| I'm about two thirds done with Storm Dragon by James Wyatt. This book gives me hope. It gives me hope that if a book written as poorly as this one can get into hardcover with a major publisher that I still have a chance as a writer.
The first chapter or two is pretty much one big old info dump that attempts to setup this huge epic adventure. He could have left a lot of that out because he explains it again within the story later.
Now some of you know that I've talked before about the "rules" of writing. I'm all in favor of breaking "rules". But Wyatt breaks them to the point that the story is almost incoherent. I like an occasional sentence fragment. This guy weilds them like a limp noodle.
He keeps jumping from one character's head to another--sometimes in the same sentence. I can't keep up with who is thinking what. There are many places where there is no POV character and some places where we jump completely out of the POV character's head and into someone else's.
The book is very cliche', but it is a Wizards of the Coast publication and that's what they are famous for. Still, the sterotypical goblins, elfs, dwarfs, gnomes... nothing new here. Dragons are designated colors (as usual) Red Dragons, Bronze Dagons, Gold Dragons...whatever. Dragon memories ars stores in shards. Swords have names lke Maelstrom... Some places have cheesy names (Like Mournland)while others have long elven names that Gandolf couldn't pronounce.
He uses magic like a crutch. He developes this huge five nation world and then they jump all over it simply by holding hands in a circle while the big hauncho wizard does a teleportation spell (too easy). His protag goes into the desolate waste of Mournland (cheesy) carrying a magic water skin that never goes dry (again, too easy).
He does a fair job of building some interesting characters and story has a good pace once it gets past the opening few chapters. It's typical fantasy and those of you who read a lot will have that "I've read this some place before" feel throughout the book.
Its a three book series, unfortunately. Unless the last third of the book really blows me away I'll probably have to leave this story hanging for the rest of my life. I doubt I'll buy the other two.
Edward Knight Editor Journey Books Publishing |