Title: March from Darkness

Author: Crypti

Genre: Fantasy

Quick Summary: Whiny edgelord dies, is embroiled in some prophecy I guess.

Thoughts:

I... really hated reading about Demitri, to be honest. 

There's writing about a terrible person, and then there's writing about them in such a way that they're still compelling to read about. Look at my previous reviews; it's certainly been done before.

The unfortunate thing is there's nothing really compelling at all about him. He's whiny and annoying and just. Dumps needless information and details onto the reader. He's an assassin with a bad case of killer's remorse. I can't believe how tired I am of remorseful bounty hunters, but this book reminded me. If I took a shot every time Demitri said he killed people for money I would be dead of alcohol poisoning right now.

Aside from Demitri himself, there's nothing compelling about the narrative. There is so much telling it bores me. We get explanations we don't need to menial actions - we have advanced healing so these raised edges to my wounds are just excessive cell growth or whatever. We recap things that don't need recapping. There's so much circular writing here it makes my head spin. 

Demitri needs a stronger voice. The narrative needs a heavy round with a hacksaw. 

By far, though, I think the biggest failing of this story is the plot itself. For the first [insert] chapters it's just Demitri milling about some fancy house or whatever, trying to kill himself and sometimes wanting to read things. There's some mystery about a girl from Demitri's living life held over our noses - more on her in a moment - and otherwise... We spend way too fucking long doing nothing. By chapter five we should've gotten some inkling of something bigger. By chapter eight, we should've made some progress.

But instead there's a lot of confusing hallucination/"panic attack"/dissociation scenes that lead to hospitalization that lead to more hallucinating making out with gods or whatever. And I just? Do not care.

More than not caring, I'm annoyed. A whole slew of things in this book make no sense. Demitri is a murderer. No prophecy in the living or dead world should hinge on a morally-bankrupt murderer, especially not one who just sits around and mopes about how terrible he is instead of trying to change it or, hell, even revelling in it. And honestly? I find it very hard to believe anyone wouldn't want to send him to Hel, especially not enough people in the afterlife to warrant a godly tie and leading to him being stuck in purgatory or whatever til further notice. Why the hell does Koralai just take him saying "I murder people for money" at face value and not freak out about it? What's with Demitri's sudden obsession for Phrer's blood? 

None of it makes sense, and it makes me too annoyed to want to read and find out the answer to any of my questions.

The final insult to injury is that I just did not care about these characters. Any of them. And beyond that, I don't care about anything they do. I don't care they're having sex, or trying to calm Demitri down, or milling about or cooking or anything like that. 

I just. Do not care.