Posted by
Conservative Swordfighters Club on Sunday, December 17, 2006 7:32:57 PM
I’m able to
touch on both politics and swordfighting in this positive review (I’m recommending it) of this 426-page
fantasy by an Ohio woman with the exotic name of
Cinda Chima.
THE BASIC REVIEW
First, my basic review:
Jack, 16, like Harry Potter, is a normal boy who finds out it is his destiny to be a hero-wizard. His two best friends, Will and Fitch, come along for the ride.
The backstory and plot are good (better, I think, than Harry Potter); but the writing is mediocre (not as good as Harry Potter). For instance, if you read the dialogue without knowing who’s speaking, you wouldn’t know who is speaking.
The prologue will discourage some. It is 18 pages long, 12 pages of which take place 100 years before the start of the story, and six pages of which take place 16 years before the start of the story.
In other words, the first 18 pages read like a “period” fantasy – long ago and far away –and the next 400 pages read like a modern young adult novel (with fantasy thrown in).
So I would eliminate the prologue, or at least find a place for it somewhere not at the very beginning.
The end of the novel, no less than the beginning, could use improvement – luck plays too big a part. As writer and writing teacher James N. Frey says, the hero should win in the end because he figured it out, not because of dumb luck.
POLITICS
The novel is liberal, but not gratingly so; it is safe for most conservatives to read without much discomfort due to liberal themes.
The hero and his mom are liberal.
One of the minor villains uses the phrase “bleeding heart” to derisively describe one of the good guys.
On page 329, in the second paragraph, the hero reflects: Maybe that’s how they convince young men to go to war, Jack thought. You’re just swept along until you find yourself looking death in the face, and you wonder how it ever happened.
Jack, a liberal, has difficulty distinguishing between different kinds of killing: for instance, murder and self-defense. On page 424, in the third paragraph, he reflects: …he’d come close to doing murder.
SWORDFIGHTING
On page 161, foil fencing makes its first appearance. Jack’s mentor Hastings (think Obi Wan Kenobi in the original 1977 Star Wars) starts teaching Jack foil fencing as part of his warrior training. Foil fencing is mentioned in passing a couple times more, and never shown or even described.
So the fact that foil fencing is mentioned at all is great, but of course as a fencer, I would have taken the opportunity to write more about fencing.
In the course of the story, Jack does more real swordfighting than sport-fencing, but even the real swordfighting isn’t especially well-described. Not to be sexist, but chances are that the swordfighting scenes would be better if a man had written this novel, as opposed to a liberal female college professor and nutrition columnist.
That’s about it.
I’ll end with a “semi-spoiler,” i.e. you can probably read what’s below without spoiling your enjoyment of the novel. But if you want to take no chances, stop reading now.
--Swordfish
SPOILER ALERT
One way I would change the end:
I would’ve had Jack set up the end: In the warrior duel, I would’ve had it be his plan all along for them (he and Ellen) to move out of sight of the crowd so he could make his play.