ARA Review by abhay00987 of End of the Last Great Kingdom

[abhay00987]

[Following is an OnlineBookClub.org ARA Review of the book, End of the Last Great Kingdom.]

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4 out of 5 stars

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Sulphurium is a land where the original pure races of human, elf and orc eventually interbred to produce hybrids such as trolls, goblins, gnomes and ogres. Then a new race came into being, descended from humans and elves – the enlighten, a sub-race that turned out to be able to master the elements. But Sulphurium is a violent world whose peoples struggle to survive on a daily basis. Torture and death are commonplace, and a young boy whose magical potential is yet untapped becomes the target and scapegoat for Sulphurium’s warring factions. Leaf, an orphan boy who somehow manages to survive Sulphurium’s deadly mage school, must quickly learn his craft if he is not to be overwhelmed by the forces determined to tear Sulphurium apart.

This novel is described by the author as “a dark fantasy series following the life of the mage Brimstone.” So far, so good. He goes on to say, “The story is fast-paced and filled with unique characters and captivating creatures. Be warned this series is not for the faint of heart. Death and suffering lie around every corner, and not even the innocent are safe.” Well, I have to take issue with the first part of this statement because I found the story to be extremely slow right up to Chapter VI, with many pages of dry, and often unnecessary, exposition. As an example, a character named Charles gets three entire pages of exposition before he dies, with no real bearing on the story. Those pages could have been (and should have been by an editor!) cut from the novel with no detriment whatsoever. It is only with the arrival of the character Heat in Chapter VI that the real story – both in terms of action and of meaningful dialogue – gets going.

The author’s statement that “death and suffering lie around every corner” is completely accurate – so much so that I was surprised there were any inhabitants left in Sulphurium by the end of the novel. Each race, faction, organization and even individual seems hell bent on destroying, torturing, or enslaving all the others. Even the mage school routinely kills its students, sometimes in large numbers, leading the reader to wonder why any parent would ever send their child there. Various murders are described, including soldiers slitting children’s throats, mainly, it seemed, for the simple reason that they could. I have no objection to dark fantasy and violence within novels, but it has to be there for a very good reason. In this novel, even the main characters kill with no compunction, remorse, or consequence.

So for me, the entire structure of the story lacked credibility. Another example of this was Brimstone’s early training at mage school by Nova. The descriptions of the lengths of time for which he was subjected to hard physical exercise, plus his hours of mage training and then servitude to Nova all within the bounds of a single day, were completely unrealistic and unachievable. I also found many examples of loose POV scenes and head hopping, while most of the exposition is told from a universal narrator perspective, making large parts of the novel disconnected and impersonal. For me, there were also too many examples of flashbacks to explain various events, which is another consequence of the loose POV and uncertain narration.

I gave this novel three stars because in places the writing and dialogue work to engage the reader. If you like unreasoning and unremitting violence then you will probably enjoy the book. I did not give it four stars because of the points I have already mentioned as well as a selection of errors scattered throughout the novel that a proofreader would easily have caught. A good example was the town of Last Hope suddenly becoming the town of Last Resort. Here are the others I noted: “Secession” instead of “succession”; “regiments” instead of “regimes”; “it was then when” instead of “it was then that”; “judged by the counsel” instead of “judged by the council”; “Junior said with a laughed” instead of “laugh”; “Brimstone eyes” instead of “Brimstone’s eyes”; “increasing disheartened” instead of “increasingly”; “attempt to force Heat” instead of “attempted”; “decide the best place” instead of “decided”.


But Finally i give this book 4 out of 5 rating.

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