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ALBEDO ONE REVIEWS |
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Albedo One's issue 38 |
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I’m afraid this book has very little to recommend it. It has a vaguely interesting and predictable plot but the whole story is let down by the inexperience of the author who has made so many basic technical mistakes that it is almost impossible to read. The basic storyline is centred around a quest. The Guardians of the story are each in charge of one of a set of keys which were created by Druids to end many terrible years of wars. As you would expect, finding the holders of each of these keys forms the basis of the narrative, although each key proves very easy to find, but, of course also requires a significant fight to prevent it falling into the hands of evil. The main characters are: Etienne and Indigo, two Druids made immortal by the keys they hold; Sulias and Olthar, two elves (Sulias is a Shadow Elf, what this entails is never clearly described but other characters show great interest at his rarity), Jarath, a general who has escaped from a terrible prison and is intent upon revenge, some further good guys who come and go at random, Naracus, a key holder and Druid gone bad and some typical bad guys who have no redeeming (or believable) qualities. It was difficult to keep track of these characters as they are not well described or differentiated. The key holders also have crystals which glow with a colour representing another crystal if one of the keys is in danger. Thus Etienne and Indigo, with their friends are able to track each of the key holders in turn in an attempt to notify them of impending danger before the worst happens. They always head in the precise right direction and almost always arrive just in time for a fight and, as more of them accumulate, the fights become larger also. The storyline is very predictable and the only parts of the book I can recommend are the action scenes which do have a nice pace. Fantasy worlds must present their own internal logic and this book does attempt to present a coherent world with its own rules through the powers of druids, although the author then solves many of the problems with an undisciplined use of magic leaving the reader feeling cheated. The only credible part is the references to the horses – it would appear that the author has extensive experience in this area, although even then the horses are almost always “squeezed” into action with no attempt at varying this simile. The book is weighed down with many basic errors of writing, including random changes of voice, tense, viewpoint and scene as well as spelling mistakes too numerous to list, among the worst being the consistent use of the word “then” when the correct word was “than”. The most annoying mistake was the lack of any signal that a new scene had started within a chapter. One paragraph simply followed another with no space between them. The reader must identify the context of each paragraph as he or she reads it, causing an annoying distraction from the storyline. Similarly, the characters are poorly conceived simplistic caricatures with few insights into the reasons for their behaviour. The plot is based on “Overcoming the Monster” (see The Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker for more details) but this is obvious right from the start. Normally at this point, I present “awards” for the sake of good fun and humour but I’m afraid that any attempt at humour here would be unfair – it would be like making fun of a baby kitten for not being a cat. I only hope that the author is very young and so has plenty of time to learn to write from the bottom up. To summarise, not worth reading. The Guardians (2009) Review by Wayne J. Harris |
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