Review: Outstanding debut fantasy novel from Moses Siregar III
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 09 3, 2011
"The Black God's War" [A Stand-Alone Novel] (Splendor and Ruin, Book I) is the first in a fantasy series by Moses Siregar III. The Kindle e-edition is a 725 Kb download and is priced at $3.99.General theme SPOILERS (no specific details revealed)Two neighboring nations (Rezzia and Pawelon) have been at war with each other for about 10 years. Neither side has been able to gain a significant dominence to apply the killing blow. With the passage of time, circumstances have changed...two powerful young Princes, (Caio from Rezzia and Rao from Pawelon) have grown and matured to the point of possibly giving one side or the other enough of an advantage to finally become victorious. However as the Princes become more involved, their attitudes change....often finding themselves at complete odds with their respective fathers' longstanding,  dogmatic viewpoints.END SPOILERThings I liked...1.) for a debut book, author Siregar III has a mature writing style, displaying a vivid imagination coupled with the ability to describe people and their surroundings. In addition he displays a keen sense of pacing and timing for introducing both new and ongoing developments within the story.2.) told from several viewpoints, resulting in an array of opinions and thoughts...allowing the reader to get a feeling of the mistrust, hatred and misconceptions that has festered between both factions, for the past decade.3.) events/situations occurred in an unhurried but timely fashion...not a lot of down time during the telling of this tale.4.) no one is sacrosanct...important characters can be seriously hurt or killed.A vital point in the realism and believability within the scope of fantasy writing. To me, nothing can ruin a well written story more than having important characters that are virutally immune to injury.5.) an interesting mythological influence from gods and goddess...where they could directly affect various situations/battles simply by having one of the 'special' individuals pray to them. (see impressions below)6.) a great map...easily allowing the reader to appreciate the important geographic diversity of the terrain (vital to this tale) and also detailing the relative positions of each of the two warring armies.Some impressions...After reading the shortened version of this book I was unsure of how happy I was going to be with continued 'interference' from these mythological deities. However, this concern was unfounded as I grew to accept and actually enjoy their participating in various and often unexpected ways.I was also pleasantly surprised with the author's solid and interesting character development...a development that featured a  variety of characters, some that had good traits, while others were more motivated by their own moralistic misconceptions or greedy ambitions.Conclusions:Simply a great book..skillfully written. It is intriguing, holds your interests and has some surprising twists and turns that will pleasantly, or unpleasantly, surprise you. For a debut novel...simply outstanding.Would I read the second book...absolutely.5 Stars.Ray Nicholson