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A review by ineffablebob
The Battle of Verril by Joseph R. Lallo
2.0
I struggled to make it through this trilogy. Lallo's writing style, which I really enjoyed in his science fiction series (Bypass Gemini and Unstable Prototypes), felt unrealistic and forced in this fantasy setting. I did a decent amount of skimming over the overly-wordy sections, especially some of the pages-long fights.
The story itself is a fantasy opera. There's very little in the way of unexpected twists, plenty of temporary angst but little real loss, and the good guys always seem to come out all right. No deep social commentary or convoluted plots here. The setup in the first book was interesting as the world was described and we met all the characters, but the last two thirds of the trilogy provided very little new until the very end.
Having said that, I did still finish all three books. Perhaps that's because I'm a completionist, but I really was interested in how Lallo was going to wrap up the plot. I found the ending to be satisfying in terms of the overall plot, leading pretty much where you knew it was going all along.
I can't really recommend the Book of Deacon series, though I'm sure there are some who would enjoy it. It just doesn't do anything particularly well, and nothing at all new.
The story itself is a fantasy opera. There's very little in the way of unexpected twists, plenty of temporary angst but little real loss, and the good guys always seem to come out all right. No deep social commentary or convoluted plots here. The setup in the first book was interesting as the world was described and we met all the characters, but the last two thirds of the trilogy provided very little new until the very end.
Having said that, I did still finish all three books. Perhaps that's because I'm a completionist, but I really was interested in how Lallo was going to wrap up the plot. I found the ending to be satisfying in terms of the overall plot, leading pretty much where you knew it was going all along.
I can't really recommend the Book of Deacon series, though I'm sure there are some who would enjoy it. It just doesn't do anything particularly well, and nothing at all new.