Official Review: Dawn of Spears by J. F. PEREZ
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Official Review: Dawn of Spears by J. F. PEREZ
[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Dawn of Spears (Legendary Dark Tales)" by J. F. PEREZ.]
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Epic fantasy in the form of short fiction? Is it even possible? Dawn of Spears by Julian Francisco Perez-Jimenez makes this ambitious attempt. (My apologies for not reproducing the Spanish accents on the author's name, my iMac is being annoyingly anglo-saxon today). The book is available on Smashwords platforms, but a quick search shows that it doesn’t seem to be available on the UK Amazon site.
Set on the mythical island of Avertaria, five kingdoms are pitted in brutal conflict following the death of the king in suspicious circumstances without any confirmed successor, leading to the inevitable descent into fratricide, regicide, treachery, vaulting ambition and intrigue. Our hero Goldenor must navigate his way through danger and despair on a secret mission for his liege lord. The essential themes of this story, like all great epic fantasy, are love and courage, with the Great Quest at its heart, with a supporting cast of princesses, imprisoned queens, mad kings, and mythical monsters.
There is a reason why short fiction is not the best showcase for a story of this type, and that is that all speculative fiction requires skillful world-building. There is simply no time or space to develop this wondrous place which inhabits Perez’s imagination. Goldenor and the other characters lack the emotional depth to make them more than one-dimensional, despite the tale being told in the first person, and I believe that a longer story would have provided a better platform to character build. Loves? Wants? Passions? Sense of Humor? Is he really in love with the girl? Is she really in love with him? What obstacles lie in their way? Frustratingly, we will never know. There is a near absence of any dialogue, and I feel that some conversations between the characters may help to develop them, the world they inhabit, and, for certain, the plot.
There are some issues too with the world-building that does exist. It is nearly impossible to dine, for example, on venison which has not been hung for at least a week, and any stew or roasting would take almost a day to prepare rather than a few hours in the afternoon. A little realism would lend credibility to the magic, and this is especially important for speculative fiction which invites the reader to suspend their belief and enter into a world of the imagination because silly errors can (and do) yank the reader out of the fantasy and slap them back into their own reality.
There is also gender-confusion with some of the pronouns, and I think this may be because the original text was written in Spanish. The names of the characters feel a little too Tolkienesque for my taste, so perhaps some thought to how the names might sound to both a Spanish and English-Speaking audience might be in order. Since Spanish is the writer’s first language, having it edited for content and style in Spanish first and then properly translated into English could well work the kind of magic needed for a great book in both languages. And why stop there? I think this story would be received well in Japan and South Korea, two countries where there is a real love of speculative fiction of this type.
As such, the story feels like a great plot outline for a much larger, more satisfying read - one in fact that I would not mind reading in a larger work of eighty to one hundred thousand words. From what I can see of the author’s imagination in this work, is that Perez’s mind is rich, wondrous, undiscovered country. My feeling is that Perez should take this plot and rework it into a larger novel, avoiding as much as possible anything which takes it too near “Game of Thrones” or similar fantasy epics.
If I reviewing this book on a five-star rating system (such as Amazon or Smashwords) I would give this three out of five stars. Using the OnlineBookClub system, I am giving this two out of four stars. A longer piece with better world-building and characterization without the venison/hunting errors would have merited a higher score. For short fiction, Perez should have focused on one aspect of the Quest, perhaps as a “taster” for a longer novel.
Perez shows enormous promise as a storyteller. I want to read the book that I know this story can be.
***
Buy "Dawn of Spears (Legendary Dark Tales)" on Barnes and Noble
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Set on the mythical island of Avertaria, five kingdoms are pitted in brutal conflict following the death of the king in suspicious circumstances without any confirmed successor, leading to the inevitable descent into fratricide, regicide, treachery, vaulting ambition and intrigue. Our hero Goldenor must navigate his way through danger and despair on a secret mission for his liege lord. The essential themes of this story, like all great epic fantasy, are love and courage, with the Great Quest at its heart, with a supporting cast of princesses, imprisoned queens, mad kings, and mythical monsters.
There is a reason why short fiction is not the best showcase for a story of this type, and that is that all speculative fiction requires skillful world-building. There is simply no time or space to develop this wondrous place which inhabits Perez’s imagination. Goldenor and the other characters lack the emotional depth to make them more than one-dimensional, despite the tale being told in the first person, and I believe that a longer story would have provided a better platform to character build. Loves? Wants? Passions? Sense of Humor? Is he really in love with the girl? Is she really in love with him? What obstacles lie in their way? Frustratingly, we will never know. There is a near absence of any dialogue, and I feel that some conversations between the characters may help to develop them, the world they inhabit, and, for certain, the plot.
There are some issues too with the world-building that does exist. It is nearly impossible to dine, for example, on venison which has not been hung for at least a week, and any stew or roasting would take almost a day to prepare rather than a few hours in the afternoon. A little realism would lend credibility to the magic, and this is especially important for speculative fiction which invites the reader to suspend their belief and enter into a world of the imagination because silly errors can (and do) yank the reader out of the fantasy and slap them back into their own reality.
There is also gender-confusion with some of the pronouns, and I think this may be because the original text was written in Spanish. The names of the characters feel a little too Tolkienesque for my taste, so perhaps some thought to how the names might sound to both a Spanish and English-Speaking audience might be in order. Since Spanish is the writer’s first language, having it edited for content and style in Spanish first and then properly translated into English could well work the kind of magic needed for a great book in both languages. And why stop there? I think this story would be received well in Japan and South Korea, two countries where there is a real love of speculative fiction of this type.
As such, the story feels like a great plot outline for a much larger, more satisfying read - one in fact that I would not mind reading in a larger work of eighty to one hundred thousand words. From what I can see of the author’s imagination in this work, is that Perez’s mind is rich, wondrous, undiscovered country. My feeling is that Perez should take this plot and rework it into a larger novel, avoiding as much as possible anything which takes it too near “Game of Thrones” or similar fantasy epics.
If I reviewing this book on a five-star rating system (such as Amazon or Smashwords) I would give this three out of five stars. Using the OnlineBookClub system, I am giving this two out of four stars. A longer piece with better world-building and characterization without the venison/hunting errors would have merited a higher score. For short fiction, Perez should have focused on one aspect of the Quest, perhaps as a “taster” for a longer novel.
Perez shows enormous promise as a storyteller. I want to read the book that I know this story can be.
***
Buy "Dawn of Spears (Legendary Dark Tales)" on Barnes and Noble
Latest Review: "PUWULO" by BD Gray
