The Four Guardians trilogy flies off on a premise that follows the 4 Chinese inspired magical mythical elementals following fire, water, earth and metal using the 4 creatures from folklore. 4 characters follows the trail of the story, each with their broken past. The shamaness and the general are the senior members of the group, who lost their families, whilst Shufang faces lies from the her past and her grief seems forced, it could have been handled with more introspection and her sudden recovery and amnesia, although refreshing, seemed too easy. Longwei, on the other hand, faces the more severe trials. His arc could have been explored more. Shufang's character wavers from emotion to emotion, and perhaps, needs additional explanation on how her magic works.
The lack of explanation around the Gu, or evil magic, also hurts. I would love to understand how the empress controls the magics she does, or even know more of the Serpent guard. Being the first in the trilogy, I felt that the magic systems were not laid out in the best possible manners and the severest of issues came to the younger protagonists. I am definitely hoping the character arcs develop as the sequels develop. I also hope the ultimate aim of the Empress is also explained or her character is explained more with a little background.
Thank you for the opportunity to read the arc, Netgalley and Victory Editing!
No comments:
Post a Comment