Official Review: The Blue Orb by Suzy Vivian
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Official Review: The Blue Orb by Suzy Vivian
Hundreds of years ago, the mighty wizard Xyrene sought to leave a legacy of his magic by creating a powerful blue orb. Despite his good intentions, the orb contained a fatal flaw: once drawn to use its power, incautious users were killed by the drain on their energy. After Xyrene died during its creation, the orb was used for greedy purposes until one final spell caused so much destruction that the orb was buried in the devastation.
In the present, a coven of evil witches has rediscovered the orb and desire to use its power to rule the world. A young woman named Jasmine has managed to steal the orb from the witches, but she cannot destroy the powerful relic on her own. She must journey to seek the help of Donavan, a reclusive wizard with a devastating past, and the only one who can stop the witches. The only problem is that he has vowed never to interfere with situations of war ever again. Will Donavan agree to help Jasmine on her quest, or will the witches succeed in regaining the orb?
The Blue Orb, by Suzy Vivian, was a straightforward fantasy quest that centered around a struggle between good and evil. Vivian uses clear and easy-to-understand writing to tell the tale of Jasmine’s journey to save the world from evil forces.
Vivian’s novel has a lot of potential but failed in several areas for me. The prologue presented a powerful orb with a mind of its own, but sadly that orb was kept in a bag and out of sight for the entirety of the book. With a cast that contained wizards, witches, and a magic-based item, I expected to see a lot more magic used throughout the journey. Instead, characters avoided using magic because it was easy to detect by the other party. The narrative was also quite repetitive, with stiff dialogue and seemingly pre-formatted encounters that followed the same pattern throughout the story. The author added an assassin to the mix, but his part in the plot was never fully developed and felt very forced, almost as if added as an afterthought.
My favorite part of the story was the savage mist beast. It was a terrifying creature that haunted the company of heroes and struck without warning. Even the faithful hound that traveled with the group could not warn them when the fearsome creature approached. As scary as the beast was, it didn’t present much of a threat as it targeted characters who received names only as they were buried and remembered as good men. I loved the suspense this character added to the story, but unfortunately, the heroes eventually dealt with the monster using a simple solution that felt anticlimactic at best.
The book seemed well-edited until I got about halfway through. Then I noticed several minor errors and a couple of inconsistencies with the names of two minor characters. These would be easy to correct and were not too distracting in the reading of the book. Still, the book’s slow pacing and the lack of fulfillment in the story’s potential leave The Blue Orb with a 2 out of 4.
I appreciated that the book had only mild suggestive content and minimal descriptions of torture and violence. Vivian’s narrative has many great ideas, but it requires additional development to reach its full potential. If you’re looking for a good vs. evil story without a lot of complex magic and hard-to-pronounce names, this may be a good fit for you. The light romance story woven into the plot may appeal to some readers as well. As for me, I prefer a less predictable tale that features more showing than telling, but The Blue Orb, as a standalone novel, made for a decent fantasy read.
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The Blue Orb
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