Thursday, October 13, 2016

Books read in 2016: No. 52 -- The Sable City: Book One of The Norothian Cycle

by M. Edward McNally

Started: Sept. 28
Finished: Oct. 13

Notes: As I do from time to time, I like to try out authors unfamiliar to me, especially indie authors. So, I'm giving this one a go.

Mini review: Once every century the doors of an ancient city open to allow adventurers to enter and search for loot. It sounds like a bad Dungeons & Dragons adventure, but it actually all fits together quite well, even though it's obvious the world is based upon the D&D game to the point even many of the monsters have the same names as their gaming counterparts. The writing here is quite good, and the characters are strong and have a likability quality to them, even the ones who border on darkness. I did think the first chapter was pretty much a waste, being little more than information that was or could have been handed out piecemeal later in the story. And a few characters introduced towards the end had a flippancy I didn't think went along with the seriousness of the rest of the tale, but these are just quibbles. This was excellent epic fantasy writing, and I can highly recommend this book and author to others.

1 comment:

Charles Gramlich said...

I'll have to give it a look