited to catch up with each character as they came round again.
If you are an epic-fantasy devotee, then this is absolutely the book for you.
April 27, 2017
4.5/5
****I received this book from NetGalley and Inkshares Publishing in exchange for an honest review!****
Wow. This book was A LOT. This is definitely not a book that you can casually pick up and read a bit at a time and hope to keep everything straight after putting it down for any amount of time. I read this in just a few long stretches and STILL had some times where I wasn't sure what was happening, but I'll put that down to just not being used to epic fantasies like this and nothing the book/author did wrong.
That said, the only perspectives I really didn't care for was that of Jenus and sometimes Maura, but that's mostly because liked Salt, Nial and Carver so much I would rather have focused on just them most of the time and overall didn't feel like I missed much I'm the overall story when I ended up skimming those sections a bit. Unfortunately I felt that if I didn't skim the parts that bored me, I would have DNF'd this and that's sad. This is why I deducted the 0.5 star. I didn't take more off because part of this might have been easier to deal with in a physical copy and I read this as an ebook.
As I said before, I'm still pretty new to the epic fantasy genre and so the plethora of different POVs still give me a hard time, but anyone who is comfortable with it will probably devour this book.
The magic was fun, if overpowered, but sometimes I like that. It gave me Dragonball Z vibes with massively powerful godlike beings just go at each other and let's see what happens.
Overall, I'm incredibly grateful for being given a chance to read this and will be very interested in reading future books.
****I received this book from NetGalley and Inkshares Publishing in exchange for an honest review!****
Wow. This book was A LOT. This is definitely not a book that you can casually pick up and read a bit at a time and hope to keep everything straight after putting it down for any amount of time. I read this in just a few long stretches and STILL had some times where I wasn't sure what was happening, but I'll put that down to just not being used to epic fantasies like this and nothing the book/author did wrong.
That said, the only perspectives I really didn't care for was that of Jenus and sometimes Maura, but that's mostly because liked Salt, Nial and Carver so much I would rather have focused on just them most of the time and overall didn't feel like I missed much I'm the overall story when I ended up skimming those sections a bit. Unfortunately I felt that if I didn't skim the parts that bored me, I would have DNF'd this and that's sad. This is why I deducted the 0.5 star. I didn't take more off because part of this might have been easier to deal with in a physical copy and I read this as an ebook.
As I said before, I'm still pretty new to the epic fantasy genre and so the plethora of different POVs still give me a hard time, but anyone who is comfortable with it will probably devour this book.
The magic was fun, if overpowered, but sometimes I like that. It gave me Dragonball Z vibes with massively powerful godlike beings just go at each other and let's see what happens.
Overall, I'm incredibly grateful for being given a chance to read this and will be very interested in reading future books.
May 20, 2017
This met my expectations for epic fantasy. It has multiple main characters, each with their own storyline. It takes place in a world I don't know. It's got a little bit of everything - war, adventure, magic, dragons, religion, unsuspecting heros, demons . . . seriously, it's all here.
I thought the character development was really well done. The book does take some time to build momentum, but I think that is necessary to do the world building so you understand the nuances of the cultures and characters. Each main character has their own story, with their own supporting cast and trials, and it is not clear exactly how - or if - they will affect each other later. As the first in a series, this book laid a fair amount of ground work and I hope it pays off in future installments.
For a debut novel, this was a really good effort.
I thought the character development was really well done. The book does take some time to build momentum, but I think that is necessary to do the world building so you understand the nuances of the cultures and characters. Each main character has their own story, with their own supporting cast and trials, and it is not clear exactly how - or if - they will affect each other later. As the first in a series, this book laid a fair amount of ground work and I hope it pays off in future installments.
For a debut novel, this was a really good effort.
September 16, 2017
Received this book as Giveaway winner!
I absolutely loved this book! This was such a breath of fresh air. Being not able to compare this book to others in its genre was so refreshing. Can't wait to read the second book! :)
I absolutely loved this book! This was such a breath of fresh air. Being not able to compare this book to others in its genre was so refreshing. Can't wait to read the second book! :)
October 11, 2018
Really enjoyed the book (thanks Norm for the tip). Very much looking forward to the sequel.
March 6, 2018
Like some of the other readers I found it slow to start, primarily because he was laying the ground work for the world he created and situating his characters. That probably took the first 200 pages or so, but once that was done the rest of the book took off like a rocket. I can't wait to read the next installment. There will be a next installment, right - Craig?
May 25, 2021
Salt, ein Seemann, tritt der Nachtwache (im engl. Night Guard) bei, die dafür zuständig ist, übernatürliche Gefahren im Königreich Bialta auszuschalten. Währenddessen entwickelt sich das junge Mädchen Nial durch die Verschmelzung mit einem Dämon zu einer solchen Gefahr. Doch auch andere Orte sind nicht sicher. Sacral, eine Stadt, die Lange Zeit verschwunden war, kehrt wieder in die normale Welt zurück, und ihre Einwohner müssen einsehen, dass sie nicht so sicher sind, wie sie einst glaubten. Währenddessen beginnt Carver, der letzte, der die Magie des flashcarvings beherrscht, sich das Vertrauen des Herrschers von Tolrahk Esal zu erarbeiten, um die Welt mit seinen furchtbaren Kreaturen in Krieg zu hüllen.
