In the remote land of Laskar the seven ruling clans have vied with each other for power for over a century. The son of the Reavesburg Clan Chief, Rothgar, has been groomed all his life for a role supporting his elder brother, Jorik, in leading their kingdom when their father’s time finally comes to an end.
However, the rulers of their greatest rivals, the Vorund Clan, are in the grip of something older and far darker. They have been conquered by evil, a remnant from the time when the gods warred with one another and the world of Amuran collapsed into the Fallen Age.
Everything is about to change …
The first book in The Brotherhood of the Eagle series, Hall of Bones begins a tale of epic fantasy, magic and intrigue.
Devin
This is a really difficult book to review, because in a lot of ways it felt more like two separate books. Possibly three. The first part reads like diary entries, a day in the life of our POV Rothgar as he speeds from childhood to adulthood in a vacuum. I struggled a lot with this section because as an entirely non-visual human I need SOMETHING to give me a sense of place and in these early chapters there’s little to no description and no sensory grounding. Emotion is also thin on the ground, even the death of a good friend in battle seeming to pass with a shrug.
Thankfully I didn’t DNF at this point because from the 30%ish mark it starts to transition into its second part. This part was full of political intrigue, and while it sometimes pulled its punches by describing climatic moments after the fact, it was like we’d shifted into a totally different book and I was keen to keep reading.
From 60%ish it switches to a totally different story. We’re introduced to new characters, new magic, new evils, new goals, and in a lot of ways a completely new Rothgar. Despite the shock of the change I still enjoyed this second half, the gathering mystery around the magic compelling in a different way to the prior political intrigue. Also as someone with a chronic illness, I appreciated the quiet struggle Rothgar goes through with his health and that there was no magically Get Better potion to “fix” him. It’s position in the narrative flow does slow the book considerably however, just as it should be ramping up to the climax, and after the sudden change in focus I was left wondering where the book was going and what it was actually trying to do. Thankfully the end does answer this, bringing some of the disparate threads of the book together and shining a light upon the path ahead. Thanks to this it does feel rather like a prequel to a different story, which is more connected to what happens in the second half of the book than the first. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the odd structure of the book may throw a lot of people off. The structure is further confused by things like story threads that are begun only to be dropped, a secondary enemy who has an increasing amount of page time only to fizzle out, and parts of the story that are given huge weight early on, like Rothgar’s relationship with Desta, only to go nowhere and change nothing.
Apart from the aforementioned lack of sensory grounding and description, my biggest complaint about this book is it’s depiction of women. And no im not referring to the marriage of the 13yo girl some other judges have mentioned, nor even that women have very little power or presence in this society (to the point that Rothgar notes a number of times that he feels ashamed if a woman stands up for him). If that’s the story the author wants to tell then that’s their call, I’ll see where they decide to take it, but when women are introduced and described here it’s often via a version of “she was a LOOKS, sometimes hair colour BREAST SIZE woman”. By the end of the book I knew more about the female characters bra size than about them as people. The book also leans into the evil temptress trope, with every evil female being sensual, wearing diaphanous clothing and swinging their hips, trailing their fingers over men as they evilly tempt them toward evil with their evil sexy ways. The conflation of sexual=evil this trope perpetuates is… not great let’s say.
So, Hall of Bones is a fairly unique book, unusually paced and structured, which seems to be going in an interesting direction in a very thoroughly fleshed out world, but it also lets itself down with characters that don’t have the same depth as the history, a POV character with little to no agency who just does whatever he’s told, and a first 30% which is dry, like repeated days in the life of a Norse warrior kid we don’t care about yet. I’m giving Hall of Bones a 5.5
Adam
Hall of Bones is a coming of age story in a Norse inspired setting. A prince has to navigate his place in a world that keeps shifting him off balance, eventually finding himself in a war with far larger stakes than he ever expected.
After a promising prologue, I found the prose to be a little awkward. The characters had enough dimension to be interesting, but I never found myself caring about them all that much, which made a certain shocking moment less impactful than similar ones in other series.
The first half of the book is almost bereft of supernatural elements, with magic starting to play a much greater role in the next half. However, this second half overuses a magical sight ability, making a single POV split into four, but at a time when I was starting to be a little more invested in the main protagonist.
I think if you like twisty politicking and violent battles, in the vein of a small-scale Game of Thrones, this may appeal, but I would warn that this book feels almost akin to a prologue to a larger story.
5
Hiu
My thoughts on Hall of Bones feel somewhat contradictory. Now, I know that pretty much every review contains something to the effect of “it had some stuff I liked, and some stuff I didn’t”, but here it’s a little murkier. I’d like and dislike different aspects of the same thing.
What we have in Hall of Bones is a Norse raider type book, with the second son of the local leader, Rothgar, coming into adulthood amongst much fighting and politicking. And that last point is key. Rothgar distinguishes himself as much in the area of diplomacy as he does in battle.
I spent much of the first third waiting for the fantasy aspects to come to the fore. As much as I love political bartering, I do need me some magic fireball type shit in my fantasy. But despite that, I was enjoying myself to some extent. Those opening chapters had a very “day in the life” feel to them which made it easy to keep turning the pages. The writing was quite sparse on description, but the setting was familiar enough (and my imagination visual enough) to help fill in the gaps. But it was admittedly a little dry. There was very little Voice, whether in terms of narration or dialogue, to give the book a unique personality. The characters, too, never seemed to stray too far from their archetypes. Some of which were a little unfortunate, as my co-judges have mentioned.
At some point just after the halfway mark, though, I found myself hooked. Perhaps more so than with any other SPFBO book I’d read yet (this year, at least). A lot of the political maneuvering in the early-book culminated in a set of circumstances that caught my attention and my imagination. Parts of it may have felt a little bit derivative, with some Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings influences coming through, but I was willing to forgive that. Political diplomacy leading to violent consequences? I love that shit. Give me more.
But then those fantasy aspects that I had longed for did come to the fore. And… I really kinda wished they hadn’t. Without getting too spoiler-y, the way in which they were introduced necessitated a complete pivot in the type of book I’d thought Hall of Bone was trying to be (although, in fairness, there was some foreshadowing). And in my opinion, I don’t think this change in direction worked. Not that I thought there was anything wrong with the choice, but I wasn’t a fan of the implementation.
It’s something I can’t fully put my finger on. From a character standpoint, it seemed like a lot of the growth I’d seen up until that point had been abandoned. It felt too sharp a deviation. And as a whole, it just seemed like too late in the game for all the “newness” that was introduced. Which is a shame, as all the interest I had accumulated at the halfway point just kind of… Fizzled away.
So… Yeah. Structurally, I didn’t get on with this one. I thought it could almost have ended 30% sooner and let the last third act as the beginning of a new book. But with that said, I applaud the author for trying something different. I just wish it had worked for me a little more.
I’m scoring Hall of Bones a 5.5 out of 10.
