It has so many things going for it! The story moves at a great pace, holding your attention easily.
I I wish the author well, and maybe better editors next time.Įxcellent book. It may be the next volumes in the trilogy are better, more solid, and rounde. Nonetheless I give the book three stars, for the interesting first part, which did keep me up reading. But a convincing world can be magical but needs to be bound by rules, otherwise it becomes boring. The shape changing and body takeovers make the last half of the book difficult to follow, as there are no longer any rules. We also meet throughout the book strange malevolent and very dangerous monsters that exist already in the 'stable' part of the world. Throughout the book danger grows from the weakening of the Boundary, and mysteriously powerful people get through it and kill and burn everything in their path. However it turns out that they can in fact use the Gift, and how this is possible is never explained. They are not bound by the King's edict as they are no longer Gifted. They have had their Gift forcibly taken from them, and they grow black veins on their faces to mark them. One example (SPOILER follows) is the group of people known as Shadows. If magic is too arbitrary, it is hard to keep up an interest. All this is a good beginning, but I found the range of characters and people confusing, and the introduction of the different magics and vile beasts also inconsistent. There us a second kind of Gift, rarer and more feared, and bearers of this gift have been killed off for many years. The King has banned the use of Essence in most situations, for fear of the power the GIfted would have. How this works is not defined, though gradually in the book we find out that each Gifted person has a Reserve of this power. In this work, set in a semi mediaeval world, many people have what is called a Gift, whereby they can use Essence. In the end I did not finish the book, not so much because of the blood, but because the author does not make a consistent magical universe, and overloads the amount of powers,to include shape changing, time travelling, and others. I was surprised at an early mass murder, as bloody death used not to be dealt with so cavalierly, and from then on knives, scars and blood were everywhere. I noticed on the way that it read rather like a book for the YA market, but who cares. There was a lot to enjoy in the book and I read the first half or so without stopping. I am always ready to try new sci fi and fantasy books, and this sounded interesting,while not novel boy discovers magical powers, danger to world around him, boy helps save world.
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