Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsNot enough. Not nearly enough.
Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2021
This is book 7 of the series, and it has been a really good series up until now. The premise is great, the story setup was weak but has been overcome. And, unfortunately, this series is struggling to compete with the end of the System books, the beginning of however-many spinoff series, and whatever else Tao Wong is doing with his time.
Sadly, what he is doing is obviously NOT working on the Brad series.
The book is 146 pages long. The earlier books were 240 or more pages long. The next two books are listed as being in the 170 page range. So for the series that isn't available on KU but has to be bought individually, we get less? (Probably doesn't mean anything to you if you're not on KU, but for those of us that are, this is kind of irritating.)
What's more, you make sacrifices when you shorten a book like this. There's very little side-story, no "other character arcs," no humor. Just "the team dropped back to 3 people and went here and did this and then that and the bad guy appeared and ..."
This is not the kind of "story" I want to read. This is not the kind of writing I have come to expect from the "Tao Wong" name. And this is certainly not the sort of thing I'm willing to spend any more money on. I definitely know, now, that when I see "Tao Wong" on a new publication, I have to make an extra check - is this a crappy "novella" in disguise, or a legitimate full-length novel full of the quality writing that I'm used to?
If you've read this far: don't buy this book. Very little happens. Basically, the 3 amigos are forced to join a guild due to pressure from a different guild. There is one significant battle scene, where our hero learns that his Gift can be used as a weapon, and kills the baddie with it. At the end of the story, they're in a guild with a new team, and a few new levels (which don't mean anything in this series anyway), still grinding the Porthos and Athos dungeons. You can skip it entirely and infer what you missed based on back-references in the next issue, if there is one.
Notably, what's NOT in this tale is humor, or the grittiness that TW normally brings to the page. This is the "dehydrated" version of a Tao Wong story. And it has a much in common with the earlier books as powdered eggs has with real eggs.