Zu Beginn wird der Leser direkt ins kalte Wasser geschmissen und die Handlung nimmt direkt Fahrt auf. Von da an kommt sie auch nie zum Stehen. Dadurch ist das Buch einerseits extrem spannend, andererseits fehlen an einigen Stellen ausführlichere Erklärungen und das hohe Tempo sorgt dafür, dass manche Dinge einfach zu schnell geschehen. So sind Kämpfe oft etwas kurz, Charaktere machen viel zu schnell viel zu große (Lern-)Fortschritte und vertrauen einander von einem Moment auf den anderen. Dadurch fühlt sich die Handlung oft etwas unnatürlich an. Ein etwas ausgewogeneres Verhältnis zwischen schnellen und ausführlicheren Handlungssträngen wäre für mich realistischer gewesen und hätte dem Buch gutgetan.
Ein weiterer Problempunkt, der sich zumindeste teilweise aus dem hohen Tempo der Geschichte ergibt, ist der Schreibstil. Dieser ist insgesamt recht steif. Der Autor erklärt zwar immer, was zu sehen ist und was passiert, doch ohne dabei Emotionen zu wecken. Dies fühlt sich stellenweise so an, als würde einfach nur Sachverhalte erklärt wie in einem Sachbuch. Mit etwas mehr Seiten, die dazu verwendet werden könnten, um einzelnen Szenen mehr Spannung und Emotionen zu verleihen, könnte das Buch nochmal deutlich besser sein.
Eine Besonderheit des Buchs stellen für mich die Charaktere dar. Diese sind meiner Meinung nach zwar eher durchschnittlich und können sich von Charakteren aus anderen-Fantasy-Büchern kaum abheben, sind aber dadurch so besonders, dass die meisten bereits vor Beginn oder im Verlauf des Buchs extrem stark sind/werden. Das müssen sie jedoch auch sein, denn die Welt ist voll von übernatürlich starken Personen und Völkern. Für mich war einer der interessantesten Charaktere Carver, der mithilfe seiner besonderen Fähigkeit die Körper von Lebewesen transformieren und so die verschiedensten Kreaturen schaffen kann. Auch die Nachtwache ist eine faszinierende Gruppe unterschiedlichster Charaktere. Hier hätte ich mir jedoch gewünscht, dass auf die einzelnen Nachtwächter und deren Beziehungen untereinander näher eingegangen worden wären. Aktuell wirken diese nämlich – abgesehen von Salt, dem POV-Nachtwächter – sehr eindimensional.
Das Worldbuilding ist gut und weckt Interesse auf mehr. Viele verschiedene Nationen und humanoide Wesen bevölkern die scheinbar riesige Welt. Außerdem greift der Autor wiederholt auf die (scheinbar) recht ausführliche Geschichte der Welt zurück. Zwar fehlen bisher einige Ausführungen, die die Welt weiter verbessern würden, aber die können in späteren Büchern noch „nachgereicht“ werden. Es wäre außerdem nett, wenn der Folgeband eine Karte bekäme, um die Welt noch einmal zu verbildlichen (die fehlende Karte stört aber auch nicht).
Auch Magie spielt eine große Rolle in dem Buch, denn mehrere Hauptcharaktere sind Magier. Wie die Magie funktioniert wird zwar nicht genau beschrieben, jedoch es gibt immer wieder einzelne kurze Erklärungen. Durch diese kurzen Erklärungen werden dem Leser im Verlauf des Buchs langsam einige Grundkenntnisse der Magie in der Welt des Buchs beigebracht. Da der Leser das Verständnis so nebenbei erlangt – ohne für die Charaktere unnötige Ausführungen –, fühlt sich der „Lerneffekt“ des Lesers natürlicher an, was für mich einen positiven Aspekt darstellt.
Für mich ist The Bones of the Past ein starkes Debüt, das auf Großes hoffen lässt. Die meisten meiner Kritikpunkte hätten durch eine ausführlichere Variante des Buchs mit mehr Seiten gelöst werden können. Außerdem hat es das Buch geschafft, mich aus einem Lesetief zu holen, was etwa fünf oder sechs andere Bücher, die ich nach den ersten 50 Seiten wieder weglegte, nicht konnten. Das gibt dem Buch in meinen Augen Extrapunkte. Ich freue mich schon darauf (hoffentlich bald) wieder in die Welt von The Bones of the Past eintauchen zu können.
