I wanted to like this book. The premise sounded clever, and it’s the first epic release from RR Virdi, and I’m always hopeful for new authors to the scene. Truth be told, anything over 600 pages catches my eye. I dove in expecting lovely prose, something between Sanderson and Clark, and the establishment of an epic story with many sequels. Unfortunately, no sequels for me on this one.
Sadly, it became a train of painfully predictable tropes and the author’s personal fondness for his characters, namely his main female lead, Eloine. And the MC, Ari.
My first gripe was the lengths he went to in describing, well, everything. I enjoy details and the art of words, but when it turns into repetitive overkill, which a lot of this story does, it’s not enjoyable anymore.
The book is written in first person, and the first 50-60 pages (possibly more, I no longer have the book in my possession) were spent on the narrator making sure the reader knows how much of a legendary and brilliant character he is, that there is no one like him, he knows things no one else does, done things no one has ever done, been everywhere and more, to places you would never even heard of, forgotten more than you’ll ever know, and on and on and on like so (bored yet?), and restart that entire aforementioned speech with every new countertop he looks at and face in the crowd he sees that reminds him of how terribly unique and amazing he is.
I don’t know about you, but this kind of braggadocio monologue is pretty off-putting. I’m not a big fan of first-person narratives that throw in a ‘life lesson’ to their audience every few paragraphs, either.
Oh, and we’re still in the same location and nothing in the plot has happened yet. 60 pages down, 720 more to go. Just sitting in the tavern, waiting for the promised ‘story of a lifetime’ that the narrator has been hinting at this entire time.
For the extensive time we’ve been waiting for it, it better knock my slippers off. Or perhaps the rest of the book is this amazing tale? I thought that could be plausible. How much he’s building up to it, it had better be.
Around p70, we meet the author’s slash narrator’s definition of an irresistible and perfect woman. We’ll spend the rest of this tavern time running into all the convenient coincidences and side looks and flirtations between the two. As my kids like to put it, I ‘died of cringe’ with every interaction they had.
The only use she has in the story (in this volume, anyway) is getting the narrator to talk about his past that he so adamantly refuses to talk about for the first 100-200 pages.
Lest I also be accused of wordiness: the epic tale is finally told, and voila, we learn that he uses magic to enhance his storytelling. Because the epic tale is nothing more than a well-known legend of how part of this land came to be, and the betrayal that ensued. I’m not afraid of giving spoilers here because it was all too predictable. But the peasants didn’t care, so why should I? Female crush finds out about his tricks, conveniently runs into him later that evening when (surprise!) he leaves this tavern… for another tavern.
Epic tale of the ages wasn’t so epic, but who am I to judge.
On to the flirtations and how there’s suddenly a connection between the two and he acquiesces to her every whim despite his making sure you know that he’s been there done that, seen it all, had anyone he wants, and nothing affects him. But I’m not buying that. This lady has made him a total hooey and a lousy liar. If he had his pick among women, he wouldn’t be falling for some random lady in some random town that’s beneath him, as he likes to make sure everyone knows.
Where is the editor?? Probably checked out after page 10 because endorsements. Ouch.
We meet the convenient bad guys who will keep one part of the story going, which okay, I can deal with that trope. But it better be a good backstory he’s promising this lady because now we’re nearing 200 pages (have you noticed that not much has happened yet apart from… pretentious pomp). So, from this point forward, the ‘now’ is a short chapter here and there where we get to spend some time with the alluring Elione (or trying to find her), and the rest of the 600 pages is about his adolescence and how he became … whatever he is. But this is only the beginning!
I was really hoping for something better. But this whole story of a kid in the theatre with a secret friend, learning magic, having it all taken away from him, plotting revenge on a bully while suffering the demands of a harsh school system, always trying to win and show everyone up, then finally getting some of that revenge and learning a little bit of the arts of binding magic, all while teasing it with Eloine in the present time and running from these religious bad guys…
Life is short. It was not a fun read for me, though I had to keep going just to make sure it didn’t get any better, or perhaps there was going to be some massive twist to the whole affair. But no. No, there was nothing.
His artistry with words is okay, that’s probably the only thing that prevented me from throwing this whole tome into the DNF pile. Which is a shame, I really had high hopes for this one. If you like a story with an arrogant and unbelievable first-person MC type, then you may be able to forgive how predictable this adventure story is. But if you want a good story, then you should probably pass this one off. It’s no coincidence that I was thinking about Rothfuss’s Name of the Wind throughout the entire first quarter of the book, and boo on me, but if you haven’t read either of these books yet, you’re better off with Name of the Wind.
ellDimensional 