Review: Great world-building
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 15, 2013
I wasn't sure at first if First Chosen was "my kind of fantasy."  It's a little darker than I usually enjoy, and there are a few more fight scenes than I tend to like.  But the imagination of the world-building hooked me, and I love the strong female protagonist in Julianna.  Our daughters should be taught that girls can do anything a boy can do (might take a different procedure, but it can be done) and that they don't have to sit around waiting for some guy to rescue them or make their lives complete.  Julianna teaches us that.  She shows us that courage is more important when life gives us unexpected crises than are money or who you know.  But she knows the value of friends and leadership, too.  She's a very strong heroine.The fight scenes are extremely well done.  There are hints of Greek and Roman mythology, Celtic legend, and time travel.  The plot and subplot lines are intricately woven, the world of mankind, magic ("speaking miracles"), gods with their followers and the agnostics, aengyls, daemyns, and faerie creatures is rich and well thought out.  This is a book that assumes an intelligent audience and much that we learn about the different types of creatures comes from later books.  But the storyline stands alone, and the subtle mysteries pull the reader along.  No unsatisfying cliff-hangers here.  But there are sufficient details left uncertain to make us want to run out and read the next book.  I read the first three in a single week.  But then I went back and re-read more leisurely because there were whole new levels to the story after I knew what came later.  The series stands up well to multiple reads, and the new edition has very few typos.Some reviewers have complained about the book being a tad short, but the length is clearly shown in the description.  As the first in a series, I think it did a very good job of setting the stage, introducing the characters, and giving us an impelling plot we can care about.  It felt like the right length to me.I think the Tears of Rage series is a great example of how High Fantasy should be done.  I've enjoyed it as much as I did the early Robert Jordan Wheel of Time Series, and I think the characters are done as well as Tolkien's LotR.Of the first three books in the series, Arms of the Storm is my favorite, but I think First Chosen is a really strong first book in the series.