Review: A very enjoyable classic fantasy
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 24, 2013
Sometimes with these self published e-books you come across one and wonder why it was never published as a print edition for a wider audience and for me this was one of those books. I would have to describe this as a classic fantasy and it has all those usual stereotypes: Lost heirs, vague and misleading prophecies, evil wizards (but no dragons yet thankfully - I won't miss them), human like races (both good and bad), sword fights and magic.At 20 Sim is considered an adult in his society. The son on an innkeeper he's desperate to leave the inn and see the wider world but he really has no idea about how sheltered his life has been deliberately kept and the family secrets which will shortly bring change whether he wants it or not. The novel may start of a little slow for some people but it sets the scene of life before everything changes for the characters without massive infodump back-flashes.I thought this novel was well written in a world the author has obviously given some thought to and characters that are both interesting and you want to know more about. This is a long book - the page count on amazon is 776 pages - but despite that I kept coming back to it to see how the story would move along. Although the story starts from Sim's point of view it diverges to other characters as it goes along. For some authors this does not work, but it works in this story and if you are after a classic sword and sorcery fantasy for your e-reader this is worth picking up as I know I've easily read worse in commercially produced books. I'd probably give it 4.5 stars if I had the option. Its not perfect but its an excellent first effort and I'll be picking up the sequel "blood lord" when it comes out.