3/31/25 - Finished Epic, Started The Knife of Never Letting Go

 Hello, feasyheads!

Yet another new week is here.

Today, I finished Epic by Conor Kostick. Unfortunately, I can't say that I particularly enjoyed it. That might've been because the Red Rising series was one of the best I've ever read and this book seems bad in comparison, but something about the book I disliked. Here's the rating:

Epic tells the tale of a world where violence is banned, and all conflicts are resolved through a video game, Epic. Erik, the main character, and his friends, are very poor. In fact, the majority of the population is poor. They carry out manual labor and grind for meager coins in Epic, because it determines your wealth and status in real life as well. Erik and his friends embark on an unexpected, incredible quest and try to beat the system.

I didn't have any exceptionally high expectations for this book, but assumed it would be something like Ready Player One, which I really enjoyed. However, that storytelling, how authors like Pierce Brown were able to give such a vivid image of everything, was missing, and it felt like the story was poorly told, to be honest. 

The plot, although cliché in my opinion, is nice. Plenty of the dystopian feel, but a lot of science fiction fantasy in Epic's world. It's not often you meet a book that manages to combine typical fantasy from places such as D&D with science fiction. Pretty nice.

Epic gets a five out of ten, because when I start to make excuses why I don't want to keep reading it and feel like I just want to get it over with to check that box, it's never good.

However, I've got high hopes for The Knife of Never Letting Go, first in the Chaos Walking Series, which I actually intended to read straight after Red Rising. I got the physical copy from the library yesterday. The storytelling is rough and gritty, and I feel like the book presents itself as YA, and yet the descriptive writing is somehow amazing. 

This is all for today!

Good morning/afternoon/evening/night/3:00 AM,

Uncle Wally