Official Review: Lyth: Hymn of the Flesh
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Official Review: Lyth: Hymn of the Flesh
[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Lyth: Hymn of the Flesh" by Harrison Roberts.]
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Lyth: Hymn of the Flesh by Harrison Roberts is a clash of Horror meets Fantasy meets Sci-Fi. A man has been dismembered and put back together with metal parts, and then given the simple purpose to destroy. His tormented mind is geared toward only destroying his creator, the Archetype, but the ones really pulling the strings have a different target for his wrath in mind; Shadow Brooke, the heathens in the mountains.
The people of Shadow Brooke are survivors, they have been taught in the ways of Tyme, a man who is often described near godliness. His predecessor and son, Aegis, is who must protect their people now that Tyme has passed, but there is much that Aegis’s father did not tell him, and a few things Aegis has refused to believe about his father that have been passed down as folklore.
This is a book of not only cultures clashing, but gods as well. The gods are not only greatly influencing their human minions, but called upon to help in the human’s greatest time of need. They grant both gifts, and curses upon the mortals.
So, as I hope has been shown, this book definitely has the potential to be great. The framework is there, all that is needed is the real meat of the story. This is where my mixed feelings on this book begin.
I feel that Roberts has a decent writing style that works well with the genre. For the most part the words flow, and actions and dialogue were definitely comprehensible. There was some drag here and there when things may have been put into greater detail than I would have preferred, but I think this is something that often comes with the genre. The world building was also decent. I only use the word "decent" though, because I wanted to know so much more. For all the pages of this book I feel that we should have been introduced to more of the culture. Instead, a lot of things were referenced and occasionally touched on, but nothing was ever really gone into depth about in my opinion.
Then again, I found myself thinking that a lot of pages wasted. There were times I felt stuck and was tempted to skim, but I trudged ever forward. These, of all parts, were the horror sections. Now, I am a horror junky. I love blood and gore, but it has to have a point. I feel it has to help the story along. That being said, the opening scenes were some of the hardest for me to get through. They were filled with mayhem and action, which was okay at first, but after pages and pages of it I found myself wanting to know more of what the heck was going on with a little less action. This was a theme that happened off and on throughout the book. All of these scenes only succeeded in slowing down the story, and were often times unneeded.
I had mixed feelings about the dialogue as well. While dialogue is often used to help the story along, and answer questions about the people and cultures in the book, it had a tendency to only raise more questions in this one. I wanted so much more from the characters in the book, because every time I started to feel a connection I just couldn’t quite reach it. The characters became increasingly harder to care about throughout the book, rather than the other way around as it should be.
I honestly feel that a big issue with this book was not having a target audience, because most of the time I wasn’t really sure what Roberts was going for. If the author had stuck more with the Fantasy theme, and less with the Horror, I probably would have enjoyed it more. The book would have been a faster read, not only because it would have been more enjoyable, but because numerous pages would have been edited out. In the beginning of this review I used the word “clash” to describe the mixed genres, and that is definitely how it felt.
There were numerous times that I found myself wishing that a good editor had gotten a hold of this book before me. The most obvious issue present? Typos! While not every other word was misspelled, my guess would be an average of one for every five pages. For instance, “Thyme” was spelled with and without an “H” (I’m still not entirely sure which is correct.). A few more that I can think of off the top of my head were: “buy” instead of “by”, “too” instead of “to”, and “an” instead of “and”. There were many more, along with the occasional sentence that needed a few words added or taken out to make sense.
I cannot find it within myself to rate this book higher than a 2 out of 4 stars. If the book had gone through just two or three more drafts before being published it would have definitely been bumped to a 3 or even 4. The plot is there. Lyth: Hymn of the Flesh just needs to be cleansed of typos, cut back on descriptive gore, and refreshed with more about the cultures within the book.
***
Buy "Lyth: Hymn of the Flesh" on Amazon
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The people of Shadow Brooke are survivors, they have been taught in the ways of Tyme, a man who is often described near godliness. His predecessor and son, Aegis, is who must protect their people now that Tyme has passed, but there is much that Aegis’s father did not tell him, and a few things Aegis has refused to believe about his father that have been passed down as folklore.
This is a book of not only cultures clashing, but gods as well. The gods are not only greatly influencing their human minions, but called upon to help in the human’s greatest time of need. They grant both gifts, and curses upon the mortals.
So, as I hope has been shown, this book definitely has the potential to be great. The framework is there, all that is needed is the real meat of the story. This is where my mixed feelings on this book begin.
I feel that Roberts has a decent writing style that works well with the genre. For the most part the words flow, and actions and dialogue were definitely comprehensible. There was some drag here and there when things may have been put into greater detail than I would have preferred, but I think this is something that often comes with the genre. The world building was also decent. I only use the word "decent" though, because I wanted to know so much more. For all the pages of this book I feel that we should have been introduced to more of the culture. Instead, a lot of things were referenced and occasionally touched on, but nothing was ever really gone into depth about in my opinion.
Then again, I found myself thinking that a lot of pages wasted. There were times I felt stuck and was tempted to skim, but I trudged ever forward. These, of all parts, were the horror sections. Now, I am a horror junky. I love blood and gore, but it has to have a point. I feel it has to help the story along. That being said, the opening scenes were some of the hardest for me to get through. They were filled with mayhem and action, which was okay at first, but after pages and pages of it I found myself wanting to know more of what the heck was going on with a little less action. This was a theme that happened off and on throughout the book. All of these scenes only succeeded in slowing down the story, and were often times unneeded.
I had mixed feelings about the dialogue as well. While dialogue is often used to help the story along, and answer questions about the people and cultures in the book, it had a tendency to only raise more questions in this one. I wanted so much more from the characters in the book, because every time I started to feel a connection I just couldn’t quite reach it. The characters became increasingly harder to care about throughout the book, rather than the other way around as it should be.
I honestly feel that a big issue with this book was not having a target audience, because most of the time I wasn’t really sure what Roberts was going for. If the author had stuck more with the Fantasy theme, and less with the Horror, I probably would have enjoyed it more. The book would have been a faster read, not only because it would have been more enjoyable, but because numerous pages would have been edited out. In the beginning of this review I used the word “clash” to describe the mixed genres, and that is definitely how it felt.
There were numerous times that I found myself wishing that a good editor had gotten a hold of this book before me. The most obvious issue present? Typos! While not every other word was misspelled, my guess would be an average of one for every five pages. For instance, “Thyme” was spelled with and without an “H” (I’m still not entirely sure which is correct.). A few more that I can think of off the top of my head were: “buy” instead of “by”, “too” instead of “to”, and “an” instead of “and”. There were many more, along with the occasional sentence that needed a few words added or taken out to make sense.
I cannot find it within myself to rate this book higher than a 2 out of 4 stars. If the book had gone through just two or three more drafts before being published it would have definitely been bumped to a 3 or even 4. The plot is there. Lyth: Hymn of the Flesh just needs to be cleansed of typos, cut back on descriptive gore, and refreshed with more about the cultures within the book.
***
Buy "Lyth: Hymn of the Flesh" on Amazon
Latest Review: "Diet Enlightenment" by Rachel L. Pires