Zu Beginn wird der Leser direkt ins kalte Wasser geschmissen und die Handlung nimmt direkt Fahrt auf. Von da an kommt sie auch nie zum Stehen. Dadurch ist das Buch einerseits extrem spannend, andererseits fehlen an einigen Stellen ausführlichere Erklärungen und das hohe Tempo sorgt dafür, dass manche Dinge einfach zu schnell geschehen. So sind Kämpfe oft etwas kurz, Charaktere machen viel zu schnell viel zu große (Lern-)Fortschritte und vertrauen einander von einem Moment auf den anderen. Dadurch fühlt sich die Handlung oft etwas unnatürlich an. Ein etwas ausgewogeneres Verhältnis zwischen schnellen und ausführlicheren Handlungssträngen wäre für mich realistischer gewesen und hätte dem Buch gutgetan.
Ein weiterer Problempunkt, der sich zumindeste teilweise aus dem hohen Tempo der Geschichte ergibt, ist der Schreibstil. Dieser ist insgesamt recht steif. Der Autor erklärt zwar immer, was zu sehen ist und was passiert, doch ohne dabei Emotionen zu wecken. Dies fühlt sich stellenweise so an, als würde einfach nur Sachverhalte erklärt wie in einem Sachbuch. Mit etwas mehr Seiten, die dazu verwendet werden könnten, um einzelnen Szenen mehr Spannung und Emotionen zu verleihen, könnte das Buch nochmal deutlich besser sein.
Eine Besonderheit des Buchs stellen für mich die Charaktere dar. Diese sind meiner Meinung nach zwar eher durchschnittlich und können sich von Charakteren aus anderen-Fantasy-Büchern kaum abheben, sind aber dadurch so besonders, dass die meisten bereits vor Beginn oder im Verlauf des Buchs extrem stark sind/werden. Das müssen sie jedoch auch sein, denn die Welt ist voll von übernatürlich starken Personen und Völkern. Für mich war einer der interessantesten Charaktere Carver, der mithilfe seiner besonderen Fähigkeit die Körper von Lebewesen transformieren und so die verschiedensten Kreaturen schaffen kann. Auch die Nachtwache ist eine faszinierende Gruppe unterschiedlichster Charaktere. Hier hätte ich mir jedoch gewünscht, dass auf die einzelnen Nachtwächter und deren Beziehungen untereinander näher eingegangen worden wären. Aktuell wirken diese nämlich – abgesehen von Salt, dem POV-Nachtwächter – sehr eindimensional.
Das Worldbuilding ist gut und weckt Interesse auf mehr. Viele verschiedene Nationen und humanoide Wesen bevölkern die scheinbar riesige Welt. Außerdem greift der Autor wiederholt auf die (scheinbar) recht ausführliche Geschichte der Welt zurück. Zwar fehlen bisher einige Ausführungen, die die Welt weiter verbessern würden, aber die können in späteren Büchern noch „nachgereicht“ werden. Es wäre außerdem nett, wenn der Folgeband eine Karte bekäme, um die Welt noch einmal zu verbildlichen (die fehlende Karte stört aber auch nicht).
Auch Magie spielt eine große Rolle in dem Buch, denn mehrere Hauptcharaktere sind Magier. Wie die Magie funktioniert wird zwar nicht genau beschrieben, jedoch es gibt immer wieder einzelne kurze Erklärungen. Durch diese kurzen Erklärungen werden dem Leser im Verlauf des Buchs langsam einige Grundkenntnisse der Magie in der Welt des Buchs beigebracht. Da der Leser das Verständnis so nebenbei erlangt – ohne für die Charaktere unnötige Ausführungen –, fühlt sich der „Lerneffekt“ des Lesers natürlicher an, was für mich einen positiven Aspekt darstellt.
Für mich ist The Bones of the Past ein starkes Debüt, das auf Großes hoffen lässt. Die meisten meiner Kritikpunkte hätten durch eine ausführlichere Variante des Buchs mit mehr Seiten gelöst werden können. Außerdem hat es das Buch geschafft, mich aus einem Lesetief zu holen, was etwa fünf oder sechs andere Bücher, die ich nach den ersten 50 Seiten wieder weglegte, nicht konnten. Das gibt dem Buch in meinen Augen Extrapunkte. Ich freue mich schon darauf (hoffentlich bald) wieder in die Welt von The Bones of the Past eintauchen zu können.
July 10, 2017
I enjoyed this book, but I was blown away by the characters. The uniqueness, creativity and depths of the characters are really the highlight of this book. Any one of them could have been the focus of a whole book themselves. The fact that they’re all in this one novel, is actually the weak point of the narrative. The world is rich, full, and well thought out. The characters are outstanding and well developed. The writing style is really good, especially considering it’s a debut novel. However, the plot, while exciting, doesn’t have a really strong through line. It is an epic tale with lots of moving pieces and I’m sure that once the series as a whole is complete it will be an extraordinary saga. As a standalone first chapter of a series though, the ending of this book was unsatisfying with too many threads left hanging and unresolved. Also there was a plot point with the King that seemed to come out of nowhere. With no foreshadowing it didn’t feel earned and seemed unnecessary at the end of the book.
