I recently finished (and enjoyed) the Wounded Kingdom trilogy by RJ Barker, so I looked for more of his works and found the Tide Child series. It was well reviewed, so I eagerly grabbed a copy. Although I still enjoy RJ Barker’s writing, I found this novel to be so much less appealing that I don’t plan on continuing to read the series.
As mentioned above, the writing is still excellent. I enjoy how Barker writes dialogue and describes his scenes. Characters do not seem to be his strength, though. In this book, there are characters with potential, but the two main characters that take up the vast majority of the story are either underdeveloped or just not that interesting.
The biggest problem with this book is the setting. The majority of the story takes place on one ship, and although there is some interesting global tension being built in the plot, there is no chance for the various parties to have significant interaction in this book. Bland main characters can be overcome with some good conflict or drama, but without any external conflict, interactions are limited to the occupants of the ship. I did not find there to be enough interesting dynamics amongst the main ship to hold my attention for almost 500 pages. Instead, I slogged through this book, which is never what I am looking for in a fantasy novel. I think others might like it more than I did, but the best rating I could give was a 5 – my most reluctant recommendation.
My Score
Goodreads Score
4.03