Books like Nights of Villjamur

EH? EH! it took a while for my feelings of annoyance and disdain to really flourish. unlike the last travesty of a novel that i gave up on, there was at first some intriguing world-building that kept my attention. and so i made excuses for the incredible weaknesses apparent on the first couple pages. first and foremost, the author seems to suffer from an advanced case of Steven Erikson-itis: his ability to write dialogue and interesting characters falls far, far, faaaaar short of his potentially fertile imagination. seriously, the dialogue is a joke. when characters aren't uttering the most corny and eye-rolling of phrases, they sound just like any twenty- or thirtysomething person living in a first world nation on the planet earth in the milky way galaxy. the trite dialogue and characterization also served to lessen any potential strangeness or alienness of the world depicted. unfortunately, the inadequate writing extends beyond dialogue and characterization: it is amateur hour on almost every level. the nonhuman races were at first okay, nothing special but nothing particularly awful...until the introduction of the "banshee" race. wtf? stupid beyond belief. and then the world-building that initially intrigued me proved to be completely derivative of so many things, from A Song of Ice and Fire to Perdido Street Station to Malazan itself (which, despite its inadequacies around dialogue and characterization, is a far superior effort). so finally i had to take a step back and question why i was even continuing to read this one. i lasted until page 152; i'm not going to live forever and there are other books out there! this book cost me $16 and i feel that someone, somewhere, owes me some money.