Aaron's Reviews > Moth

Well, that was disappointing, I have had this book and series on my TBR for over a year and a half but now I do not think I’ll read past the first anytime soon.

(view spoiler)[The fact that this is the author’s first fantasy work is very evident in the opening chapters, while the idea of the setting is interesting, it is clearly not thought out. In the opening chapter, you have the cliché farmer boy and childhood sweetheart traveling to the dark side of the planet. Within hours they move around the planet enough for the sun to disappear, find what they are looking for, run back to their village in the sunlight and then return to the dark side with a mob. If the world is that small (Rick and Morty?) then there would not be much room for anything else. Yet this is disproven when later they take a 10-day boat ride to one of many mentioned capital cities.

I have so many questions regarding the plot and setting. Why has a village of 50/500 depending on which point of the story you are reading, have an entire guard consisting of 4 teenagers with no training? Why is there not one single adult willing to protect their family? The king seems concerned that 15 of his citizens in this village get killed, yet doesn’t supply an actual guard? Even worse considering that his old friend’s son (the farmer) was living in the village. The King then invites/blackmails but doesn’t command, the farmer into coming with him to war with no training because it will rally the troop? Suddenly he is a great swordsman.

The Dark side character makes even less sense. She leaves her village to get help from the main city and only takes one copper? Did no one from the village, that gave her a good farewell, think to either go with her or check up on her when she doesn’t return in months? Despite being a naïve young teenage girl whose entire life has been fishing or hunting she is suddenly a master general who the entire army follows her orders? She is shown strong enough to fight armored soldiers twice as tall as her but she can’t overpower a drug den owner that has her prisoner? How does this entire kingdom in the dark not have spies or information regarding the other half of the planet? An army of one hundred thousand, with all the noise, dust and LIGHT that would entail and no one of import notices them coming? That is about as dumb as letting a giant wooden horse into your city and then everyone having an early night.

I assume the wolf section was included for future use, but in reality, it served little to no purpose in this book and only felt included to extend the narrative. (hide spoiler)]

Anyway, overall it’s a cool concept that might have worked had it not proven to be too ambitious for the author. I have heard that sequels, as well as his other work, get a lot better, but I won’t be finding out first hand anytime soon.

(It is 2 stars because nothing is worse than Twilight, and I had to give Twilight 1 star because you can't go into negative on Goodreads)