Review: Good hook, disappointing read
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 19, 2014
"Our destruction is soon/ Our hero is now." This is a good hook and the author promises more--the hero born at an earth-shaking moment, his power is unique, his physique attractive and precocious and he is very well mannered. His destiny is tied up with a mysterious stranger, who guards an ancient and powerful artifact.He must thwart a nameless evil that attacks three or four times. It is large beyond imagination and it multiplies. It is a threat to planets but not above visiting a small town in Colorado to threaten the main character and his friends.The writing strikes this reviewer as overwrought: "A- studied the bitterly cold, yet magnificent day outside, and squinted as his eyes passed briefly over a feeble sun inclined toward the horizon, the bright star sliding across a cloudless, pale-blue sky, a stark contrast to the storms plaguing the last week of school." The evil appears in the form of (perhaps) a wolf pack: "some skulked, creeping aggressively with their sight locked resolutely on the paid; while others trotted nimbly onward, their curved claws scratching the ice and hurling sparkly, glittering particles into the waning light."We are also treated to numerous attempts at conveying happy family banter and mannerly teenage conversation; I have to confess that these impress me as stilted. "Honey, before I start talking absolute gibberish, I think I better.../You're too late, Dee giggled /Nice, he grinned. And touche, my love."I am also disappointed that the development of the "destruction soon" versus "hero now" element promised in the beginning is dragged out and remains incomplete--presumably for the next volumes of these chronicles.