Good but not great, and certainly not worthy of the wild praise lavished on it in Amazon reviews.Nights of Villjamur reads like an opportunity missed. The world building is good, some of the non human races are fresh, and a couple of the main characters are well drawn (the albino military commander and non human investigator). Unfortunately the rest of the characters are all pretty much from the fantasy stock roster.The city of the title and centrepiece location of the book could also have been a star character. It has the gritty texture and disparity of wealth and opportunity that could have been exploited further. It just doesn't hit the tone that a China Mieville could have achieved.The writing is brisk and engaging, despite a few lapses with unecessarily exotic wording (and done infrequently so it jars more on the senses). Nothing that a decent editor would not have fixed.But despite the thankful lack of elves, the plot is founded on recognisable tropes, and all the invention and creativity is sadly frittered away. Mad emperor, feisty princess, noble thief, evil courtier: you get the picture.I found my copy in the bargain bucket, and I can understand why, it was entertaining, but there is no reason to follow up with the later books, and so no reason to keep hold of a copy. Mine is being donated to the school fayre. I'm a grim-dark fan in general, so finding a new book in the genre is always cause for celebration. However, maybe I've overdone it, because this book just was not as good as I thought it might be. There comes a point when the senseless death of main characters that I relate to starts annoying me more than anything else. There's a futility in the deaths in this book that makes me cringe. There's no purpose to them, no sense of their death being important or necessary to the overall story. The plot structure was interesting. Its really a kind of murder mystery, which was really cool. The overall plot is slow to emerge and very unclear for most of the book, but it does pick up. The prose is a bit strange. There's a sort of disconnect between the society and the world the characters live in and their way of speaking. It was a bit jarring to be in a medieval type world and hear such modern rhythms to the speech. Still, an overall interesting and captivating series. I really want to read what happens next and that's a good sign.
What do You think about Nights Of Villjamur (2012)?
DNF hard to follow. Graphic sex, including homosexual.
—gabi13v
