Reading Journal: We Are the Dead

I've decided to take a break from Weird Fiction and Horror and am currently reading We Are the Dead by Mike Shackle, which is the first book in dark fantasy trilogy The Last War. There are 71 chapters and I'm now on Chapter 31, so there's still a lot to read. Warning: SPOILERS.

After centuries of peace, the kingdom of Jia is conquered by their old enemies, the Egril. Some choose to keep fighting and others are just trying to stay alive, but neither choice is easy under the Egril's brutal rule.

The crows, however, ferrying souls to the Great Darkness, found Kage and recognised him for who he was. In return for an eye and an ear, the crows freed Kage and he returned to the world. He found that only the Egril had kept their faith with him. Only they had rejected the false Gods. From the others peoples, he took back his gifts and left them to fend for themselves until it was time to pay for their failings. Until it was time for Sekanowari, the Last War, when the whole world would once more return to the Great Darkness.

The first thing I noticed were the similarities with George R R Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. So, there's the magical wall, Gundan, separating Jia from the barbarian Egril, who sometimes raid south of the wall, which is guarded by a special group of warriors who take an oath, the Shulka. The Egril used to be scattered tribes, but a new leader managed to unite them all. There are also plenty of differences, but it was impossible to ignore that. Shackle also opted to tell the story through different POV, and sadly none of them has a deep knowledge of the mysteries of this world. While there's very little about Jian and Egril culture so far, it's enough for me - I'm more interested in the truth about what happened in the past between the 2 peoples; especially after learning more about the Egril myths in Chapter 21 (see quote). I also like that we get to see how the normal people are dealing with the Egril rule, though the focus is already shifting towards the resistance, the Hanran, and their greater plans. 

The characters are a bit one note. Tinnstra started out interesting, or at least different from the usual fantasy characters, but now it's starting to look like Shackle didn't think further than her being a coward. It's repetitive and doesn't even make much sense anymore after everything she's been through. At least, she's now part of an important storyline, which makes her chapters easier to read. Also, the first Shulka came from her clan, so maybe that will end up meaning something. Yas, a young mother working as a cleaner for the Egril, is such a dead woman walking that it's hard to read her chapters, but she's in a perfect position to learn some interesting things. Her note is worrying about her child while wondering why she's helping the Hanran. Jax is a former Shulka who's now the Hanran leader. Even though he's had several chapters, he doesn't really have a personality. Dren starts as an annoying rebellious teenager, which is a type of character I don't particularly like, and forms his own resistance group after the conquest. They even manage to steal some magical Egril bombs. This may sound great, but his attacks end up killing more of his own people than the enemy and making life harder for everyone when the Egril retaliate. He doesn't care, though, and sees anyone not actively fighting as despicable cowards who deserve to die. He also looks down on the Hanran and ignores their attempts to explain the bigger picture. Dren was always going to be a frustrating character, but Shackle's repetitive writing makes it worse. I actually delayed reading Chapter 29 so I could pretend he really was going to drown after being thrown in the river, but of course he didn't. In addition to not dying, Dren got to kill one of Jax's men. And how did he manage all that? The highly trained Shulka who don't trust him didn't find the knife in his boot. Ugh! The Egril not having been able to find him is equally hard to believe.

The Egril are pretty one note, too. They're OTT villains, who kill, maim, and rape whenever they want. There's one who intervenes when Yas is being groped, and reminds the others that they're there to spread their faith, but he’s pretty much the exception. Given that the Egril invaded Jia because of their religion, I expected to see more of that, but there very little of it. The ceremony Tinnstra attended in Chapter 5 was good, though. Shackle gives readers 2 named Egril villains, sibling duo Darus and Skara. She's brutal and he's a sadistic torturer. So far, he's not as bad as Ramsey Bolton, but in addition to rebellious teenagers, I'm getting tired of OTT psychos.

I'm really not sure where this is going now. There's no way Shackle can stretch the escape plot through 50 more chapters, but that would mean either leaving Jia or quashing all hope. I was surprised to see that the next chapter is a Tinnstra chapter. Yas hasn't turned up since Chapter 23 and I thought we were going to get a more detailed view of the aftermath of Dren's attack and find out what's going on at the Council House.