Review: Incredibly Entertaining
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 25, 2012
If you must read one fantasy book just to slake off your thirst and impatience for the next sequel in George Martin's `A Song of Ice and Fire' (Game of Thrones) series of novels, `Ashes of Heroes: War of Regret' should be high up there among your first considerations. But I'm not saying `Ashes of Heroes' should be secondary--it can stand on its own, and you immediately realize why in the first few pages.It is hard to point a finger at `Ashes of Heroes' just to identify the individual elements that make it work, but it does work, and does so brilliantly. As a fantasy book ("magical fantasy," the authors might insist), it has its own slew of heroes, knights, and general Medieval-inspired mayhem. But it would be a huge injustice to simply refer to it as that, because `Ashes of Heroes' is much, much more.For one, the quality of the writing is superb--of course, it is not possible to discern which of the two authors wrote which chapters, as the book consistently engages you throughout its entire narrative with the same irresistible gathering of words. As you know, the fantasy genre is a fairly popular field, and it is common to find many books whose quality barely gets above some guided walkthrough for some dungeons and dragons game. But this--`Ashes of Heroes'--this is different. The authors Archer and Canaan succeed in making a huge, important contribution to the genre.Also, am I the only one who appreciates the book's dark humor? It is vile, funny, heartbreaking, and infinitely entertaining--I found myself chuckling my head in regret one moment, then guffawing over a malice-laden repartee between two characters the next. In fact, the "About the Authors" page sent me laughing out loud--it is enough to set the humor for the rest of the book.From the well-developed characters (yes, this book is populated by several characters, and they interact with one another either through thinly veiled contempt or just stark sarcasm that remind me of Joseph Heller's `Catch-22', which is also my way of giving some high praise), to the jaws-dropping twists and turns, `Ashes of Heroes' is a joy to read. It definitely deserves not one, but a whole series of sequels.