This fantasy book from one of our favorite authors, The Black Knight, is a good first effort on his part. I’ll give it a review and then I’ll try and break it down using my new Pyrimd of a Good Story. If this format works well I will starting doing that for all my book reviews and possibly go back and edit ones from the past.
Quickly, before I start, I need to mention the cover. I haven’t really talked about this before because, well frankly, I didn’t think about it. My bad. But having a good cover is what grabs a potential reader’s attention. And I think this one does just that. So well done whoever drew that cover.
I found some of the language of the story to be a bit out of place for a fantasy story; something that is supposed to show times of yesteryear. For example, very early in the book, the knight has the line “I suspected that our enemy would remain asleep forever….not.” While I appreciate that from a humor perspective, it just feels really out of place in this type of story. Basically, it felt like it was mostly spoken in modern English but then suddenly, and for no real reason, some old English would be thrown in there. It was just a bit jarring.
Then there was the main story. It was good, but it also felt like 80-90% done. It’s a good quest story but I felt like it was missing a good starting point. Basically, the story of how the 4 were assembled to go about this quest was never really addressed. Now all of their individual reason were addressed and were do so well. So that kind of makes up for it.
Those two things were the biggest problems that I had with the story. Everything else was really well done. The characters were unique, understandable and personable. I really enjoyed the villains, though I think one of them could have used a bit more backstory to really flush them out. The settings were quite interesting and had a lot to add to the story. It was a quick read with pretty good pacing. I think, with a little more practice, The Black Knight will be writing fantasy novels that are just as good as his sci-fi ones in no time.
Overall I’m going to give this book a 4/5.
Working out way from the bottom of the pyramid up -
Plot: Solid premise though it felt incomplete. Well structured. No glaring logic flaws. Meaningful message.
Characters: Interesting, relatable and well written for both heroes and villains.
Sensory: Good imagery. Easy for the reader to immerse themselves in the story.
Style: Decent pacing. Wording was a bit off at times. But overall it was still understandable.
Since you indirectly posed the question, I believe the cover was drawn by Neutronboar. He and TBK have been working together on the art for TBK's books for about a decade now, possibly longer.