Early Review – Long Live Evil (Time of Iron, Book o1) by Sarah Rees Brennan (4/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Fantasy/Humor
Length: 538 pages
Publisher: Orbit
Release Date: August 27, 2024
ASIN: B0CMQDJLYC
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Time of Iron series
Source: eGalley from NetGalley
Rating: 4/5 stars
“When her whole life collapsed, Rae still had books. Dying, she seizes a second chance at living: a magical bargain that lets her enter the world of her favorite fantasy series.
She wakes in a castle on the edge of a hellish chasm, in a kingdom on the brink of war. Home to dangerous monsters, scheming courtiers and her favourite fictional character: the Once and Forever Emperor. He’s impossibly alluring, as only fiction can be. And in this fantasy world, she discovers she’s not the heroine, but the villainess in the Emperor’s tale.
So be it. The wicked are better dressed, with better one-liners, even if they’re doomed to bad ends. She assembles the wildly disparate villains of the story under her evil leadership, plotting to change their fate. But as the body count rises and the Emperor’s fury increases, it seems Rae and her allies may not survive to see the final page.”
Series Info/Source: This is the first book in The Time of Iron series. I got a copy of this on ebook through NetGalley to review.
Thoughts: Previous to reading this, I read “Team Human” which I liked, and “The Demon’s Lexicon” which was so-so. I have mixed feelings about this book. This started out really rough and is by no means a “well-written” book. However, it was a lot of fun to read and had fascinating and engaging characters. I ended up enthralled by the story and characters by the end and found myself struggling to put it down in the second half.
The story follows Rae, a young woman fighting late stage cancer who gets a bargain from a strange woman. The woman tells her she can go into the world of her favorite fantasy series, and if she can find a bloom from rare flower she’ll be able to save herself in her home world. Rae agrees, but unfortunately finds herself thrust into the body of a villainess who is supposed to be executed the next day. Rae has to do some fast thinking and some solid evil to try to get herself out of the execution and into a position to find the rare bloom.
The beginning of this book was awful; it is unnecessary, awkward, and hard to follow. Showing us Rae in the “real world” could have been done in so many better ways. I almost stopped reading this after the first chapter because it was sooooo bad. Things do improve once we get into the fantasy world.
Once we get into the fantasy world, the writing itself still feels pretty awkward. However, the zany campiness of the story starts to take over and make things very entertaining. That coupled with the intriguing characters started to suck me in.
It is really the characters that end up making this an intriguing read. They are all “evil” but more complex than that. Added to that is the humor of Rae and another Earth transplant trying to keep the plot true to the book series while it keeps veering all over the place. The story ends up sucking you in and absolutely grabs you. You keep wondering if Rae will succeed in her quest, what will happen to the original story, and who is the Emperor?
This is a pretty typical portal fantasy. I’ve read books before where dying characters are transported to a fantasy realm where “if they can only complete a quest”, they can save themselves in the real world. What sets this book apart from those is the sheer craziness of the situation and the zaniness of the characters. Let me repeat, this is not well written, and the beginning is a slog to get through. However, it does end up being entertaining, and by the end I desperately wanted to know what would happen next. So, despite my initial feelings, I ended up enjoying this.
My Summary (4/5): Overall this is a mixed bag. The beginning is awful, and the writing isn’t the best, it is awkward and doesn’t flow the best. This is a somewhat typical portal fantasy. However, it does have a lot of humor and zaniness to it as it continues. It ends up begin campy and crazy enough that it entertained me. By the end, the characters had really pulled me in to the story and I ended up completely engaged and struggling to put this down. Against my better judgment I do plan on continuing the series because I just need to know what happens after the crazy ending in this first book.
