Scan barcode
A review by cannedbread
An Altar on the Village Green by Nathan Hall
3.0
So let me preface that I love Dark Souls to death and I'm also analyzing work on what to do and not do when I publish. My books I write strive to be similar to Dark Souls (and not to mention, books I actually want to read.) As a result, I might be more blunt on this book.
I feel like there were a lot of good and bad points with this book.
On one hand, this is finally the first book that reached me from word of mouth that was similar to Dark Souls, and it truly was! On the other hand, holy crap, there were pacing and grammar mistakes galore in this book.
The dichotomy with the different memories of the Lances were both the strength and downfall of this book. I loved this concept, but the problem is, some of the Lances in these memories I literally gave two shits about. And in a few cases, there were also glaring loop holes, such as runes.
What this book does well is give you exactly what that Dark Souls itch is craving, more so on the action side, rather than the lore side, which even if you like Dark Souls only for the lore, this is a good introduction to Dark Souls books.
The action side you can get lost pretty easily what Hall is trying to paint a picture of. Sometimes a character is walking, but then suddenly is in a different side of a building when the writing never said he went anywhere near this building? This might have been a stylistic choice, I'm not sure. I feel like the action writing wouldn't be a problem if he had some alpha readers read this before the 2nd drafts were done and maybe a few more editors to look at it. There were a few glaring typos and pacing issues I felt could have remedied this book into easily 4.5 stars. I feel like this book could be seen in big bookstores if these problems were fixed.
All of that said, I will be one of those peoples who can't wait for book 2! Assuming he gets better editors and alpha readers, I really want to see where our unnamed protagonist goes next! I want to hope other Lances are alive, waiting patiently at a faraway Anchor for someone...anyone to come to their rescue.
Edit: I forgot to mention, Hall has a weird marriage with similes. I can't tell if I am just hyper aware of similes in writing, but I feel like there's at least 5 per page and it kinda drove me mad lol
I feel like there were a lot of good and bad points with this book.
On one hand, this is finally the first book that reached me from word of mouth that was similar to Dark Souls, and it truly was!
Spoiler
Glares at "Shadow of the Gods"The dichotomy with the different memories of the Lances were both the strength and downfall of this book. I loved this concept, but the problem is, some of the Lances in these memories I literally gave two shits about. And in a few cases, there were also glaring loop holes, such as runes.
Spoiler
Specifically, in one memory, Termal was on verge of madness and was close to freeing the village by crossing out a rune that would free a town from the Horror, when we know, this is not how saving a land from Horror works, it involves cleansing the area of the Horror, not crossing out a rune. If this was the case, we would have seen the protagonist simply not kill the offspring of the Horror in that cave in the end. Another was in the coral islands. I can't tell if it's my incompetence at understanding the story, but it was not exactly clear what Horror was there. The other thing to nitpick about the memories was Ai, I loved that memory, but I had more questions to why the Horror simply died after eating the ox and it was barely a contest for her to cleanse the area. Maybe this gets explained earlier but it left me head scratching. I loved the idea, the execution was a bit ehWhat this book does well is give you exactly what that Dark Souls itch is craving, more so on the action side, rather than the lore side, which even if you like Dark Souls only for the lore, this is a good introduction to Dark Souls books.
The action side you can get lost pretty easily what Hall is trying to paint a picture of. Sometimes a character is walking, but then suddenly is in a different side of a building when the writing never said he went anywhere near this building? This might have been a stylistic choice, I'm not sure. I feel like the action writing wouldn't be a problem if he had some alpha readers read this before the 2nd drafts were done and maybe a few more editors to look at it. There were a few glaring typos and pacing issues I felt could have remedied this book into easily 4.5 stars. I feel like this book could be seen in big bookstores if these problems were fixed.
All of that said, I will be one of those peoples who can't wait for book 2! Assuming he gets better editors and alpha readers, I really want to see where our unnamed protagonist goes next! I want to hope other Lances are alive, waiting patiently at a faraway Anchor for someone...anyone to come to their rescue.
Edit: I forgot to mention, Hall has a weird marriage with similes. I can't tell if I am just hyper aware of similes in writing, but I feel like there's at least 5 per page and it kinda drove me mad lol