Nightrunner - yes or no?

[moonlite_tryst]

Anyone read any of the Nightrunner books? Are they good re plot, world building, characterisation, or is it just hype?

ETA: Thanks for your help. Forgot to say I wanted something for my Kindle whilst on holiday. I'm going to buy Ginn Hale's Lord of the White Hell books for my hols.

Comments

[drgaellon]

LOVE THEM. Some of my favorite books. Well plotted, well paced, and Seregil/Alec is just... whoof.

[teromain.livejournal.com]

I think they're incredibly awful, with underdeveloped cardboard characters, flat plots, cliched villains, a romance I don't even buy, too much forced worldbuilding rammed in there because the author loved her made up world too much....but I am in a super minority. You can hardly find people who dislike this series.

And the line by line writing is really mediocre as well.

[fran-fic.livejournal.com]

I've read the three first books, though it was quite a few years ago now. From what I remember I've got mixed feelings about them. I did enjoy reading them, they're the kind of books you very easily read through without having to think too much, it's nice enough entertainment for a few evenings.

But it's a rather standard fantasy plot and world building with quests and lots of magic and changing into animals and long lived elves and wonderful cities and evil forces that must be fought by specially chosen people who never know they are the chosen ones at first, brave sacrifices, and so on. It's nothing special in this regard.

The m/m stuff between Alec and Seregil is nothing special in that regard either, I read better m/m stuff all the time on the net (well, at least stuff that fulfills my kinks much better, which doesn't mean it's 'worse' or 'better', really, just pushes my personal buttons better). It's not bad, just... toned down, maybe. Maybe still considered "daring" in mainstream fantasy ten years ago?? I don't know.

But I wouldn't call the series bad, I did enjoy the books, just didn't get that WOW feeling from them.

[fran-fic.livejournal.com]

I read Teromain's review that they linked... and I have to say, that this must be why I don't actually remember anything about the actual plot more than that they fought something evil and that Seregil turned into an otter :-D Oh, and the very equal brothels for all combinations, I remember those too :-)

[tanrien.livejournal.com]

I read the first three, and, well, they were okay. I would +1 fran_fic's review two comments up, that other than the m/m pairing there is no difference from verrry standard fantasy. As fantasy reader, I'm missing some kind of spark, some kind of original idea. There just isn't. The m/m is okay, I mean, it has some nice tropes/kinks in it that someone who reads origslash will recognize and maybe like. But other than that, it's bland as well.
I heard the fourth book is pretty controversial in some aspects, but I don't remember what exactly.

[raeraesama.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed them. :) It's nice seeing characters as friends first, lovers second.

[avashida.livejournal.com]

They're okay. Lots of people have said there is better stuff around, personally I'd recommend Jesse Hajicek's work if you want gay fantasy novels (all his stories are available for free online), they have better characters and better adventures and infinitely better writing. The Nighrunner series starts out pretty bland and there are some very iffy scenes/issues in some of the later books. But I did really like the worldbuilding, and that the romance took so long to develop.