Book Review: What Remains of Heroes by David Benem

This book did a great job of defying my expectations. Events I've been pre-conditioned to look out for - the revelation that turns a drunk into a hero, the comeuppance for a particularly grisly murderer, and the triumph of a hero over his/her demons - had plenty of page-turning twists. 

In fact, all the twists caused me to root against some of the main POV characters at points. At first, I found this development off-putting: "Why am I reading about this jerk?" But then I realized this book is a comment on heroes themselves. The author very effectively shows the characters' faults. More over, he does a great job of leaving the characters in precarious moral, emotional, and physical circumstances. As a result, I powered through the pages and will gladly buy the next installment when it comes out.

The first issue - and this may be due to reading it on a Kindle as opposed to a paper copy - was the development of this fantastical world came up a bit short. The maps at the beginning of the hard copies of the "Song of Ice and Fire" series, for example, immensely aided my reading enjoyment of those books. 

In Heroes, however, I didn't see any maps. I got and enjoyed a healthy dose of the world's history, but I had a much harder time visualizing its geography, people, and topography. Distance held little meaning. The weather seemed to be consistent no matter where the action took place. 

The 2nd issue is a bit more important. The types of people in this fantastical world - Khaldesians, Highlanders, Arranese, etc. - lacked unique characteristics. I couldn't visualize the characters by their fantastical designations, and that made them lose some power. 

In the end, however, these are minor quibbles that can be easily rectified in the next installment(s). I look forward to more!