stormdancer

Critiquing Art: The Reader and the Writer

Critiquing Art: The Reader and the Writer

I used to finish every book I picked up. Whether I loved it or hated it was immaterial, it was a book and it was sacred. A person had poured their heart into paper and I was going to honour that by reading to the end. I wasn’t hugely critical of books beyond “Do I enjoy this or does it bore me?” There was only one book I rage quit (A Feast for Crows, because the only perspective character I cared about wasn’t in it).

Stormdancer

Stormdancer

Stormdancer, by Jay Kristoff, is the first book in The Lotus War. It is a steampunk novel set in alternate-universe Japan. The blood-lotus weed blights the county, pushed by the Lotus Guild as the only fuel for the grand machines. The weed is a balm for the masses, allowing for civilian complacency under the tyrannical Shogun.