Review: Not a gem
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 06 20, 2012
Real quick, 10 of the 22 five star reviewers only have this one book as a review, just saying.Now for the book, the first big thing that i had a problem with is the books description. I found it very misleading after reading it. For one thing, he is not a 'hero' nor is he SHOWN to be repected. The author does not show any actual respect towards Carym simply because we dont really see many interactions between him and other characters, escpecially early.It also says that he was "Saved from execution at the hands of the authorities by the very band of rebels he despises, Carym must risk everything to repay the criminals for his freedom by undertaking a dangerous quest for a vial of water from the mythical Everpool." This too is misleading as he was put into that situation because of them in the first place.Next, real quick, there is of course the typical e book editting problems. There is not much in the way of typos, it is mostly a missing word here, and extra word there. Theres not alot but its enough to be noticable.Problem number three would be the characters themselves. They are not interesting, at all. All of those you meet are very one dimensional and have very little depth. A good example is Carym, the author early on tries to portray him as an emotional person who can occasionally let his mouth run wild or basically do something stupid. Well let me tell you, for someone like that he has remarkable self control. You can EASILY count on one hand the number of times this comes even CLOSE to happening. The interactions between the various characters are also fairly bland.Fourth? Description. The author really needs to provide more. This goes from the setting, to the conversations, to the fighting. The author seems to paint with a broad brush, this gave me a hard time submerging myself in the world he was trying to create.Which brings me to FIVE, the world. Wow is it big, and wow is it confusing. There were alot of names, from nations to towns, and the author does not a good job of giving each its own feel. For example there is a place called the underllars (underground). Thats where they were at the time, then the author says that they are in place called Delcasia. Now i figured that it was the capital of the Delcasians or whatever, nope. The city had another name, which they knew, they just called it Delcasia. There are just far too many places crammed into this book which has no real effect on the story and are not fleshed out anyway.Ok LAST ONE, realism, and more details. Yes yes i know its fantasy it does have to be 'real'. Except guess what? IT DOES. there is a difference between magic and basic common sense. I'm mainly talking about the dark wizards army. First off, i would like numbers. We get at one time a count of how big a certain nations army is, but not how big the army of the wizard is, EVER. Next up is as he conquers he sets his men to building forts, roads, walls around existing towns, establishing trade routes, patrolling, AND getting ready to march when they can. In at most SIX WEEKS!Finally we have the conquering again. After he takes over a certain place i found things went far too smootly. OK lets say the majority of the people respect the occupiers, lets say they fear them. The author is trying to tell me that NOONE is fighting against him? Considering what we are told of these people i find it hard to believe that there is more discord where Carym is from then where the wizards takes first. Lastly the enemy wizard goes to incorporate his new people into his armies. We were told by the author that the wizards army is made up of diciplined well trained men while the new ones are basically barbarians. Yet they get along swimmingly.In conclusiom, as you may have guessed i can not recommend this book.