I do truly look forward to the next chapter to see where it all goes and to spend time with these characters again. Despite my few qualms, I would certainly recommend this to anyone who enjoys fantasy.
I do truly look forward to the next chapter to see where it all goes and to spend time with these characters again. Despite my few qualms, I would certainly recommend this to anyone who enjoys fantasy.
May 12, 2019
A wonderful introduction to a new fantasy world. True to the reviews on its cover, this book does turn fantasy on its ear but in a very good way. This is the first book in what will be a trilogy (unless Craig can manage to make it longer - just a suggestion). We get a very good look at the main characters, which are quite well developed and a very mismatched bunch. I very much want to learn about the further adventures of Nial, Zully, Skeg, Salt and especially Shade. Who or maybe what exactly is Shade?
I am waiting patiently for the next installment - hopefully it will not be too much longer.
I am waiting patiently for the next installment - hopefully it will not be too much longer.
April 19, 2018
The Bones of the Past is an ambitious novel. It builds out a lot of world and introduces a ton of unique characters. It's the first part of a series of unknown length. However, it bites off a bit more than it can chew and left me with a feeling of indigestion.
There's a lot going on in this novel, so bear with me here. The city of Sacral returns from another plane to a wasteland and is confronted by a changed world from the one it originally left. A sailor is attacked by a monster and starts a new career as a monster hunter in the Night Guard. A child is fused with a power beyond her control and forced to grow up very quickly in the city of Bialta. Finally, a mysterious mage comes to Tolrakh Esal to sell his powerful wares to a petty tyrant.
These are all the very basest descriptions of the half dozen plots in this novel. Supporting these plots are dozens of characters introduced over the course of 500 something pages. What's amazing is that these places and characters have distinct voices. The characters may be a little flat, but I could recognize them and their motivations by the end of the story. It's a feat for Munro to pull these all into a fairly short novel (500 pages being the bare minimum for a large scale fantasy series such as this).
Unfortunately, all these characters and places don't leave much room for a deep plot. It's like we've drawn the map, put all these pieces on the map, drew a couple lines connecting some but not all of them, and called it a day. It's a lot of place setting for more stories without much story in this novel. If I were asked to describe the main plot in this novel, I could identify that (which is good), but I could cover it with a couple sentences. The rest of the subplots may be supporting it in the long run, but they're fairly separate right now. This problem is made even worse by the fact that the conclusion of the main plot is extremely anti-climatic, and introduces yet another character.
When I think about the other fantasy series' that inspired this one, such as A Song of Ice and Fire or The Malazan Book of the Dead, I also see a lot of characters and a lot of subplots, but they're all given spotlights and they're not all started in the same novel. The Bones of the Past feels like we're starting a huge series without much respect to the individual novel. I liked it, truly, but I wish it did more with less. Am I likely to review the next book in this series? Yes, but if it puts more characters on the table without doing more with these characters, I won't be happy about it.
There's a lot going on in this novel, so bear with me here. The city of Sacral returns from another plane to a wasteland and is confronted by a changed world from the one it originally left. A sailor is attacked by a monster and starts a new career as a monster hunter in the Night Guard. A child is fused with a power beyond her control and forced to grow up very quickly in the city of Bialta. Finally, a mysterious mage comes to Tolrakh Esal to sell his powerful wares to a petty tyrant.
These are all the very basest descriptions of the half dozen plots in this novel. Supporting these plots are dozens of characters introduced over the course of 500 something pages. What's amazing is that these places and characters have distinct voices. The characters may be a little flat, but I could recognize them and their motivations by the end of the story. It's a feat for Munro to pull these all into a fairly short novel (500 pages being the bare minimum for a large scale fantasy series such as this).
Unfortunately, all these characters and places don't leave much room for a deep plot. It's like we've drawn the map, put all these pieces on the map, drew a couple lines connecting some but not all of them, and called it a day. It's a lot of place setting for more stories without much story in this novel. If I were asked to describe the main plot in this novel, I could identify that (which is good), but I could cover it with a couple sentences. The rest of the subplots may be supporting it in the long run, but they're fairly separate right now. This problem is made even worse by the fact that the conclusion of the main plot is extremely anti-climatic, and introduces yet another character.
When I think about the other fantasy series' that inspired this one, such as A Song of Ice and Fire or The Malazan Book of the Dead, I also see a lot of characters and a lot of subplots, but they're all given spotlights and they're not all started in the same novel. The Bones of the Past feels like we're starting a huge series without much respect to the individual novel. I liked it, truly, but I wish it did more with less. Am I likely to review the next book in this series? Yes, but if it puts more characters on the table without doing more with these characters, I won't be happy about it.
