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language: English
country: Aotearoa
year: 2019
form: novel
genre(s): fantasy, science fiction
series: The Endsong, #1
dates read: 12.6.22-17.6.22
Sascha Stronach’s The Dawnhounds is conceptually excellent so far (halfway through). fascinating world and world-building. the narrative voices are fun, although the sudden introduction of some new POVs was a bit jarring.
however, the introduction of elements of the magic system has been…a bit rough. sometimes not enough introduction and sometimes too much. this clunkiness unfortunately extends to some other aspects of the novel (the introduction of Yat’s bisexuality was clunky enough that it made me stop and go, “oh, that was clunky”), and one result is that the pacing is a bit uneven. it’ll be going mostly fine for a while and then it’ll just…stumble, which makes the stumbling stand out more.
I’m still loving it conceptually and mostly loving the content, just a little underwhelmed by the execution. looking forward to the second half.
I’ve now finished The Dawnhounds and rather than making a separate post I figured I might as well reblog this one because it sums up much of what I would say about the book in summary. incredible concept, good characters, I like all of the pieces, but the assembly just isn’t all the way there — yet, since this is apparently going to be the first book in a series, alas. hopefully the quality of the exposition and the pacing will improve in later installments, but the concept and even the imperfect assembly of this one was, for me, more than enough to carry me to the end of it and leave me satisfied enough to give it 4 stars (possibly slightly inflated but I feel good about the rating so I’ll let it stand). or satisfied except for all of the world-building questions that have now been raised.
people in the (mostly bad/mediocre) reviews on Storygraph were saying it’s been compared to The Locked Tomb and strictly in terms of its world-building I can sort of see why, in the same way where for much of the novel it isn’t clear whether the real-world cultural elements (especially the use of teo reo Māori, Italian, and Chinese) is meant to signal a direct connection to the present or whether it’s like The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps using Spanish and French to convey the multilingualism of the world without having to use a conlang.
on the one hand, I am, of course, intrigued by the amount of extrapolation that would be necessary to reach The Dawnhounds from our present; on the other hand, I am still kind of hoping that despite some of the names we get later in the novel it will ultimately turn out to be more like The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, not least because the idea that Māori and Italian will still be spoken in the same form some thousand(s of) years from now (timeframe details tbd) stretches my suspension of disbelief past its breaking point.
also can we not just get one cool new science fantasy novel that’s a standalone? must everything be series?
also the multiple perspectives thing is still bugging me! it’s solidly just Yat (plus interludes) for the first almost 30% of the book and then suddenly out of nowhere it’s alternating Yat and Sen (plus that one Sibbi chapter??). why? it would be one thing if it were like that one chapter in Ninefox Gambit where you get all the different fragmentary perspectives on what’s happening in the Fortress of Scattered Needles but instead it’s: one POV, one POV, one POV, oh suddenly alternating two POVs!, oh and one chapter from a third POV, but now back to just alternating POVs, and then at the end it mostly goes back to one POV.
moods: dark, emotional, grimy, mysterious