Review: 3.5 and near 4
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 01 30, 2013
I'm torn with this book.  In many ways it was an excellent example of a good, quick, fantasy read but there were aspects of it that made me shudder.Some things that I really enjoyed are the Protagonist, Val, not being an archtypical "superman" not suffering from any type of injury and near unstoppable. He felt human and vulnerable and the unique way he obtains skills are unique and surprisingly fresh in a fantasy setting. He is used in the stereotypical low-born boy suffers tragedy and then finds he is linked to great things trope that is common BUT the author does a good job of revealing these things in a plausible way that keep the reader interested and adds to the overall story arch.  Val's companions are also arch-types in that they are muscled barbarians and winsome elfs but they aren't burdened with poor and silly dialogue and by the same token they aren't made to be anything but what they are, also very refreshing. The setting and story, though not fresh, are well laid out and give the reader good imagery of the world in which the story takes place.Those are some strong positives but there were also some real negatives that made me want to put the book down. It begins with the need to explain every step that Val takes.  Over description of movement, ie., Conan walked down the dark lit hall, overhanging with stalactites, covered with moss, dimly lit by the dieing moon, until he came to a corner, surrounded by darkness, feeling evil, he turned right, down a hall, placing each foot in front of the other, trying not to notice the overhanging stalctites, covered with moss, in the dimly, moon lit hall, much like the other....."  You get the picture, WAY too much description about every little detail of the enviroment adnauseum for 3 pages can become extremely boring and I found myself skipping half the book to get to some new action.Though a strongly thought out supporting cast, his interactions with them and others in the story are silly at times, the 2 instances that come to mind most vividly, not wanting to give away spoilers, are his interactions with a bar-maid at an inn.  She comes in, strips naked with a stranger, gets into the bath with him, he tells this complete stranger all his secrets, why I don't know, she then leaves with no further detail.  Tell me what the heck this had to do with anything that furthered the story? Another is his rushing off to save the moor-cat.  His companions follow him from their job, glossing over the fact they are almost killed by a sudden attack of orc-like creatures, their horses are killed and run off, they agree they will lose their jobs and yet they don't even blink an eye at Val's recklesness even though these are much more seasoned adventurers than he is, they agreed to go overland without returning to the caravan, this made no sense and detracted from the character inter-action. There were a few others but these 2 stuck most in my mind.Another thing that I didn't like were the use of, in D&D; terminology, side quests, that seemed to be tossed in as filler.  For example finding the Sable Elf summoning a devil, this is added to the story and is full of greatly described action, yet what was the point? Did it have something to do with the upcoming invasion? What?  Also I felt the death of one of the main characters was thrown in as an "Oh my I need to kill off someone that is important to add tension for the final confrontation." The problem was the device used to create the tension is just thrown away at the end, totally wasting the pages! Someone mentioned, in another review, stallions being left alone with other horses, this you def., don't want to do. Another thing, when someone takes a cut, even a fairly shallow one, putting bandages on it will not make it heal and no matter the cleaning leads to infection, either have a healer/potion available or have the story's charcters use stiching!  I've cut myself on sharp objects enough to wish they could have been closed and healing in days with just a band-aid.Finally there were several inconsistences, not grammar and spelling, those are expected and weren't so bad they made the book unreadable, it's small things like the elf at one point mentioning his 7 centuries and then further on saying he was 350 years old, where did the other 350 go?  To this point why do all elves have to follow the Tolkein tradition, always have super-hearing/vision, live centuries...well that is for another discussion. There were several moments in the book where this type of thing happened.Again the books had some real positives and had the potential to be very, very, good, but the detractions were hard to suspend.  If the author would stay sharply focused on the story arch, not leave plot holes and remember that over-description is sometimes a distractor, I truly feel this would become a 5 star novel.