I hate writing reviews on books I did not like, but it is necessary. I go to a lot of websites and on one of them, cannot remember which one, this series was suggested as a different take on fantasy. And it is. Unfortunately, it also does not apply a consistent set of rules to the world that is described and has a main character that is unlikable.
The story is a basic Campbell-esque hero saga one where a young man, who has a difficulty to overcome, finds out that if he does not become a powerful force that his valley will be destroyed in 20 years. So far, so good. But this character is just kinda a jerk. Which is not a fatal flaw for me, I like anti-heroes if they are charismatic. He isn’t.
The world that he inhabits uses a magic/mana type system that allows people with a soul to perform various tasks depending on their clan. Problem is, he doesn’t have a soul. Then he receives a visit from an angelic type creature from a different plane of existence who also tells him that in about 20 years a super powerful being will destroy his homeland. This is where the inconsistency comes in.
The author makes it clear that many of these masters train for long decades before reaching a certain level that would be nowhere near strong enough for the guy to defeat this being. Then, the interludes with the angel type creature seem like they are from a completely different book. I literally went back and re-read some of the passages several times because I wondered if I missed some pages or something else randomly was stuck into the book. Nope. Just a total diversion that makes little sense to the rest of the novel. Not to mention this soul ability is really poorly defined and leaves the reader scratching his/her head trying to figure out what is going on
What it seems is that this author had a number of ideas and just started throwing them down on paper. The ideas are cool, but the execution is terrible. Avoid this.
