Jemppu’s Reviews > The Way of Thorn and Thunder: The Kynship Chronicles > Status Update

“We’ve been thinking about the future, now that it seems likely we’ll actually have one.”

I think I can manage the last *checks notes* 24 pages by eye. By percentage it seems there must be stuff beyond the actual story.

"Is our nation so fragile then, our vision so frail, that allowing others to live freely as they have since time out of mind threatens us so much? Can we not live as allies with a shared purpose and destiny rather than always be perceived as inevitably selfish potential enemies."

More than for an immediate plotted story, the book feels put together for the fun of imagining and reciting it's histories / cultural notions (and character concepts).

Not necessarily a bad thing at all in on itself (plot is rarely the attraction), but in this case missing some hook.

What I think could improve this a lot is dialogue; there's hardly any wit or charm anywhere - in the narration or the interactions.

This time for real; end of chapter 37.

“Men are less trusting of the Folk these days, more willing than ever before to see difference as deficiency."

"For a moment he thought about ignoring the question, but he was lonely, and there was a sudden surge of need, a longing to speak and to be heard, to feel someone respond to his living presence. He needed to know that he was really still alive."

"It’s not enough to be a warrior if your heart is burdened by hate."

Ah! I have finally found my actual bearing. Cycle 4 read.

The fact that this evokes a bit of Elfquest might be partly to blame, BUT I keep thinking this could work in graphic novel form. The text itself doesn't do much to paint affecting sceneries or atmospheres, but does as if give action direction, the panel to panel flow easy to imagine.

"Something terrible attacked us tonight — it seemed to change, becoming something different each time we fought back."

This keeps having certain lingering, vague sense of Elfquest about occasional aspects of it. First time it jumped out this precisely, though.

(I still have no idea how far I am; somewhere between 40 to 80 %?)

"They would die, Men and Women would die, the land would be torn and broken in the conflict, and everyone would suffer — all but the politicians, those Men who’d set this conflict into motion to begin with."