Review by Book Dragoness -- We are Voulhire: A New Arriv...
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Book Dragoness
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Review by Book Dragoness -- We are Voulhire: A New Arriv...
[Following is a volunteer review of "We are Voulhire: A New Arrival under Great Skies" by Matthew Tysz.]
What will you do if you are living in a country torn by civil war and you were given a ticket to get out of that place to a land that you have never been to and do not know anybody? Will you turn down the offer on grounds of fear of being and feeling alone there or will you grab this opportunity with your two hands? Whatever your answer is, Galen Bray did not need to think twice before diving into the boat that would take him to Voulhire, and away from the Lands of the Princes. On getting to Voulhire, he sees a society where people do not live in fear of tomorrow. Here, the people work, eat, and sleep with the assurance that they are protected. This reality is far different from the one that he has had to live in for the past 20 years. However, all the beauty that he sees is just on the surface. Because deep within the Voulhirian kingdom, there are those whose plans for this country are unholy. Their focus is on death and destruction and they plan on rising to the surface of this great kingdom slowly, but surely.
The first thing that I noticed the moment I landed on the first page of the story was the title of the chapter. The book does not have chapters like many other books do. Instead of having words like ‘chapter 1’ and the rest, each chapter is named after the character on which the story focuses. Another thing that I noticed was that the pages are unnumbered. Both the lack of traditional chaptering and the numberless pages will surely make referencing the book a little bit difficult. I should say that although I did not have any issues with the way the chapters were named, I abhor the fact that the pages lack numbers. You can say that this feature is my least liked feature in the book that the Matthew Tysz titles We are Voulhire: A New Arrival Under Great Skies.
The fact that I started my review of the book properly with the negative points that I found in it does not mean that it is all bad. To be honest, the book is almost perfect to me. I found so many features that I like in the book and I will outline some of them below.
One of the positive and liked features is the depth of imagination that Matthew Tysz seems to have. This is imaginative mind is made obvious in the story he tells and in the way the book is written. We see stones from another world, knights with armors made from steel that is pure white, soldiers that dance when they fight, and biomages whose only power is controlling the bodily functions of other humans.
Apart from the single dislike mentioned in the second paragraph, I liked every other thing about the book. I rate the content 100%. As mentioned above, the author has a healthy and vast imagination. His fusion of the ancient world (that sees the existence of wizards, magic, and honorable knights) with the current world that has seen many scientific inventions is just beautiful. The book is also filled with so much humor that I giggled and laughed way more times than I cared to count while I was reading it. I love funny books or books with funny characters like Rowan and Modius in them. With that said, it should not come as a surprise to you when I say that humor is the feature that I love above every other feature in the book. It made the already interesting story more interesting to me.
The book is also extraordinarily well edited. What I mean by this is that I did not come across any grammatical or punctuation mistakes in it. So, in addition to being interesting and a great read, it is also excellently edited. This is a wonderful combo as far as I am concerned. That is why I have decided to rate it four out of four stars. I know that I mentioned that I disliked the unnumbered pages, but that is a minor oversight on the part of the author. Moreover, my PDF reader automatically numbered it for me. I recommend this novel to consumers of sci-fi and fantasy novels. Because of the profane words and the gory violence, it is best read by a mature audience.
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We are Voulhire: A New Arrival under Great Skies
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
What will you do if you are living in a country torn by civil war and you were given a ticket to get out of that place to a land that you have never been to and do not know anybody? Will you turn down the offer on grounds of fear of being and feeling alone there or will you grab this opportunity with your two hands? Whatever your answer is, Galen Bray did not need to think twice before diving into the boat that would take him to Voulhire, and away from the Lands of the Princes. On getting to Voulhire, he sees a society where people do not live in fear of tomorrow. Here, the people work, eat, and sleep with the assurance that they are protected. This reality is far different from the one that he has had to live in for the past 20 years. However, all the beauty that he sees is just on the surface. Because deep within the Voulhirian kingdom, there are those whose plans for this country are unholy. Their focus is on death and destruction and they plan on rising to the surface of this great kingdom slowly, but surely.
The first thing that I noticed the moment I landed on the first page of the story was the title of the chapter. The book does not have chapters like many other books do. Instead of having words like ‘chapter 1’ and the rest, each chapter is named after the character on which the story focuses. Another thing that I noticed was that the pages are unnumbered. Both the lack of traditional chaptering and the numberless pages will surely make referencing the book a little bit difficult. I should say that although I did not have any issues with the way the chapters were named, I abhor the fact that the pages lack numbers. You can say that this feature is my least liked feature in the book that the Matthew Tysz titles We are Voulhire: A New Arrival Under Great Skies.
The fact that I started my review of the book properly with the negative points that I found in it does not mean that it is all bad. To be honest, the book is almost perfect to me. I found so many features that I like in the book and I will outline some of them below.
One of the positive and liked features is the depth of imagination that Matthew Tysz seems to have. This is imaginative mind is made obvious in the story he tells and in the way the book is written. We see stones from another world, knights with armors made from steel that is pure white, soldiers that dance when they fight, and biomages whose only power is controlling the bodily functions of other humans.
Apart from the single dislike mentioned in the second paragraph, I liked every other thing about the book. I rate the content 100%. As mentioned above, the author has a healthy and vast imagination. His fusion of the ancient world (that sees the existence of wizards, magic, and honorable knights) with the current world that has seen many scientific inventions is just beautiful. The book is also filled with so much humor that I giggled and laughed way more times than I cared to count while I was reading it. I love funny books or books with funny characters like Rowan and Modius in them. With that said, it should not come as a surprise to you when I say that humor is the feature that I love above every other feature in the book. It made the already interesting story more interesting to me.
The book is also extraordinarily well edited. What I mean by this is that I did not come across any grammatical or punctuation mistakes in it. So, in addition to being interesting and a great read, it is also excellently edited. This is a wonderful combo as far as I am concerned. That is why I have decided to rate it four out of four stars. I know that I mentioned that I disliked the unnumbered pages, but that is a minor oversight on the part of the author. Moreover, my PDF reader automatically numbered it for me. I recommend this novel to consumers of sci-fi and fantasy novels. Because of the profane words and the gory violence, it is best read by a mature audience.
******
We are Voulhire: A New Arrival under Great Skies
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Latest Review: Dagger's Destiny by Linnea Tanner
