{"id":1660,"date":"2021-10-24T13:01:06","date_gmt":"2021-10-24T11:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/readwithstefani.com\/?p=1660"},"modified":"2021-12-18T14:28:16","modified_gmt":"2021-12-18T12:28:16","slug":"the-sword-of-kaigen-by-m-l-wang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/readwithstefani.com\/mk\/the-sword-of-kaigen-by-m-l-wang\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
The Sword of Kaigen: A Theonite War Story (the Theonite Series)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Wow, there’s so much to unpack here and not all of it is good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s break it down like this:
– writing – 4\/5
– character ARCs 5\/5
– big plot twist 5\/5
– world building 4.5\/5
– battle scenes 4\/5
– religion, politics, military and noble houses – fascinating 5\/5
– bonus: a dragon, but not quite. Love how it didn’t promise them because that would’ve been disappointing, but liked the surprise appearance of not quite the dragon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Power is drawn from water and ice which is not something I’ve seen done before in the fantasy I’ve read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The village is very much tucked away high on the mountain. Coms towers are only being built yet they have TVs? That being said, the whole surrounding had a bit of an old school vibe to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s Asian inspired which is always a plus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bits were very info dumpey, the dialogues are not my favorite. It went a bit downhill after said big plot twist, but picked up in the male \/ female dynamics so there’s that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The politics of Kaigen and its Emperor are still a bit of a mystery. As much as the author tries to wrap things up there, there’s a big opening for more to come. Much as I like the idea of a standalone fantasy and there’s not many of them, I’d read more here. CORRECTION: I need more please, waiting for a ‘this will actually be a series’ announcement any day now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book comes with lots of trigger warnings, so best check out other reviews for those. I don’t like a trigger list myself as they often come with spoilers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All things considered, I’m rounding this up to 4 stars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have you read this book? What did you think?<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wow, there’s so much to unpack here and not all of it is good. Let’s break it down like this:– writing – 4\/5– character ARCs 5\/5– big plot twist 5\/5– world building 4.5\/5– battle...<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[634,607],"class_list":["post-1660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-review","tag-m-l-wang","tag-the-sword-of-kaigen"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/readwithstefani.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/41886271.jpg?fit=264%2C390&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/readwithstefani.com\/mk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/readwithstefani.com\/mk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/readwithstefani.com\/mk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readwithstefani.com\/mk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readwithstefani.com\/mk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1660"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/readwithstefani.com\/mk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2376,"href":"https:\/\/readwithstefani.com\/mk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1660\/revisions\/2376"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readwithstefani.com\/mk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/readwithstefani.com\/mk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readwithstefani.com\/mk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readwithstefani.com\/mk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}