Empire in Black and Gold

I enjoyed this book. It was a fun middle-brow fantasy story. It would make a great basis for a TV serial, at least if they can figure out how to do the animation or SFX for the insectoid nature of everyone.

There's a lot of excellent world building here. Also the author does an excellent job writing battle scenes. There's maybe 15 fencing duels and small battles in the book and they are so beautifully written in great detail.

If only he were as good at writing people! And relationships, and personal development, and emotions. There's a lot of complex emotion here, don't get me wrong, and some great back stories. But it comes across a little leaden, none of the personal stuff really sparkled as I was hoping. It made the book feel somewhat shallow.

Would totally watch a TV adaption though. Or maybe read the rest of the books if I need something uncomplicated to entertain me. There sure are a lot of the.