Jacob Rasmussen

This review will hold minor spoilers.

The Mercenary Code is a great book, which kept me mostly interested for the better part of the story. De

This review will hold minor spoilers.

The Mercenary Code is a great book, which kept me mostly interested for the better part of the story. Despite a slow start, it really picks up by the middle, where we get some interesting turns and great character moments. My greatest issues were the abundant use of dialogue tags (some even written like ‘deadpanned’), and the long paragraphs of telling that threw me out of the story. But all in all, I am excited to see what Moss can bring for the sequel to the story.

The Mercenary Code is split up by four different characters, which generally left me utterly confused in the first half. Gavin and Bider seemed mostly the same early on, and the setting and action was so similar that you could barely tell the difference. Alessan is the character I had the easiest time connecting to. His story was that of finding strength when he had born with an underdeveloped body, and his work in Briar was easily distinctive compared to the other characters. Leoric was a good character who went through physical hardship, captured by the goblins, and driven through painful trials—that doesn’t seem to end any time soon.
I liked how Bider’s and Gavin’s story developed, although I still don’t see the sudden purpose of returning Gavin’s people.

The world of The Mercenary Code has some interesting aspects, mainly being the Aeldenwood, a forest that never ceases its impending growth, slowly marching to take over the world. Strange mysteries reside in the wood that holds malicious beasts, ancient buildings, and the Gorimm, an ancient people that once protected the forest.
The world has the Code of Mercenaries, an aspect that left me baffled early on, when in battles, there were so few contestants, the loss of five men would be terrible. Yet after the kingdom shattered, the Codes were created to better prevent a single ruler to rise to power. We know some of the Codes so far, and I’m excited to see how deeply they affect the world.

And now for my greatest issues, which mostly lie in the prose. As beforementioned, the dialogue needs much refinement. Some sentences are written like, He nodded, “What are you doing? Stop that!” he finished (there were not a sentence like this in the book, but many read like that, which became very distracting). Similarly, instead of using the most accepted “said,” Moss uses words like “implored,” “guffawed,” which left me rolling my eyes.
Furthermore, the sentence structure also had many issues. Again, as an example, sentences were written as, Panting due to the exhaustion, [character] dropped to the ground. (Again a fictional example). In themselves, such sentences have no issues and are grammatically correct, but when you get many in quick succession, they again become a distraction.
The battle scenes are way too quick, which makes it hard to immerse yourself in the story. And when there aren’t that many throughout the book, you feel like you were left hanging, wanting more.
We also had some “sex” scenes in the book, written in quotation because they were barely that. Spoiler alert: Alessan had sex for the first time in the book; firstly, none of it was shown, and secondly, it wasn’t even mentioned after by Alessan. Not even a remark at all. It was like Alessan had forgotten it had happened.

In general, The Mercenary Code gets a solid four out of five, with many positives and a few issues with the way it is written. I am looking forward to what Moss has in store for us in the continuation.