{"id":10367,"date":"2023-03-10T07:07:37","date_gmt":"2023-03-10T07:07:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.offkorn.com\/blog\/?p=10367"},"modified":"2023-03-10T12:50:56","modified_gmt":"2023-03-10T12:50:56","slug":"eleventh-cycle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.offkorn.com\/blog\/eleventh-cycle\/","title":{"rendered":"Eleventh CYCLE"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first of Kian N. Ardalan<\/a>‘s Mistland<\/a> novels, Eleventh Cycle<\/em> is large-scale dark fantasy in the vein of series like R. Scott Bakker<\/a>‘s Prince of Nothing<\/a> and Glen Cook’s Black Company<\/a> which takes quite a bit of inspiration from the Dark Souls<\/a> family of video games.<\/p>\n

For most of the first half however it’s ‘merely’ dark fantasy. Despite having a content warning in the Foreword the atmosphere is remarkably aspirational with the protagonists gaining more than they lose. Only near that halfway point (roughly equivalent to where a normal-sized novel would end) do events become quite<\/em> grim indeed as everything starts coming tumbling down.<\/p>\n

This result is mirrored by in-universe stories, implying that building something up only to tear it down may become a running theme. An unfortunate development for me if so, since while I like seeing the seemingly broken characters overcome their struggles I do not like the foreboding that comes along with expecting them to be re-broken once more afterward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first of Kian N. Ardalan‘s Mistland novels, Eleventh Cycle is large-scale dark fantasy in the vein of series like R. Scott Bakker‘s Prince of Nothing and Glen Cook’s Black Company which takes quite a bit of inspiration from the Dark Souls family of video games. For most of the first half however it’s ‘merely’ dark fantasy. Despite having a content warning in the Foreword the atmosphere is remarkably aspirational with the protagonists gaining more than they lose. Only near that halfway point (roughly equivalent to where a normal-sized novel would end) do events become quite grim indeed as everything starts coming tumbling down. This result is mirrored by in-universe stories, implying that building something up only to tear it down may become a running theme. An unfortunate development for me if so, since while I like seeing the seemingly broken characters overcome their struggles I do not like the foreboding that comes along with expecting them to be re-broken once more afterward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[28,660,659],"class_list":["post-10367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-related","tag-fantasy","tag-kian-n-ardalan","tag-mistland"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t