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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
adventurous
relaxing
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
Generally a fun fantasy novel with corny dialogue and some pacing issues.
I have to say I'm partial to the mapped fantasy genre. If there's a map and travel in there I'm almost always completely sold. It was on this alone, and the art on the front cover that had me immediately.
It's a pretty simple call to action type of story as defined over the years in the genre. A boy, Alv, has his town (which he feels no connection to) by a force of sort of viking-like looters and is taken as an apprentice by the enigmatic Mastersmith. Following the realisation of innate skill (which he had so humbly overlooked being a poor marginalised farmer in his town) he ends up running from the Mastersmith with a buddy after some unfortunate events.
The majority of this is forging, smithing, and walking and I have to say it works surprisingly well. I've never been so interested in a guy making a sword outside of the YouTube videos you might watch at 3am, but this pulls it off. The winter-encroaching setting works quite well, and there are similarities enough to "A Song of Ice and Fire" here to say it even prefigures it. (Though opposing elements like Ice and Fire isn't particularly extraordinary.)
There were issues in dialogue that felt a little stunted such as forced old-timey turns of phrase that don't flow all that great, as well as a kind of stuttering narrative that can't fully decide whether it wants to be a mythology recounting of old tales, or a standard focalised perspective on Alv (Elof.) There were also some pacing issues. The introduction attack was so quick where we could have learned a great deal about Alv, why he hated his town, perhaps why he felt so dejected and so forth.
In all though, a good deal of fun!
I have to say I'm partial to the mapped fantasy genre. If there's a map and travel in there I'm almost always completely sold. It was on this alone, and the art on the front cover that had me immediately.
It's a pretty simple call to action type of story as defined over the years in the genre. A boy, Alv, has his town (which he feels no connection to) by a force of sort of viking-like looters and is taken as an apprentice by the enigmatic Mastersmith. Following the realisation of innate skill (which he had so humbly overlooked being a poor marginalised farmer in his town) he ends up running from the Mastersmith with a buddy after some unfortunate events.
The majority of this is forging, smithing, and walking and I have to say it works surprisingly well. I've never been so interested in a guy making a sword outside of the YouTube videos you might watch at 3am, but this pulls it off. The winter-encroaching setting works quite well, and there are similarities enough to "A Song of Ice and Fire" here to say it even prefigures it. (Though opposing elements like Ice and Fire isn't particularly extraordinary.)
There were issues in dialogue that felt a little stunted such as forced old-timey turns of phrase that don't flow all that great, as well as a kind of stuttering narrative that can't fully decide whether it wants to be a mythology recounting of old tales, or a standard focalised perspective on Alv (Elof.) There were also some pacing issues. The introduction attack was so quick where we could have learned a great deal about Alv, why he hated his town, perhaps why he felt so dejected and so forth.
In all though, a good deal of fun!
The quest story of a boy whose contemptuous of everybody, who becomes a blacksmith and then falls in love with a girl at barely a glance and no conversation.
Lots of smithing with an attempt to explain how life continues through an ice age. A pretty unremarkable work now and probably for its time too.
Lots of smithing with an attempt to explain how life continues through an ice age. A pretty unremarkable work now and probably for its time too.
Many years ago I read this series and really, really loved it. Entirely forgotten as the decades drifted past, I was reminded of it and ordered a copy of this book to see how it held up. Pretty well, I guess? It's the story of a boy who trains as a blacksmith, in a world where that is a fully magical art, and is duped by his master into creating the most potent and awful tools for the advancement of evil, and then sets about trying to right that. One thing I'd forgotten (or more likely not even noticed) is how Tolkien-esque a whole lot of it is: the writing in places, many of the characters, some of the history and setting. It's not at all Middle Earth (well, not hardly at all) but it is very much in the mode. It was fine, I guess? If the books were readily and cheaply available I'd probably get the other two and finish out the trilogy, and maybe read the fourth much later book that I never got around to, but I don't know if I will do that or not. Seems a lot of effort for something that now I just find pretty all right, and not excellent.