Isyllt, necromancer and spy, comes to Symir to finance a revolution--only to find herself and her companions ensnared by the city's complex politics. A welcome (and necessary) deviation from the norm, Symir isn't inspired by medieval Europe and the book is peopled in majority by strong, diverse women. Downum writes with intent; her worldbuilding is strong, and has an evocative sense of place; the politics are varied and confrontational. But The Drowning City lacks heart. Both plot and pacing are predictable, which strips intrigue from the politicking and even renders the landscape monotonous. There's too many PoV characters, each exploring certain cultures and motives but none kindling emotional investment. I'm biased, I find it hard to build investment in second world fantasy--but I had particular trouble with it here. While I admire Downum's intent, The Drowning City fails to rise above serviceable.

2.5 stars. This was an ambitious first novel at best. Downum clearly has a beautiful way with words. Passages like the following really resonated with me:

Excitement hummed in her blood, dizzied her worse than any wine. And that was the true reason she was here, the reason she would go where she was sent, no matter how ugly the mission. Not for king and country, not even for Kiril, but because danger sang to her like a siren, and after the first giddy brush with death, the rush of knowing that she was still alive, she’d known she could never stop.

However, while I don’t doubt this played out wonderfully in her head, she forgot about her readers. This book wasn’t really written in the way that you’d expect of a first book in a series. It felt like I was jumping into the second or third book in a series, as if everything that was being said was information that I should’ve already known. I think she was trying to craft it in a way to be mysterious, feeding readers information piece by piece until the big reveal. But it just felt confusing and like I was missing out on a whole story.

The first 70 pages or so of this book could’ve been removed. The little information that we did get from those pages could’ve been woven into the story. Most of those first pages seemed rather fumbling and didn’t offer much useful more than seeming to pad the book to take up the reader’s time. Totally unnecessary, and it nearly made me put the book down. If I hadn’t stuck with it for one more chapter, and the next chapter did prove to be interesting, I wouldn’t have ever picked up this book again.

Also, she used many words native to the characters that the reader is unfamiliar with, words that most of the time didn’t even have a hint as to what they really meant, words that needed at least a dictionary in the back. I like when a book has a language that is its own (or some amalgam of real language), but it does no good when I’m sitting here hoping that this word means something honorific and just isn’t some random word that means “girl.”

Then, there was the confusing POVs. I’m a reader that doesn’t mind “head-jumping,” but it’s not implemented well here. Sometimes, I didn’t even realize the POV had changed until I read some information that made me realize that this had to be one of the other characters, and it was more than a bit frustrating at times, considering how much I wanted to like this story.

I did enjoy the intrigue, mystery, and supernatural aspect that Downum tried to use. I think her characters have potential to be amazing and praiseworthy, but I just don’t think this was executed as well as it could’ve been. And I have to admit that I thought the ending was sublime and really showed what this story had the potential to be. I will give the second book a chance and hope that Downum found her footing a little better because this does have so much potential to be an amazing series.

A little too heavy on the political aspects of the story for me.

I enjoyed this one but it lost stars because i had trouble with the names of characters and places, I found them to be similar and I got lost and confused at times. But a beautiful world has been created along with some great characters. I had this on my to read shelf for way to long. Thank you Shonee for getting it for me for christmas last year. hehe.

A friend gave me this book and I went into it with pretty low expectations. I was wrong. It's fantastic. Just do yourself a favour and buy it.

meh

I do not really know how to review this one, how to rate this one. My problem was that I neither liked or disliked this book. I felt that it was rather forgettable.

What was my issue? See I did not care bout anyone. I got confused way too much. Suddenly someone new was talking. Suddenly someone was dead. And I was all, when did that happen? I also found myself not even knowing what I was reading at the moment. So I did not really care bout the story either.

But it had promise, I still plan to read book 2 as I have it. But, that but again, I just feel meh about it.

As for the story, she was there to cause rebellion. Did not feel she did so. She had some guy who worked for her (meh), some woman (meh). They met someone in the city (meh.) Seriously the only interesting person was this weird man who investigated stuff.

So I say, meh.

I got this book thinking of a fast paced, thrilling adventure with a rocking heroine main character who is a necromancer and is sent to spy on another country were assassins are breaking havoc and she is there to help them. Well…that wasn’t quite what I got.

I barely got to know or care about Isyllt, the “heroine”. Her traveling companions Adam and Xinai were just that, traveling companions. Though Xinai does get more story time because she is from Symir and gets deeply involved with her homeland’s revolution.The plot unfolded slowly and while interesting in the end, at times it failed to completely grab my spaz-y attention. The names were quite hard to remember and match them to the characters. They all sounded too foreign and hard for me to remember easily, even the main characters. There are a lot of made up words and no glossary for reference, which again made it hard to keep everything in order. By the third part and last of the novel I was only half hooked on the story and still wanted to know more about the characters.

That being said I found the descriptions beautifully done; I could really imagine the city of Symir with all the water canals, the humid rainforest atmosphere and the river. The characters personalities ARE interesting and you WANT to get to know them, but you just don’t. The characters have a good ‘structure’, they just need to be fleshed out so that the reader can connect with them.

I’ll definitely continue the series and read The Bone Palace just because I want to know more about Isyllt and her necromancer powers, Asheris (her newly found hot djinn friend), and Kiril, (her ex-lover and boss who only gets mentioned in this first book).