Meh. I should have given up on this one halfway through instead of suffering through to the end. I kept waiting and waiting for the author to reveal some reason for the vendettas between the characters, but he never did. The Italian-Renaissance-ish setting was somewhat interesting, but the jarring contrast with the Orphani who turned out to be biologically impossible chimaeras was just too much for my usual suspension of disbelief. And final plot twist about the King kidnapping and raping local women was just... ugh, really? Because making him some weird insane human-insect hybrid wasn't enough to signal how evil he was? And his henchmen just went along with this scheme... why, exactly? And our hero Lucien was somehow the first person in centuries to think there might be something the tiniest bit wrong with what was going on? I say again, meh.

Fans of Robin Hobb and Patrick Rothfuss will probably like this one. I very much enjoyed it. The use of alternating chapters in the past and current time made for a great pace. It has a slight touch of horror near the end, but all in all a good fantasy read. Well worth checking out.

major content warnings for institution/asylum stuff, and spiders, and general oppressive society structures. all of which i kind of wish i'd had...

but that said this was a really gripping book and i did enjoy it, it explores being "different" in a unique way and has interesting characters

+ Well paced
+ Good dialogue
+ Nice world building
+ Lots of fight scenes, something that concerned me, but so well written they don't get boring

- Female characters (although got better towards the end)
- A bit too black and white for me
- Some unnecessary repetition of details
- Got also repetitive in transitions and solutions to crises

Probably more of a 3.5. Some strong moments, but I've read better debuts. I've also however, read much worse.

Ahoy there me mateys. I found this book to have an engaging main character in Lucien de Fotein. He is coarse, intelligent, sarcastic, and a real dastard in some ways. Despite myself, I like him. I also really enjoyed the character of Anea, a smart girl who is a secondary character but an awesome one. The Orfano, the deformed citizens in the novel, overall had fun characters and personalities. The “regular folk” in the world seemed to be more two dimensional in goals and actions. I was not interested in them and wanted them to be better fleshed out.

The world itself feels very renaissance-like with a lot of scheming and plotting and politics. It felt confusing and unclear. It was almost as though the author had so many good ideas that he tried to do it all and it came out jumbled. All the sides seemed to be fighting to “get the power” but for no real reason. And everyone seems to hate everyone else for no real reason either. The portion with the king as a character in the story seemed only to be there so that the Orfano existed. Even the world’s own myths and history seemed to contradict each other.

There was another major flaw in the novel. There were a ton of flashbacks in this novel making it extremely hard to keep track of timeline in reading. I almost wanted a prequel about Lucien and how he grew up and then the boy with the porcelain blade to be what happens next which leads into the series. Normally I do not mind flashbacks, but just as I got caught by one scenario it would switch and derail my train of thought.

I have thought long and hard about whether I would read the next two books of the trilogy and at this point I am undecided. I do like the two characters I mentioned and sort of what to know what happens. Maybe if the books were from the local library or free. But I bought this book and wish I would have spent my money on something else.

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2.5 stars. Don't think the skipping around in time nature of the book helped it any -would have been better off being more linear.

Was an okay read, strikes me that it could have been accurately called "the boy with the porcelain ears" too.

A difficult to review book which has as many things going for it as it has against. Invoking the best of Scott Lynch (in terms of the Renaissance Italian setting) and Robin Hobb (in terms of a young troubled disadvantaged protagonist), this is a coming of age tale that keeps you turning the page being so wonderfully written. On the flip side, it seems to be a remarkably small world, with the same people turning up on most occasions (#CoincidenceMuch) and not so much world building in what looks an intriguing world. As a result of it, things just rus through. While the ending is satisfying to an extent, it could have been much much more....

The world of the Renaissance is an area that may be rather underused in Fantasy fiction. Authors tend to go for the medieval-esque Tolkien-lite, when really there’s a lot to work with here.

Den has chosen his inspiration wisely. This is a rollicking tale of feuding families, vendettas, politics, deception and rivalry set in a baroque world of gothic architecture and horror. More than enough material for any Fantasy novel!

As we begin the book Landfall is a place in turmoil. The King is clearly insane and so the world is run by people to whom corruption is second-nature. Our main protagonist in this story is Lucien de Fontein, a child of privilege, born into one of the Kingdom of Landfall’s wealthiest families. Although he is an Orfano (some sort of royal bastard child) he has certain benefits. He is nannied, educated and trained to use a porcelain sword in fighting, at which he has some skill.

In addition to this, the talented yet rather aloof Lucien has to deal with the complexities of the Italianate world with a deformity that makes him instantly recognisable: he has no visible ears, although he has hearing, which frightens his peers and earns him considerable embarrassment. His hearing is good enough to hear the constant taunts and comments made about him behind his back.

The plot is mainly about Lucien’s coming of age, written in a style that flitters between the present and the past. Most of his early life, rather like Titus Groan’s in Gormenghast, is centred on one place, in Lucien’s case the city state of Demesne. Here we see Lucien grow and become increasingly independent. He finds himself having to defend himself against some Orfano and ally himself with others, finds himself at odds with some of his tutors and befriends others. In the end he uncovers a grisly mystery, and secrets about his past and his heritage that have been hidden from others for a long time…

Fantasy readers will recognise many aspects of The Boy wth the Porcelain Blade. What Den has done here is meld recognisable characteristics into his own vision. The world of Landfall is a small yet perfectly formed one, evoking images of Tad Williams’ Osten Ard and Peake’s Gormenghast, something which Den in his interview at SFFWorld has said is an influence. Lucien’s childhood experiences around the Houses of Prospero, Fontein, Contradino and Erudito evoke images of Scott Lynch’s Locke Lamora. The world of Landfall echoes aspects of the Renaissance with its Houses and social manoeuvring, with its societal structure, of Kings, lords and ladies and servants, creating some sort of baroque feudal-esque construction.

The buildings of Demesne, where most of the book takes place, is a sprawling Gothic landscape with dark shadows, gargoyles and horrors galore.

Although the setting is wonderful. most of all The Boy with the Porcelain Blade is a book about its characters. Lucien is a gifted outsider, a person whose appearance and social standing force him to be independent. He endures many things: bullying on the part of his stern tutors, ostracism from his peers, sarcasm from many others. This creates a melancholic loneliness which pervades much of the early part of the novel. And yet his endurance of these many trials is something that we admire, and ultimately are won over by. In a world of snobbery and perceived privilege, Lucien does try to do the right thing, even when it means considerable hurt to himself. I defy anyone reading this not to be rooting for Lucien by the end.

By comparison, his friends, loves and enemies are not as well developed as Lucien, yet there are subtle moments of pathos and joy that make this an interesting place to be in.

Although there are a couple of slight contrivances along the way which didn’t work too well for me, generally the novel was original enough and exciting enough to keep the pages turning. I was especially pleased when things did not always become what the reader might expect, and there’s a definite ‘what-happens-next?’ feeling at the end.

The Boy with the Porcelain Blade is a rich and satisfying novel, and a surprisingly assured novel from this relatively new writer. I enjoyed it a lot and look forward to more books in this series.

N