Novel review: Jean-Philippe Jaworsky - Même pas mort (2013)

Finished this a few weeks ago, but I didn't take the time to write a review then. Time to fix this before I forget too much about it.

Also introducing a new review style with standardized sections to help me be more thorough.

Universe

The choice of Celts is probably the most interesting thing here, otherwise it's a pretty down-to-earth setting with a few folk legends coming alive and druidic superstitions around. Pretty good.

Plot

Almost none of note, wandering through life and into problems. I think this may be somewhat by design, as this volume is the first of a set of 5, so it's kind of a very long introduction. Still hurts it significantly as a standalone novel.

Characterization

Again, not much in the way of originality, but enough introspection and fleshing out. This time, it is certainly by design: the hero is human and he has mostly believable reactions to the situations he finds himself in. That's the kind of fantasy I prefer; note though that there's a world of difference between a "human" protagonist and a random boring prole.

Style

Some people ranted about the amount and density of the descriptions, but I thought it was fine. Sure, there's a lot, but the tempo is varied enough that it rarely gets bogged down.

The real problem though is related enough that it might have confused some people into saying that: the floweriness. I known you can handle the French language with skill, man, just stop flexing for one second and let the text breath!

Now, I'll be honest in my quality of someone who can like a heavy style done well and admit that he doesn't constantly cross the line, but when he does, I can't help but get a whiff of self-indulgence that really breaks immersion.

Même pas mort doesn't need its vocabulary or phrasing dumbed down, it just needs a judicious amount of fat trimming in some of the longer descriptive paragraphs; the dialogues are fine.

Conclusion

That it managed to get a good hold on my attention despite those issues shows some true quality and potential for more. I just hope the followups pick up the slack. Heard better things about his previous Gagner la guerre.