The Wandering Inn - Review
Link to the author's (Pirateaba) personal website
Genre: Fantasy
Publication Type: Webnovel
Tags:
- Average Age of Main Characters (22)
- Length (10 / 10)
Link to Goodreads
Blurb: An inn is a place to rest, a place to talk and share stories, or a place to find adventures, a starting ground for quests and legends. In this world, at least. To Erin Solstice, an inn seems like a medieval relic from the past. But here she is, running from Goblins and trying to survive in a world full of monsters and magic. She’d be more excited about all of this if everything wasn’t trying to kill her. But an inn is what she found, and so that’s what she becomes. An innkeeper who serves drinks to heroes and monsters– Actually, mostly monsters. But it’s a living, right? This is the story of the Wandering Inn.
Review: This book is simply dope, I'm still undecided if it's done the impossible and unseated Name of the Wind as #1. As the blurb states, the book's central character is an inn-keeper, and this gives a nice uniqueness to the book over traditional fantasy novels. Erin is surrounded by characters that would usually be the main focus, as one would expect to find at an Inn catering to monsters, but because we spend so much time with her we're really given a perspective with depth that's not usually done. This effect is multiplied by a huge factor thanks to the sheer size of the book. The size of this book is stupidly huge, so if there's a tag you were after that this book doesn't have then I guarantee that it's a mjor them for at-least one perspective. The book ends up with plenty of perspectives, and with absolutely no length constraint, readers are introduced to a huge variety of characters in a large unique world. These characters aren't tied to, or must revolve around, the 'main' character as well, where thanks to the size of the book they're just given free reign, with the inn acting as a lodestone of sorts. An additional benefit is the amount of unique cities and countries, and I mean proper unique. The author (Pirateaba) also does a tremendous job, and I mean gut-wrenchingly tremendous, of making a feel-good book have such incredibly painful moments. The writing in The Wandering Inn admittedly does start out a bit rough as the book is self-published, but please don't let this deter you as it rapidly improves! On that note of the author, the pace they pump out such creative works genuinely makes me feel guilty about my thesis progress; they're an absolute gem with my running theory that they've made a deal on the Winter Solstice. A further benefit due to the size of the book is that there's a tonne of discussion not centered directly around adventure, and this allows it to address themes that once again are rarely seen in fantasy books. Mandatory warning: The book is still unfinished.