Review: Well-written Fantasy
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 21, 2013
The story opens with the sort of imagery and narrative that marks a traditional Fantasy novel and it didn't take me more than the first couple of pages to see that I was going to enjoy this story.  It starts out on a boat watching the coast of a small fishing village. A ghost ship is spotted and captured, then the watchman finds that instead of salvage, he has found a boat containing ten crystal caskets with beautiful women wearing fine spun gowns sleeping inside. One wakes, and with a poetic twist of words, the watchman's heart is lost.The next thing the reader sees is a military situation with a despot commander which provides a little blood and gore to balance the ethereal nature of the ship's find. I'm not going to go through the plot blow by blow, but mention this as it could be relevant to those who are squeamish about violence. The beginning sections are fast paced and set up what appears to be a sword and sorcery story with a young protagonist and a really nasty antagonist. I was impressed that the settings had been prevalent first, so that meeting the protagonist happened within the context of an established atmosphere to the story. The chapters begin to get a little longer as the story develops.If it weren't for the level of sexual and violent imagery, I would place this one in the increasingly popular YA Fantasy category, but I think it would be suitable for 15+ and is also for the more intelligent reader I would think. You get some intellectualism to go with the blood and gore. I like the way the connection between two very different characters was slowly revealed.It's a fairly short novel compared to many Fantasy stories, yet it does manage to fit in mutli-layered plots. Not as complicated as Song of Ice and Fire of course, but perhaps a Lite version of that sort of Fantasy. The important thing is that it is fairly well done.We are left with a continuation, as this is the first book of a sequential series, but the immediate situation is mostly resolved and the reader has got to know the characters well. I give this one an easy four and a half stars for good writing and character development.