November 22, 2017
I was lucky enough to have won this in a goodreads giveaway.
A different kind of fantasy than your usual run of the mill representation of the genre.
I had a mission to sit down with books I wouldn't normally pick. Fantasy isn't really my jam...I don't have a jam, actually. I'm jamless. I enjoyed this very much. The size and length of the book is intimidating, but it reads quickly. Read it in less than a week. And like most everyone else my time is precious. I didn't care. I read in places you shouldn't. Like a less cute Belle from Beauty and the Beast, standing in line and walking through parking lots with my nose in a book.
Worth it! Thanks again goodreads!
A different kind of fantasy than your usual run of the mill representation of the genre.
I had a mission to sit down with books I wouldn't normally pick. Fantasy isn't really my jam...I don't have a jam, actually. I'm jamless. I enjoyed this very much. The size and length of the book is intimidating, but it reads quickly. Read it in less than a week. And like most everyone else my time is precious. I didn't care. I read in places you shouldn't. Like a less cute Belle from Beauty and the Beast, standing in line and walking through parking lots with my nose in a book.
Worth it! Thanks again goodreads!
October 25, 2017
Beren and Maura are citizens of Sacral, a city that has only just reappeared from its secret place after a thousand years, only to become the target of foul plots. As a master runesmith, Beren must use his knowledge to help the defense of the city by injecting magic into weapons and implements. Maura will be tested in other ways.
Salt is a sailor who became the unwitting victim of a witch and was saved by the Night Guard, the elite soldiers of the city of Bialta. After a night of celebration, Salt finds himself a new member of that group, and must train hard to become a worthy soldier.
Nial is a young girl who’s lost her mother, and her father, a smith, is wasting all their money on drink in the lower city. Every night he comes home and unleashes his ire upon the girl. One day, however, a young demoness from another dimension comes to her aid, and from that point forth, they become fused as one.
There are many more characters, and many more stories to be told in this world, and Munro brings them all to the fore in a logical and methodical way. The reader progresses at a natural pace, even though, once the book is considered as a whole, there is a lot to remember. The world-building is flawless, and every character knows his or her place, jostling for supremacy in this wild environment.
Each city-state was constructed with care, and have unique characteristics. One feels the size and the girth of constructions while reading, and once again, it is effortless. I think the thing I enjoyed the most was the feeling of being there, along with the myriad characters, as a bird over their shoulder might, following each story.
How much did I enjoy this book? I read it in one sitting. I am very much looking forward to the second in the series, and every other book that Munro comes out with after that.
Salt is a sailor who became the unwitting victim of a witch and was saved by the Night Guard, the elite soldiers of the city of Bialta. After a night of celebration, Salt finds himself a new member of that group, and must train hard to become a worthy soldier.
Nial is a young girl who’s lost her mother, and her father, a smith, is wasting all their money on drink in the lower city. Every night he comes home and unleashes his ire upon the girl. One day, however, a young demoness from another dimension comes to her aid, and from that point forth, they become fused as one.
There are many more characters, and many more stories to be told in this world, and Munro brings them all to the fore in a logical and methodical way. The reader progresses at a natural pace, even though, once the book is considered as a whole, there is a lot to remember. The world-building is flawless, and every character knows his or her place, jostling for supremacy in this wild environment.
Each city-state was constructed with care, and have unique characteristics. One feels the size and the girth of constructions while reading, and once again, it is effortless. I think the thing I enjoyed the most was the feeling of being there, along with the myriad characters, as a bird over their shoulder might, following each story.
How much did I enjoy this book? I read it in one sitting. I am very much looking forward to the second in the series, and every other book that Munro comes out with after that.
May 1, 2018
I received an autographed copy of this book through Goodreads giveaway. Thanks for introducing me to a very talented new author! I am really impressed that this is Munro's first foray and will anxiously await the next novel. His imagination is impressive, pacing very engaging, and character development intriguing. I am a big fan of this new author!!
January 6, 2018
Just wow. I'll be telling anyone into fantasy to read this book. RIGHT.NOW.
Why isn't this book in a list of top 20 fantasy for 2017?
Patiently-crafted storytelling with masterful finesse. World-building is relentless.
Not for: Readers who want the familiar pacing of trending fantasy tropes.
For: Readers who want new fantasy
Why isn't this book in a list of top 20 fantasy for 2017?
Patiently-crafted storytelling with masterful finesse. World-building is relentless.
Not for: Readers who want the familiar pacing of trending fantasy tropes.
For: Readers who want new fantasy
July 4, 2017
The Bones of the Past is a stunning debut fantasy novel. This book has so much to offer fans of the genre and newcomers alike. Loads of great characters, a plethora of fantastic locations, and a great culmination to end the first book on. I can't wait for the next installment.
July 18, 2017
I really enjoyed this book. It was fast-paced with a lot of action, intriguing settings and good character development. I had a hard time putting it down and am very much looking forward to the next book to see what happens next!
