Review: A good read even if you HATE fantasy genre!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 19, 2014
Let's get one thing straight. Right now. I HATE most fantasy novels. Why? I'll tell you why:#1. Most fantasy authors try to be JRR Tolkien. Here's a tip: there was just one, he's dead, and you are never going to be him. Give it up. Thankfully, Jack Conner knows he is not JRR Tolkien, and he doesn't try to be. Therefore he has a style that is his own, and I dare say it is more readable than Tolkien's.#2. Most fantasy authors try WAY too hard to use anachronistic language for drama. They fail. "By the hair on Oden's beard I will double and redouble my strain until the golden orb never sets on Algeneir and my hatred, like an over ripened fruit, lies sallow on my tongue." A couple pages of this crap is all I can take and I put 99 out of 100 fantasy books in the trash bin. Jack avoids this. The dialogue is fresh and not so hokey you are tempted to puke.#2. Most fantasy authors don't believe in sentences. They write paragraph! My God, people don't talk 458 words without stopping! Yet most fantasy authors have not learned this! Jack, however, doesn't fall into this foolish trap. BTW, I think any author that writes more than 12 lines in a paragraph should be forced to write their next book on a typewriter with the 'e' key not working and have to use carbon paper.#3: Most fantasy novels  d  r  a  a  a  a  a  g.  The journey to Golfdor may be just two miles long but it takes 58 pages to get there. Is there some state law that says you have to go into intricate detail about mundane items in order to call your work a fantasy novel? This is why I don't own any firearms. If I have to read one more fantasy novel by the average fantasy author, I'll kill myself. But "The War of the Black Tower" really MOVED. As much as I hate to admit it, I found myself saying, "Ok, I'll read just ONE MORE chapter before I go back to work..."The story was an epic battle between good and evil...told a billion times by millions of authors and so-called authors. But Jack made it interesting. He made me WANT to read it. And the few love scenes were handled very very well. Sorry ladies, it's not steamy erotica, Jack doesn't include all the juicy details like a Desiree Holt soft porn romance (thank God for small favors). And the story was well defined without missing pieces. If I have any complaint, it is that the time Bal is in the mines the time jumps 3 years over a space of about two pages...but I'm really nitpicking there. I would have liked to have a little more backstory about his time in slavery and how his relationship with Veronica developed, but that's just me.So Jack, I've gotta hand it to you. You wrote a fantasy novel that kept my interest and I couldn't put down, and I HATED to reach the last page, and I am actually looking forward to part two. You should know I hate your guts. So when is part two coming out?