This book is a prequel to The Blacktongue Thief, which was a story that I enjoyed, especially for some of its worldbuilding elements. However, I had some issues with the pacing of the book. It was engaging enough that The Daughter’s War, with its promise of brutal goblins, an engaging central character, and horror elements, was a powerful draw. In the end I liked it more than Blacktongue Thief, and the books can be read independently of each other.
Read If Looking For: scary goblins, scary birds, mysterious wizards, the horrors of war
Avoid if Looking For: cinematic action scenes, traditional hero’s journeys
Elevator Pitch:
It is the third goblin war. Horses are practically extinct, as are most of the men. Galva marches with a cohort of other women warriors, part of a new experimental corvid unit. Their monstrous birds were bred by wizards to kill the goblin horde, for the ‘biters’ fear one thing: birds. But war is brutal, and nobody comes out unscathed. From the very first page, you know exactly how much Galva is going to lose, but the journey is one hell of a ride.
What Worked for Me
Grimdark fans will adore this book, rightfully so. The author does a great job of making goblins feel utterly alien, totally menacing, and doesn’t let you forget that fact. Ship sails made out of the skins of humans, ball games played with human heads, mushroom concoctions that turn people into mindless livestock. It just never ends. The whole book is filled with one messed-up thing after another. Buehlman balances this grotesque worldbuilding with moments of camp life that slow things down and provide depth to the story. In fact, I think Buehlman was smart in that he didn’t include as much combat as he could have, instead letting him flesh out a deeper character arc that keeps the violent elements of the story suitably horrific.
In general, I think this book is superior to Blacktongue Thief in pretty much every way. It does play to my preferences more, as the first book was more adventure fantasy (still dark and fucked up), wheras this book had more of a thematic depth and character arc to it that lent the book more meaning in my eyes. It’s a situation where I actually think reading this book first would be my preferred way to read the series, though it would take away a piece of shock value for one specific moment in book 1.
What Didn’t Work for Me
There wasn’t much that I felt like was objectively bad, but I generally feel like Buehlman’s prose is a bit wordy for my tastes. I think I would have loved to see 30-40 pages shaved off the book if possible. But prose is purely a personal matter of taste. It also didn’t help that I was burnt out from a personal project that took a lot of energy out of me.
In Conclusion: If you come in expecting fucked up stories about goblins, you are in the right place.
- Characters – 4
- Worldbuilding – 5
- Craft – 3
- Themes – 4
- Enjoyment – 4
Marked for Plot 