Review: A Failure of Expectations
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 15, 2012
The Builder, book one of The Young Ancients series, is like a warm cup of chocolate with lots of marsh mellows in it.  The story simply oozes of warm and fuzzy feelings.  The next book, Knight Esquire, takes a vastly different approach.  Instead of chocolate, we get vodka.  The author chooses to focus on the personal development of the main character, Torrence Baker, and is clearly determined to make Tor lose his country bumpkin naviete.  With fiendish cruelty, P. S. Power batters the poor boy physically and emotionally over and over again during the course of Knight Esquire. By the end of the book, Tor has lost his innocence, and sees the world in much starker terms.  In this regard, it is easy, and justified even, for the readers to feel disappointed at P. S. Power.  After all, the readers expect a fantasy story showcasing Tor's wondrous devices that perform miracle after miracle.  Alas, the author has a different type of story in mind for The Young Ancients, and hence he failed to meet the expectations of a large readership.But in place of an epic series, the author presents a sordid tale of love and friendship, honesty and truthfulness, lies and deceit.  Indeed, it is just the sort of gamesmanship that the Nobility plays, and Tor has to learn to adapt quickly to this environment.  P. S. Power does so with a flourish, offering in Knight Esquire an emotional roller coaster ride of a story.  The presentation of the storyline is brilliant, but alas the writing is riddled with far too many spelling errors (the author has a tendency to mix "to" with "too").  And I felt the need to knock one star off the rating specifically for this reason.Knight Esquire (The Young Ancients) contains foul language, and graphic description of sexual situations.  This book is strictly for adult readers.