For the sake of full disclosure, I will tell you that I occasionally stopped reading this book in order to play The Witcher. Not the new one, the old, buggy-as-fuck one. And this book inspired me to buy it. Why?
Because this book is a video game. Sure, it has pages and words and goes on a bookshelf with other books and was purchased from a bookstore, but it's a video game. A role-playing game, to be exact. There are monsters traveling the wilds, several groups of human baddies to justify being in the wilderness in the first place, and scenes of such high magic followed by a blackout that it may as well have been a cutscene.
"But Tabetha," I can hear you say, "a lot of high fantasy follows that formula. Isn't that why you don't like it?" That's true, faceless and nonexistent blog reader. I do tend to dislike high fantasy on the fact that it is formulaic. But the more I think about D&D and the campaign I'm building, the less I'm beginning to mind high fantasy. It has its place. Unfortunately, that place is more often in games. And this book doesn't even get to be a book. It's a game.
The gang's all here: the exiled prince-turned-mage, a roster of interchangeable fighters, a flamboyant bard, the grumpy female healer, the chosen-one princess-paladin, even a trickster thief in the form of Berry. And their travels and adventures are straight out of any game. If this had been written as a script instead, it would have been out on Steam for everyone's enjoyment with little changes.
But you people aren't here for video games. You're here for book reviews. And honestly, with that wall of text up there about how this book is high fantasy, you shouldn't be surprised when I say that I didn't really enjoy it. The cast was too big for this author, who often had characters fade into the background so much that, when three characters left the main cast to go do something else, I didn't even notice. I thought they were just being quiet.
Two couples are made in the course of the book, and they are so predictable I wanted to choke and die. Of course the two people who fight a lot will bone. Of course the female chosen-one and male chosen-one are going to do it. Also, how many Chosen Ones are you going to have in one book? It's ridiculous.
The thing I hated the most about this book is the fact that this lady doesn't seem to know how to end chapters properly. Surely you've read a book or two in your lifetime? You know that a chapter is a length of book to mark at least one change to the story, at whatever length the author wishes. You also know that they usually end on a cliffhanger, in attempts to tempt the reader into moving on to the next chapter without stopping. That is, of course, the gold standard for writers: a reader who would rather read the whole thing in one sitting then do something else.
This lady doesn't understand that.
Many of the chapters, especially the early ones, have the climax happen in the middle of the chapter, and the resolution finding its own conclusion before the end of the chapter. Then the chapters usually end when a person goes to sleep. As a result, the reader has no stake in what happens next. Nothing is driving them to the next page. That was another reason I kept putting this down. Because, why shouldn't I? Why should I care about these cardboard cutouts?
1.5/10
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