Malice took me a little while to get into. It has a lot of the things you expect from fantasy right away—prophecy, warriors training, different kingdoms, something bad building in the background—and there are a lot of characters and viewpoints to learn before you really know where everything is going.
What kept me interested was Corban. He doesn’t start out feeling like some larger-than-life hero. He’s a kid dealing with his family, his friends, getting embarrassed, trying to prove himself, and figuring out where he fits. I liked that Gwynne lets you know him that way before the bigger parts of the story start taking over. It makes what happens to him later matter more because you knew him before everything went to shit.
I also really liked his relationship with Storm. There’s something about Corban and this huge wolf that just works. Storm gives him this connection that doesn’t need a bunch of talking or explaining, and their bond ended up being one of the things I remembered most from the book.
Veradis was interesting for a completely different reason. He genuinely wants to be loyal and do the right thing, but the book starts showing how dangerous loyalty can get when you put that much faith in the wrong person. I liked that because he isn’t written like an idiot. You can understand why he makes the choices he makes even when you’re sitting there thinking, man, you might be backing the wrong guy.
The biggest hurdle with Malice is probably the beginning. There are a lot of names, places, and separate storylines, and for a while it feels like Gwynne is setting up pieces instead of moving the main story forward. But once those different storylines start coming together, the book gets a hell of a lot harder to put down.
I also liked that the prophecy stuff isn’t as simple as “here’s the good guy and here’s the bad guy.” Different people believe different versions of what’s happening, and some good people end up putting their trust in people they probably shouldn’t. That made the story more interesting to me than the prophecy itself.
Malice isn’t the fastest fantasy book I’ve read, but I think the slower beginning pays off because Gwynne spends that time making you care about the characters. By the end, I wanted to know what happened to Corban, Veradis, and the rest of them enough that continuing the series was an easy decision.
Who I’d recommend it to: Readers who like big fantasy series with multiple viewpoints, battles, friendships, loyalty, and characters who actually suffer consequences when things go wrong.
Caution: Give it some time at the beginning. There are a lot of characters and storylines to get straight before everything starts clicking.
Discussion question: Who did you trust the least by the end of Malice?
— Cory Lane