Review: Wonderful fantasy read...
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 2, 2013
I read this story in it's serialized version.E.L.F. starts with a bang. We're on a mission with Shannon, her husband and the other operatives of E.L.F. Shannon is immediately conveyed as a Lara Croft kind of character. She is quicker and, from the start, generally more awesome than her husband who is seen for a split second so she goes out to see why the explosives haven't gone off and is pretty quickly captured. As the story flows, we get some rounding out on Shannon's character. We have a scene from when she's 7 and E.L.F. enacted a similiar attack on her father's equipment. We see a bit into how she got involved with E.L.F.  The lengths to which Ness goes to establish the character as tough though we have other contrasting elements.I would have liked more of a story with Agent Connelly and the betrayal of an insider (I won't spoil the story by saying who). The story in its serialized version may have found focus off of Shannon for too long and for the sake of development of things not essential to the plot perhaps a little awkward. Ness had to compress his story to fit into a serialized landscape and, in the end, does the job well. In Chapter 4 he tells us that only one person has seen into the elf world and wrote about it and thank goodness no one believed. The name of that historian was "Tolq Uen." I loved the tongue-in-cheek reference that most readers will get. In Chapter 14 he shows great skill by re-writing history to suit his created world. In Chapter 22 just when you thought it couldn't get any better, Ness introduces a major monster twist! Throughout Ness gives us hints of a master's touch. He has thought out his storyline and embedded deep symbolism in history, pop culture and the religious worlds. I loved each hint caught and probably there were many that I didn't.I would be remiss in this review if I did not mention the complexity of Ness' creation of the elf species. Billions of years old, their time moves slowly, the black leaves and the white leaves born from the "Mother." To create such an inticate backstory and to convey it with such an economy of language is something I would think few writers could do.Ness wrote the action of the finale with perfect intensity. It seems this authors strong suit is action and he writes in such a way that keeps the reader one the edge of their seat. The ending flowed perfectly with the story. There are twists the reader won't see coming that play out but nothing where the reader puts down the novel and feels that they have just read a tacked on ending for purposes of sensationalism.E.L.F. is a great fantasy read and a quick one. I'm looking forward to seeing much more from this author.