My twitter review can by clicking the following tweet:
SF/F Review: Last Song Before Night by @IlanaCT. https://t.co/T2ND422YUs Short Review: 8/10 - Really good despite some big problems (1/x)— garik16 (@garik16) July 23, 2016
Spoilery Review below
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I read LSBN as an audiobook (so not really reading), so apologies first for getting any names misspelled - I'm basically relying upon another review for the names of characters annoyingly.
I really liked Last Song Before Night, despite the problems I described in my twitter review. I've already gone over Master Gelvan's obviously being a Jew ("Galacian" is also kind of obvious) which is distracting so I won't go over it more here.
The other problem I noted quickly in my review is the rushed ending: the book climaxes with Darien's sacrifice to save Lin and restore the enchantments, but then has to deal with Nickon Gerrard still existing and being a threat in a single chapter and does so by basically skipping from the preparations for a big battle to the very end of it practically instantly. It's not a big problem since the battle would've been out of place in this book - it's not what this book is about, but it's still kind of jarring (also, the pointless cliffhanger of Gerrard cutting Ned in the neck in this sequence which winds up being totally nonlethal is silly).
Really, Nickon Gerrard himself is the biggest problem with the book in a way - he's the main villain obviously from the start, but we learn very little about him (other than he wanted power and used to love Rianna's mother) and even what he was planning - Darien stops him from being able to use blood magic to portal out of the capital early but it's not ever made clear how that would've worked or why that would've been a danger. Similarly, him creating a portal out of Lin in the Path is just.....well, unexplained and what he was trying to do is never expounded upon.
It's a credit to the writing of everything else that this isn't a major problem (A bad guy with uncertain motives and with uncertain plans is not very fun) - the other main bad guy, Rayen (apparently that's how you spell it, the audiobook pronounces it as "Ryan") is of an evil I can't remember reading before. Maybe this type of villain is more common in other genres (Romance?) but reading Rianna's fall into his seduction, with his then immediately leaving after getting what he wants is among the more brutal things I have EVER read a villain do. I'm not usually one cheering a villain being killed horribly in revenge by a protagonist that much (think Reek's death by hounds in game of thrones which didn't have this impact), but man I really cheered his killing here.
Of course, Lin slitting her wrists half a chapter after Rayan's seduction of Rianna made it particularly worse - I'm not the biggest fan of grimdark fantasy (I hated Kameron Hurley's Empire Ascendant for how dark it got at the end) - but the book does make it work (Ned Altera being such a good guy helps quite a bit here).
I look forward to the two sequels apparently coming out - the book does have one kind of unrevealed secret I can think of in what Valanir Ocune saw on the Path and why he kept it secret - because yeah, despite the clear problems above as well as some other plot holes and things that didn't make sense (Marilla just decides to stop Marlin from killing Ned which is out of character from everything else), this book was incredibly gripping.
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