Review: This is a great book, and buy book 2, but stop there
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 3, 2012
My review of books 3, 4 and 5 are too harsh. The author is very good and talented and it is an incredible accomplishment to write these books. I applaud the writer's talent and creativity. The review below is because I read these books straight through in a matter of days. I got really frustrated because they started off strong so my expectations were high they would develop like Butcher did with the Dresden files. The first book was strong. I apologize for the frustration below - I didn't give the author the proper compliments prior to expressing my frustrations. The author deserves praise, and my frustrations with the later books not meeting my high expectations are a little too harsh. So there is great, and there is frustration. See below. The words could and maybe should have been softer.This is a great read.  Books two is ok as well.  But stop there.  The author starts strong with "builder", the first book in the series, but by the third book, is extremely lazy and repetitive in character development and story line. The author creates a very interesting world and an extremely interesting premise in which the world is geographically and culturally divided between 6 or 7 belief systems of which pure science and pure magic are two. But the reader gets virtually nothing but minor sentences here and there about the other 4 or 5 other belief systems. The author starts off strong with interesting characters. But the author fails, and in a substantial way, because his main character "Tor" advances too quickly in developing essentially god like powers to solve every day problems with magical builds but has no ego or sense of self worth (because of his DNA). The failure is that the author repeats this theme over and over and over in every book with only minor advancement of the character. The fact the author takes 5 books to develop only 2 of the 7 or more belief systems that exist in his world is lazy, in my opinion. The repetition of the main character apologizing for actions that dramatically change the lives in his kingdom in all the books is lazy. The author also dwells extensively on sexual morays too repetitively. Over and over and over and over in all the books and it is really boring. In fact as the number of books progress, the initial hurdles, the rule systems, interactions, morays and explanations and problem solving are repeated time and again without any major development or advancement. The main character solves virtually every problem by building a new magical construct, and then has the ability to reproduce it by the thousands, which makes him, essentially, a walking, but ego free, god. This is ok for a novel or two, but not for 5 books. Over this many books, it is lazy and repetitive. The author starts with a potentially interesting cast of characters, such as Kolb, Richard the King, a royal guard woman , and his best friend, but all of these characters fail to develop and end up as 2 dimensional. Really one dimensional. The author could have been much stronger had he written chapters from perspective of the other characters. The author, by book 3 or 4, could and should have developed more than 2 of the 6 or 7 world views (he only delves into pure science and pure magic). The author could and should have taken magic versus each different belief system in each book/installment. That would have been real work for him. Instead, readers get shortchanged. Supposedly, for two or three books, there is a war declared and going on, but no actual battles. The author spends extensive time for preparation of war, but gives no explanation why there are no major incursions, and nothing characteristic of an actual war. Only spies trying to kill people. He prepares all these shields and weapons, but they never actually get used in any battles where the reader might see science and magic in direct opposition on a major scale. I would recommend the first two books, but I would not recommend anything thereafter. The author needs more action, better development of the various belief systems, more backstory of the "ancients", and less repetition of arranged marriages, stupid feudal customs, loving everyone, sexual morays. I feel like the money was well spent on the first two novels, but then I would want a refund on each of the books thereafter.