A Practical Guide to Evil - Review
Link to the author's (ERRATICERRATA) personal website
Genre: Fantasy
Publication Type: Webnovel
Tags:
- Average Age of Main Characters (23)
- Length (10 / 10)
Link to Goodreads
Blurb: The Empire stands triumphant.
For twenty years the Dread Empress has ruled over the lands that were once the Kingdom of Callow, but behind the scenes of this dawning golden age threats to the crown are rising. The nobles of the Wasteland, denied the power they crave, weave their plots behind pleasant smiles. In the north the Forever King eyes the ever-expanding borders of the Empire and ponders war. The greatest danger lies to the west, where the First Prince of Procer has finally claimed her throne: her people sundered, she wonders if a crusade might not be the way to secure her reign. Yet none of this matters, for in the heart of the conquered lands the most dangerous man alive sat across an orphan girl and offered her a knife.
Her name is Catherine Foundling, and she has a plan.
Review: I fucking demolished this and I loved it.
So as a quick summary: Nations are divided by those who support the Gods Below and those Above. Recently the Gods Below have been winning, and an Above worshiping nation is under occupation by the big old evil Tower. An orphan from this nation is propped up, and given the chance to rise under the Gods Below, with her semi-hidden agenda being an eventual less tyrannical occupation.
The thing that this series does best is its full embrace of some kind of rational, or lesser evil. This is akin to The Traitor Baru Cormorant (also big recommend), but the evil in this story is embraced on a completely ludicrous scale. It's an interesting concept having a villain who's main objective is often peace. Another cool approach from the author is how they weave traditional fate and story elements into character arcs, sometimes even forcefully telescoping these arcs.
I want to avoid mentioning any characters here, for probably obvious reasons at this point, but it'd be criminal not to state anything: Thus, Catherine is dope, and I strangely like the Tyrant? A huge incentive for reading, and I think a good way to test the waters if you'd enjoy the series, are the small transcripts at the start of each chapter. They rarely spoil anything, mostly being for comedy, and they're honestly brilliant. Reading about Dread Emperor irritant the Oddly Successful and the occasional tiger pits are the stand out highlights.
As a warning, I haven't finished this series and it currently isn't finished. I've just polished off Book 5, and the scope and cast is still expanding, so I don't expect it to end soon. If I had to criticise the series, then I think there'd only be two things. First, the writing is a bit sloppy at times, even if it's quite good for self-published standards. Second, one or two arcs felt a bit prolonged and I think they could have been shortened. Super good piece of fantasy though, and a huge recommend if you're after something long.
Update: Just finished Book 6. The story continues to be an absolute recommend. As a prediction I'd say that the scope of the story is near the apex in that I think it's unlikely a currently unintroduced nation or character is going to be the center of an upcoming book (Orc, Goblin, and Ogre nations excluded). That could be laughably wrong, but it'd be nice to reference this a few years from now. The direction of the book as a whole was well done, and I liked the natural progression without skips or jumps. The dialog between characters was still incredibly funny, but there was a noticeable lack of Irritant the oddly successful and tiger pits as chapter introductions!
Update: Just finished Volume 7 (The final). I am completely satisfied with the series. I adored how the story played out. I enjoyed how narrative was used throughout the story, and how beautiful the dialogue between characters was, which was exemplified in the final volume due to the size of the series and the beautiful characters within. The author also did a bang up job of actually following through with a proper epilogue. Phenomenal series, I love Catherine.