Okay, this is pretty neat. I told my partner about the premise and they said it's very similar to Nabokov's The Pale Fire in how it's presented- I haven't read that but a cool tidbit of info.

This really appealed to the academic/scholar in me from the start. Crow has written a translation of a fictional epic poem and also presented it as an academic text that one might find in a university library. I love the level of self awareness here and am excited to jump into the epic from that context.

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Thoughts after reading:

I gotta say, the level of alliteration in this is so annoying. However it's also quite clever and I love the vocabulary used in the book overall. The epic picks up seemingly in the middle of the action which is fine, but Hawk's perspective is a little unreliable. I enjoy how Crowe writes the relationship between Hawk and his wife though I'm sometimes not sure where things are actually taking place especially when there's a random action sequence. I will reiterate: I have little idea what's going on but gosh the sentences are beautiful. In addition, very neat alignment of Valestia with colonialism.

Partway through I started to not really understand the sequence/pacing of the book, but it became more manageable when I started to imagine the chapters as vignettes in the universe. That does make sexual or violent scenes even more unexpected though. The language as I've said is beautiful but overall other than the unconventional perspective there's not a ton about the world that makes it stand out. However, the scenes with sexual content are not overwhelming to read and I'm glad that the author doesn't fall into the less favorable tropes there.

TLDR; This book's greatest strength was its manipulation of language and specific use of adjectives that gave scenes a lot more life that appealed to more senses than just visual imagination. Great concept and I think I would simply prefer a different narrative style, but I'm sure this will be better received by other readers!

Firstly, wow, I can tell so much went into the making of this as even in the beginning list of figures the world building was stunning and vast.
At first I was a bit tentative I thought this would be a lot to take in from the amount of knowledge to absorb and the writing, I thought it might be too scholarly to fully enjoy, however I was completely wrong. This was a beautifully written transportative story with amazing illustrations throughout which just add to the effect of being transported to another world. I loved all the Norse mythology and thought it worked really well with the rest of the story and this world. I also loved just seeing these characters go on an adventure - overall I thought this was an incredible, fun read that everyone should give a chance, especially if you big on fantasy you’ll be blown away.

The sheer amount of breadth, passion, and inventiveness in this novel was apparent from the very first page, which was, as it happens, a list of figures. To be completely honest, my eyes glaze over when I'm confronted with things like lists of figures, introductions, acknowledgements, and things like that. But it soon became very clear to me that this wasn't actually a list of figures from our world. If we've had an Arch-Sister Melodial VI or an Arnabi Tomb Blessed-Box in this world, that would be very interesting indeed. But we don't. And THAT is when I knew I was in for a treat.

Honestly, the beginning of this narrative was a bit intimidating. It is presented as a scholarly translation by a fictional university that tells the mythical tales of a hero named Hawk. There were a lot of terms thrown at me in the introductory passages- the Valestian Primacy, the First Albensian Imperiality, the Casidians, the Berosians- but all this really served to give me the sense of something vast. Reading Eyes of a Hawk genuinely felt like I was reading some ancient history tome from a half-forgotten land. There was a rant/essay about the Valestian and Ristos war written by a king in the beginning as well, and this was not only a very cool example of political dogmatism, but also a great piece of worldbuilding that served to introduce the major conflict in a way that felt true to the book as a whole. I also enjoyed the way aspects of Norse mythology (i.e. Yggdrasil, Jotunhall, etc) were incorporated without absolutely taking over the setting. I find that a lot of authors decide to 'take inspiration' from a real life culture/pantheon/mythological legacy and then just make their fantasy world a cut-out of that culture/pantheon/mythological legacy. But Sean Crowe managed to avoid that, and almost every location in this novel felt fresh and interesting.

The illustrations (presumably author-done) were also an awesome text that made me feel immersed in the depth of this story. The 'notes from an unorganized archivist' and the different maps were among my favorites.

As for the story itself, I will say that the prose was somewhat too purple-y. There was more figurative language than was strictly necessary, and there were a lot of moments where the same thing could've been said better with fewer words. But, that said, I definitely loved a lot of the descriptions. The prose was something else that was made it feel very mythological and old, even if it was a bit stylistically inaccessible. Hawk and Ilyia and their relationship and adventures were delightful, and the ending of this story was wonderfully chilling. I enjoyed reading this a lot.