June 6, 2018
I won this as a Goodreads first read.
Really good! Full of really cool ideas, interesting magic, awesome characters and an epic kingdoms vying for power, this first book In the books of dust and bone series is great.
though, it does jump around from character to character, and there is quite a few to remember, once you get the feel for who's who it's a great read. Since I know this is just book one, i can totally tell that Bones of the Past is just a set up for the epicness that is to come in the next books!
I definitely recommend this book to anyone and everyone.
Really good! Full of really cool ideas, interesting magic, awesome characters and an epic kingdoms vying for power, this first book In the books of dust and bone series is great.
though, it does jump around from character to character, and there is quite a few to remember, once you get the feel for who's who it's a great read. Since I know this is just book one, i can totally tell that Bones of the Past is just a set up for the epicness that is to come in the next books!
I definitely recommend this book to anyone and everyone.
July 30, 2017
Outstanding.
I tend to open books from new authors with a huge amount of skepticism, and this book was no different. I like who I like, and, sometimes, it gets in the way of me reading new authors.
Craig A. Munro may have actually changed how I think about being so stubborn. His style is refreshing, the world is new and can't be clearly traced to one or two other books, and he has set a pace in his story that causes for the reader (or me at least) to have difficulty in finding a good place to take a break and put it down.
Try this guy out. Even for those who don't like fantasy books, you'll find at least two of the lead characters relatable. Munro has such a strong grasp on relaying their point of view to the reader that it's inevitable that you will experience what the characters are going through as if there yourself.
Like I said, outstanding.
I tend to open books from new authors with a huge amount of skepticism, and this book was no different. I like who I like, and, sometimes, it gets in the way of me reading new authors.
Craig A. Munro may have actually changed how I think about being so stubborn. His style is refreshing, the world is new and can't be clearly traced to one or two other books, and he has set a pace in his story that causes for the reader (or me at least) to have difficulty in finding a good place to take a break and put it down.
Try this guy out. Even for those who don't like fantasy books, you'll find at least two of the lead characters relatable. Munro has such a strong grasp on relaying their point of view to the reader that it's inevitable that you will experience what the characters are going through as if there yourself.
Like I said, outstanding.
June 29, 2017
Bones of the Past is absolutely unlike any of the other fantasy novels I've read. Heed my warning now: Do not approach this book expecting a slow-building narrative throughline. This story doesn't have the same layer-within-layer plots of The Song of Ice and Fire. It doesn't have the character journey of Lord of the Rings.
Bones of the Past hits the ground running and never lets up. Armies are on the march, mad wizards plot for domination of lords and the overthrow of gods, and demons claw at their cages to wreak destruction on the world of mortals. Bones of the Past is to fantasy novels what a massive Role-playing-game like Dragon Age is to video games. Don't be surprised to find that the 'magic system' in Bones isn't really well explained - because magic is just part of the world. Don't be surprised to see that many characters in Bones' cast are blessed with crazy powers and world-rending artifacts and weapons. This book is on steroids!
And I think that's the point - this is HIGH-powered fantasy. This is that epic-level Dungeons & Dragons campaign you and your buds always swore you'd run someday - we're talking the upper 20s and 30s here, where the Gods themselves are hunted and overthrown.
There are several character threads to follow in Bones - the sailor turned guardsman Salt, the half-demon half-human Zuly/Nial (respectively), the champion turned war-hero turned burnout Jenus, the fleshcarving wizard Carver, Maura- the widow who stands up for her people and ultimately becomes queen, and so many more. Craig A. Munro does an excellent job of keeping all of their trials and tribulations straight, and pacing out the chapters dedicated to each.
The story ends on the mother of all cliffhangers (which, for those in the know, is very apt description in this case), and the sample chapter of Munro's sequel "The Tides of Madness" was arguably the best part of this book. I cannot wait to see where these characters end up. Very well done!
Bones of the Past hits the ground running and never lets up. Armies are on the march, mad wizards plot for domination of lords and the overthrow of gods, and demons claw at their cages to wreak destruction on the world of mortals. Bones of the Past is to fantasy novels what a massive Role-playing-game like Dragon Age is to video games. Don't be surprised to find that the 'magic system' in Bones isn't really well explained - because magic is just part of the world. Don't be surprised to see that many characters in Bones' cast are blessed with crazy powers and world-rending artifacts and weapons. This book is on steroids!
And I think that's the point - this is HIGH-powered fantasy. This is that epic-level Dungeons & Dragons campaign you and your buds always swore you'd run someday - we're talking the upper 20s and 30s here, where the Gods themselves are hunted and overthrown.
There are several character threads to follow in Bones - the sailor turned guardsman Salt, the half-demon half-human Zuly/Nial (respectively), the champion turned war-hero turned burnout Jenus, the fleshcarving wizard Carver, Maura- the widow who stands up for her people and ultimately becomes queen, and so many more. Craig A. Munro does an excellent job of keeping all of their trials and tribulations straight, and pacing out the chapters dedicated to each.
