Review of Rise of the Savior
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Macha Marumo Mphela
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Review of Rise of the Savior
[Following is a volunteer review of "Rise of the Savior" by Antoine Bonner.]
Amanda just finished high school, but she's struggling to find a way forward. She would like to go to university, but has no idea what to major in. She doesn't want to study at a community college and be stuck at home with her mother (Jean), father (Logan), and her stoic, smart-ass sister (Saira). She'd rather take on karate as a career and become a UFC champion someday. After being pressured by her parents to rather take the community college route, she strikes a deal with them. Her father promises she could do karate fulltime, if only she also does community college fulltime and wins the upcoming karate tournament. Their way back from the tournament would change Amanda's life forever. Rise of the Savior lets us peek into the teenager's life as it takes an unexpected turn into the world of magic.
The description that goes with every action of this novel was well-made. I could actually visualise the happenings that took place. I rarely find this to be the case when reading a sci-fi novel. Most times, authors fail to bring their world to life, but I found that Antoine Bonner did a good enough job to make this possible. The plot, too, was okay, but was too linear and narrow.
With that said, there were a lot of things that didn't work in favour of the story. The narration was amateurish at best. It just didn't work. There wasn't enough story development to anchor the narration. There wasn't enough character development to carry the story. The author focused too much on telling action after action that it ultimately made the story feel thin. Not once did I believe any of the things I encountered whilst reading. Not once did I believe any of the characters and their emotions. The only character I found interesting was the mime. She was excellently designed. Apart from that, the dialogue, too, was bare and lacked depth. All in all, this book needed a lot of work to bring it to the level that is expected of noteworthy works of literature.
Also, the few references of Dragon Ball and some of the ideas presented in this book, such as training in artificial heavy gravity, made me think that the author plucked too liberally from the anime. Training in heavier gravity to gain strength is one of the most memorable Dragon Ball moments. This is clearly inspiration, but it could be misinterpreted as something a little more sinister. The references were enough, the borrowing of ideas was a little unnecessary.
Another high point of the book was its editing. The product had very little grammatical errors, and this is the only reason that I'll rate this book 2 out of 4 stars. Apart from this, the book has nothing really great to talk about. But those who love sci-fi might enjoy it better than I did, if they connect more with the narration. And that's who I'd recommend this book to.
******
Rise of the Savior
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Amanda just finished high school, but she's struggling to find a way forward. She would like to go to university, but has no idea what to major in. She doesn't want to study at a community college and be stuck at home with her mother (Jean), father (Logan), and her stoic, smart-ass sister (Saira). She'd rather take on karate as a career and become a UFC champion someday. After being pressured by her parents to rather take the community college route, she strikes a deal with them. Her father promises she could do karate fulltime, if only she also does community college fulltime and wins the upcoming karate tournament. Their way back from the tournament would change Amanda's life forever. Rise of the Savior lets us peek into the teenager's life as it takes an unexpected turn into the world of magic.
The description that goes with every action of this novel was well-made. I could actually visualise the happenings that took place. I rarely find this to be the case when reading a sci-fi novel. Most times, authors fail to bring their world to life, but I found that Antoine Bonner did a good enough job to make this possible. The plot, too, was okay, but was too linear and narrow.
With that said, there were a lot of things that didn't work in favour of the story. The narration was amateurish at best. It just didn't work. There wasn't enough story development to anchor the narration. There wasn't enough character development to carry the story. The author focused too much on telling action after action that it ultimately made the story feel thin. Not once did I believe any of the things I encountered whilst reading. Not once did I believe any of the characters and their emotions. The only character I found interesting was the mime. She was excellently designed. Apart from that, the dialogue, too, was bare and lacked depth. All in all, this book needed a lot of work to bring it to the level that is expected of noteworthy works of literature.
Also, the few references of Dragon Ball and some of the ideas presented in this book, such as training in artificial heavy gravity, made me think that the author plucked too liberally from the anime. Training in heavier gravity to gain strength is one of the most memorable Dragon Ball moments. This is clearly inspiration, but it could be misinterpreted as something a little more sinister. The references were enough, the borrowing of ideas was a little unnecessary.
Another high point of the book was its editing. The product had very little grammatical errors, and this is the only reason that I'll rate this book 2 out of 4 stars. Apart from this, the book has nothing really great to talk about. But those who love sci-fi might enjoy it better than I did, if they connect more with the narration. And that's who I'd recommend this book to.
******
Rise of the Savior
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Latest Review: Advanced Lotto Rotation System by Joseph Z Vlasic
