The One-Eyed King by Kenny Rich is a good book with an interesting concept. It has plenty of fantasy, action, touch of romance, and fresh plot idea. Worth the read.

I received an online copy of this book from NetGalley.

I hate writing less than positive reviews, especially when I feel like the book isn't terrible, it just didn't really gel with my tastes. So I want to preface this by saying that this isn't a bad book, it just didn't do it for me.

I was very excited for this book, because I found the premise interesting and new, and I thought it might get into issues of disability and how it can be written in fiction. However, I got about halfway through the book, and I just gave up. Here are the reasons for the DNF:

1. The worldbuilding felt overblown and designed mostly to be dark and shocking. I'm a big worldbuilding fan, but the whole system of the land of the blind just didn't make sense to me. I didn't think that the fact they were blind was really incorporated, just waved away by giving them supernatural senses that basically replaced sight in every meaningful way and, in the case of the main character, basically gave him his sight back, which I felt kind of defeated the point. Additionally, certain aspects of how the land of the blind and the outside world functioned seemed like they were included for the sole purpose of showing "Look how dark this world is!" rather than for building a complex world, and certain scenes seemed brutal for the sake of brutality, which I'm not a fan of.

2. Related to the point about sight, I feel like the book marketed itself as being about disability, and then completely did not follow through. I was interested to see how people who lacked sight worked with their disability and cultivated other skills, but the book basically was like "being blind is irrelevant because they have super senses," and I found that disappointing.

3. The characters never really gripped me; even the protagonist felt fairly one-dimensional and wishy-washy, more a mouthpiece for showing us what was happening than an actual, fully formed character. Although I got the beginning of the backstory for some characters, it felt disconnected for me, and the characters' motivations were never fully believable to me.

Now, like I said, it's not that this book is bad or that no one will like it. It's got an interesting premise and a decent amount of action and I think some people would like it, but I just couldn't get into it because of my personal taste in books.

Rating 2.5/5

An intriguing premise is undone by woeful writing.

As interesting as the story is, Kenny S Rich undermines it, and ultimately ruins it, by an unnecessarily self-congratulatory style of prose.

First of all, thanks to Booksgosocial for lending me this book for review through Netgalley.

The set up is superb. The Nuclear World War has changed the world for the worse. Starvation and disease have taken over, and the rules of the game called life have changed.

This is clearly an attempt to introduce the world to a new kind of fantasy hero, one that isn’t picture perfect, rather one who is visually impaired. Of course, this notion is helped by the author’s preface.

Iori (eye-yo- ree) is the young hero. A kindly, self-composed little boy who is capable of great power.

He is being raised in an orphanage run by cardboard cutouts – the stereotypical, cruel nun, the sadistic schoolmaster et al.

The villains are also cutouts. The use of adjectives to paint a picture is ineffective here. You don’t just use “intimidating” to describe characters here.

It doesn’t take long for the writing to fall to pieces. The dialogue is unconvincing, and character’s actions are wildly inconsistent with their circumstances.

If only a little more thought was paid to plot development as the style of writing, we’d have had a much better book.

Lines of dialogue which, I'm sure, were meant to sound "cool" are mostly cringeworthy. Characters who try to act badass more often than not come off as petulant. Adults here are not very bright.

I could go on.

A lot of promise is sadly lost in the face of prose that tries to be too clever.

One of the years most compelling, emotionally driven writings in Science Fiction; exceeds previous reviews and expectations.,

Thank you so much to Booksgosocial via netgalley for sending me an ARC copy of one eyed king by Kenny Rich.

The premise intrigued me, a blind boy is kidnapped and trained to fight in a blind army.

I was excepting very detailed descriptions and other senses outlined more due to the fact that the majority of the characters are blind but it was lacking the action and violence and suspense, not because the characters couldnt see but the writing wasn't descriptive enough for me. If the characters were seeing people then the writing would have been acceptable but they weren't saying they were blind so I wanted to feel more of what they felt and I just don't get that while reading this. But it has alot of potential and i think the trilogy will improve as it goes!

This read very much like a first effort--poor pacing, a scrambled message when it came to disability representation, and confusing world-building. I was very attracted by the cover and I liked the idea that the author was trying to get across a positive message about disability, but I found myself not sure that the message was coming across through the story, and the characters didn't convince me.

I did not much like the book as far as I've read it, it just had a weird/confusing beginning and I could not get into it.