The story ends on the mother of all cliffhangers (which, for those in the know, is very apt description in this case), and the sample chapter of Munro's sequel "The Tides of Madness" was arguably the best part of this book. I cannot wait to see where these characters end up. Very well done!
August 15, 2017
There are threats to the people in the kingdom of Bialta that one cannot always see. And even when they can be seen, they are not easy to defeat. The Night Guard, an elite and specially trained force, are responsible for rooting out these threats and eliminating them. Salt never expected that he would find himself among their ranks, yet here he is.
Nial hasn't had the greatest childhood. Her father is not the most attentive, and he's quite fond of the drink. So when a mysterious new friend arrives and offers her power beyond her imagination, she takes it. But the power may be darker than Nial understood, and there's a chance this power may also be beyond her control.
Add to this the mysterious reappearance of a long-lost city and the rise of a vicious tyrant, and the relatively quiet lives of the people of Bialta--and the world--are about to be changed in unexpected ways.
I wasn't entirely sure what to expect when I picked this book up. Yes, I read the blurb, as I always do. But I guess I hadn't expected just the sheer amount of people and places that the reader is introduced to here. That said, the author does an excellent job of keeping everything clearly defined for readers to follow. Their motivations aren't always entirely clear, but that's part of the mystery that I anticipate will be revealed in future installments. I am looking forward to seeing where this story goes.
[Disclaimer: This review is based on an advance reading copy provided by the publisher via Edelweiss.]
Nial hasn't had the greatest childhood. Her father is not the most attentive, and he's quite fond of the drink. So when a mysterious new friend arrives and offers her power beyond her imagination, she takes it. But the power may be darker than Nial understood, and there's a chance this power may also be beyond her control.
Add to this the mysterious reappearance of a long-lost city and the rise of a vicious tyrant, and the relatively quiet lives of the people of Bialta--and the world--are about to be changed in unexpected ways.
I wasn't entirely sure what to expect when I picked this book up. Yes, I read the blurb, as I always do. But I guess I hadn't expected just the sheer amount of people and places that the reader is introduced to here. That said, the author does an excellent job of keeping everything clearly defined for readers to follow. Their motivations aren't always entirely clear, but that's part of the mystery that I anticipate will be revealed in future installments. I am looking forward to seeing where this story goes.
[Disclaimer: This review is based on an advance reading copy provided by the publisher via Edelweiss.]
June 28, 2017
Bones of the Past is the first installment in a new epic fantasy series by Craig Munro. It tells a sprawling tale weaving together stories from dozens of characters across an entire continent in a high-fantasy setting. The novel strongly reminded me of the Book of the Malazan Fallen series by Stephen Erikson, and is a powerful debut novel from Munro.
I enjoyed this novel and devouring its pages felt effortless. The characters are all well-realised, and the world-building is impressive. Munro has created an enormous world with a deep history. He has invested the time to provide us a fresh fantasy landscape, without relying on the cliches some fantasy series fall back on. This is a world that lives and breathes, unencombered by stereotyped races *coughpointyearedelvescough*.
Munro does a good job of weaving between his various plot threads and POVs, setting the stage for his different pieces to coalesce into a cohesive whole. However, he's playing the long game, and many of these threads remain separate at the end of the book. He doesn't completely abandon us here, with the stage primed for those pieces to come together in the next book, but it is something to be aware of going in — when you finish Bones of the Past, you'll be left wanting the second book (not yet out) in order to find satisfaction for some of those stories you've become invested in (for me, it is mostly to experience the rest of the Zuly / Nial arc).
Bones of the Past is a great novel for those who enjoy gritty, sprawling high fantasy such as that produced by Stephen Erikson.
I enjoyed this novel and devouring its pages felt effortless. The characters are all well-realised, and the world-building is impressive. Munro has created an enormous world with a deep history. He has invested the time to provide us a fresh fantasy landscape, without relying on the cliches some fantasy series fall back on. This is a world that lives and breathes, unencombered by stereotyped races *coughpointyearedelvescough*.
Munro does a good job of weaving between his various plot threads and POVs, setting the stage for his different pieces to coalesce into a cohesive whole. However, he's playing the long game, and many of these threads remain separate at the end of the book. He doesn't completely abandon us here, with the stage primed for those pieces to come together in the next book, but it is something to be aware of going in — when you finish Bones of the Past, you'll be left wanting the second book (not yet out) in order to find satisfaction for some of those stories you've become invested in (for me, it is mostly to experience the rest of the Zuly / Nial arc).
Bones of the Past is a great novel for those who enjoy gritty, sprawling high fantasy such as that produced by Stephen Erikson.
