Fine

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erin1234 Avatar

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I am honestly not that impressed with The New Kingdom. Hui doesn't feel fleshed out as a character and since this is his origin story, I expected to feel more...anything.. towards him. The pacing is really fast, so we're not spending a lot of time at each part of his journey, making the skills he picks up seem unrealistically fast and the way he moves between groups silly. I hate the way Ahura is written. I think she has the potential to be a well developed and interesting character, but because we spend so little time with her she seems more like a male fantasy than an actual love interest. I think she is the most disappointing aspect to me because she in the most interesting character and could be a really powerful, but she completely underutilized.
The writing is fine. I don't have any complaints. It's not amazing, but it's very easy to read. The world building feels underbaked - it's clear the authors have put a lot of thought into it, but we don't spend enough time with any different part of the world so it doesn't feel fleshed out. The introduction says this is a companion novel to the main series and I think this book is really only for the fans of the main series. I expect the world is built up there, and Hui is already introduced, so a lot of the work isn't done in this book. If I were to give this world another try, I would start with the original book in the series.