I am sorry. I could not finish this book. I barely got through half of it before I had to call it quits, and by then the author had just gotten around to doing something with the abyssal plague. It was not the thri-kreen walking around on six legs, or the crodlus with carapaces; that I could deal with. No, what got me was the author spending page after page going into thorough detail of characters both main and minor, stating and re-stating details–hobbies, likes, dislikes, etc–again. And again. And AGAIN.
The most recent example was about a templar named Dhakar that did not like to go to the arena, but had to pander to one who did. He mentions that the arena was the latter templar’s favorite form of entertainment, then that he went there all the time, then reiterates that while his duties kept him away, if he was free then he was there. This is after the author spends a couple of paragraphs (at least, I might be forgetting more) writing about how much Dhakar disliked going to the arena, among many other things.
This repetition occurs constantly and feels like tedious padding. I felt like I was reading a book that was three times longer than it needed to be, about boring characters and not the abyssal plague (which apparently on Athas is incredibly slow acting). The synopsis about the abyssal plague spreading had just gotten into motion, but was about a hundred pages too late to catch my interest, especially after pages upon pages about the infected mercenary going on and on about how he was having trouble remembering things.
I am sure that shit eventually happens, but I frankly could not care less.
Awful Good Games 