Review: Either a Send-Up or a Really Bad Novel
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 09 26, 2012
Mr. Cooley has stuffed this novel with every fantasy trope known to the English language, plus a few of the science fiction ones as well. I don't know, upon reflection, if he was trying to write a serious fantasy novel or a send-up of one, but either way, it doesn't work.I normally make notes of major characters on a pad while I'm reading, because sometimes it's necessary for keeping track of who is who. Absolutely necessary for Crystal Warrior. By page 15 the reader is introduced to Althea, Larissya (with the requisite flashing green eyes), Sorel, Grinelm, Robeson, Brunel, Talos, Thoren, Barbl, Leef, Jinga, Adan, Ulon, Roate--all difficult names (C.J. Cherryh learned not to do this)--14 characters in all. There were more to come as the story progressed.Then there are the following: cryayl, guaye, silak, kalok, klidats, gannek, atak, palnk, polgna, pinrose, wyven, widgen, zinna birds, solecjuts, gragnok--all animals or plants or objects of some sort. Easy to remember, no? No. I won't even try to list all the bizarre place names.One amusing note: the author uses the word "plonk" as a substitute for a well known swear word ending in "k".I must say, all of the strange words and names did distract me from misspelled and misused words and punctuation errors, as I tried to make sense of the storyline and keep everything straight in my head.I get the feeling that Mr. Cooley loves fantasy and tried to pour all his love and all his ideas all at once into a book. I respect him for that; I love fantasy, too. But I ask him to reflect and reconsider his approach and his barrage of exotic names for things and people.If you are going to read this book, be prepared to take notes, or just blow it off and skim through for the overall story (which gets seriously weird by the end).