By Force Alone by Lavie Tidhar

This novel is extremely plot driven. It's a 9 on a scale up to 10 for being plot driven.

I am a huge fan of Arthurian myths and legends and one of my favorite books of all time is "Mists of Avalon". 

By force alone is like the opposite of The Mists of Avalon - a parody and a huge disappointment. I still don't know if some of the parts were supposed to be funny. I guess that's not my kind of humour.

The writing style takes getting used to. Sentences are short, blunt and abrupt. There are so many cuss words in this book that if I'd emptied a shot glass each time, I would have filled up a mid-sized lake. 

Women are either wenches, whores or seductresses, who are only interested in how big men's dicks are. 

Arthur is basically running his own mafia gang, stealing and selling shrooms for cash so he can upgrade his army to take over the world (which makes me wonder how many shrooms have been ingested while writing this book). 

Some ideas were great, for example the weird fairyland, Guinevere having her own band of cutthroats or Lancelot being a kung-fu master. All the little story lines felt detached from each other and it seems as if the author just wanted to include everything from Pellinor's worm, to leprechauns to aliens, to the Green Knight (which I already mentioned before) and it reads like a jumbled mess. 

The weirder the better? No.

You can still see the standard time line, but the book was way too long and ridiculous in my opinion. Reading those 512 pages was a drudgery.

What started as a promising story about violence and ambitions, taking the throne and power by force alone and not magic or prophesy as in all other Arthurian books, it fell short of what I really enjoy in a book: likeable characters (or just characters with believable motives), good dialogue, a plot that makes sense and women handled in a non degrading way.

I can't recommend this book.

⭐

1 out of 5 stars and only because I managed to read through it and not dnf it.