July 23, 2017
Craig A. Munro’s The Bones of the Past (The Books of Dust and Bone #1) was one of those books where I seesawed on my final ranking for quite some time, which is unusual for me. Part of my trouble was that the individual storylines were perfectly readable fantasy, even if none of them really had me fixated to each new page. A little more depth to the character development might have helped pull me into the book; Salt, particularly, went from a nobody sailor with a whore fixation to a commander of an elite anti-magic unit who never so much as glanced at another woman in a matter of months, which was a noteworthy accomplishment.
My real challenge came in when I took the book as a whole. The individual storylines were fine, but I could find very little linking them all together. Salt’s story and Nial’s had clear links, and towards the end of the book, you start to get the link between Salt, Nial, and the Tolrahkali. I still wasn’t precisely sure where the Sacral storyline fitted in when I closed the book, over 500 pages later. In addition to the fact that the storylines just never meshed for me, there were consistent grammatical issues throughout that kept grabbing my attention away from the characters’ predicaments. I couldn’t help but feel that this book would have merited a much higher ranking after a really strong developmental edit and a copy edit; the elements were definitely there, just not in its current form.
Reviewed for By Rite of Word.
My real challenge came in when I took the book as a whole. The individual storylines were fine, but I could find very little linking them all together. Salt’s story and Nial’s had clear links, and towards the end of the book, you start to get the link between Salt, Nial, and the Tolrahkali. I still wasn’t precisely sure where the Sacral storyline fitted in when I closed the book, over 500 pages later. In addition to the fact that the storylines just never meshed for me, there were consistent grammatical issues throughout that kept grabbing my attention away from the characters’ predicaments. I couldn’t help but feel that this book would have merited a much higher ranking after a really strong developmental edit and a copy edit; the elements were definitely there, just not in its current form.
Reviewed for By Rite of Word.
February 14, 2018
I won this book as part of a giveaway and I was really excited about it! The premise seemed strong, the world building seemed A-plus (I'm a sucker for fantasy books that require a deity glossary), and I was absolutely ready to love some new characters. Unfortunately, the writing in this book just wasn't for me and I haven't been able to bring myself to read past the first 100 pages.
There were some good ideas here, but the story lacks execution, and I think it could have benefited from another round of editing to help in that regard. For me, it suffers from too much "telling," instead of "showing." There was a lot of exposition in the characters' interactions with their world, and I was never able to feel that sense of literary tension in any of the story lines. The book made it pretty clear that these characters encountered trauma, but it never managed to make me care. And if I couldn't care about the characters, I couldn't see the point of continuing the story.
I've fought with this book for a long time. Maybe one day I'll be able to come back to this book and make it to the end, maybe I'll even like it overall. But today is not that day and I need to move on to other things.
There were some good ideas here, but the story lacks execution, and I think it could have benefited from another round of editing to help in that regard. For me, it suffers from too much "telling," instead of "showing." There was a lot of exposition in the characters' interactions with their world, and I was never able to feel that sense of literary tension in any of the story lines. The book made it pretty clear that these characters encountered trauma, but it never managed to make me care. And if I couldn't care about the characters, I couldn't see the point of continuing the story.
I've fought with this book for a long time. Maybe one day I'll be able to come back to this book and make it to the end, maybe I'll even like it overall. But today is not that day and I need to move on to other things.
May 16, 2017
Paced just right to keep you on the edge of your seat, Craig takes you on a journey across a land familiar enough to be welcoming and yet different enough to peak your curiosity and leave you wanting to know more. The characters, one and all, have a distinct feel to them that helps draw in the reader and make you feel for them during their trials. And just when you think you've figured things out and the "heros" are about to surmount their challenges, he slips a tiny nugget of things yet to come, tripping up both reader and characters. By the time I had about 50 pages left to go, the main stories were about to hit their crescendos leaving me eager to reach the end, yet dreading having no more book to read. A solid read, lots of fun and very much looking forward to the sequel!
May 14, 2017
If you like your epic fantasy bold and brash then Craig Munro’s The Bones of the Past is exactly what you need. The story scope is vast and rolls along at a tight pace. The fight scenes are a gory combination of human perseverance and magical enhancement. However, it’s the cast of characters that sets this book apart from normal fantasy adventures. There’s the usual smattering of good and bad, but it’s the characters that exist in the gray middle that I found the most fascinating. Humans, demons and gods all have a soul, and it’s great to see them in all their flawed beauty. I’m very much looking forward to Munro’s next installment.
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January 8, 2020Confession time: I uh seem to have LOST my copy of the physical book. It's somewhere in my apartment but I do not know exactly where. and it has been a bit too long since I was reading it to be sure i'd be able to follow along. If I do find the book i will have to start over again.
which I would do if I did find it, because the stuff I did manage to read was interesting and it would be good to know how things turn out for at least two of the characters.
which I would do if I did find it, because the stuff I did manage to read was interesting and it would be good to know how things turn out for at least two of the characters.
August 10, 2017
reading for City Book Reviews
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