1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
New fan of Briggs!, November 29, 2011
I've grown sceptical of any review putting a new author in the company of Tolkien and Lewis, but Dean Barkley Briggs belongs there!
Writing as much from imagination as personal experiences, his tales of dimensional travels are also reintroductions to the classic tales of history. The fabled Taliesin is both new and familiar.
I was recently asked if I have a favorite character. I honestly don't! Each of the four Barlow boys has his own charm. Their allies are unique and often endearing. How can I choose one?
If you confuse easily, you might want to takes notes. Our friends and brothers 'divide and conquer' (we hope!) in this installment.
I heard the editor's town suffered a tornado in the spring. That might explain the pair of "oopses" I found. Chapter 22, page 207: Sorge snapped. He through (not threw) up his hands, exhausted.
And then there's the already cited reference to Poplar Springs Baptist Church's need for kettle drums on page 309. Living near Mount Mourne, NC, rather than Mount Bourne, and not far from Poplar Grove Baptist, I was rolling with laughter! I'd like to meet Gabe and Ewan here.
I know these books are considered young adult fiction, but I'm... more in the AARP crowd and LOVE what I'm reading. I'd like to see this series go on for many more books. Coerce your friends into reading them. That's why I am. (Thanks to Mindy and son Daniel)
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
And the excellence continues, July 29, 2011
In 2009, I read the amazing debut novel of Dean Briggs (D. Barkley Briggs), called
The Book of Names (Legends of Karac Tor). What separated it from other Young Adult fantasy books was not the excellent story, which it did have, but the superlative writing. Then, the publisher ran into financial problems, as did many companies (and individuals), and the contract was cut. Would the other books in the series (Legend of Karac Tor), ever see the light of day?
In late 2010, the author e-mailed me, as I had signed up for the online newsletter, to say that AMG Publishers and Living Ink Books had bought up the entire series. I ordered the sequel, Corus the Champion as soon as it became available.
This is a sequel in the truest sense of the word. It is not just another book set in the same place with some of the same characters; the story picks up exactly where the previous book ended. A summary of the first story is needed. In the first book, we meet the Barlow brothers, Hadyn (14), Ewan (13), and the twins Gabe and Garrett. After their mother passed away, their father went ahead with the planned family move from the city to a rural area. While cleaning out a briar thicket at the back of their new property, the boys discover a stone archway, and disappear into it, after receiving scrolls inviting them do so. The scrolls were delivered by crows.
On the other side, Hadyn and Ewan join up with Sorge, a warrior monk, and Flogg, a very grumpy gnome, to oppose the evil witch Nemesia. Why is Nemesia evil? She is trying to destroy Karac Tor by rendering its youth without souls or identity or any determination. By doing so, she is creating an army of slaves to serve her. Meanwhile, Garrett Barlow entered the arch later, and we learn little of him, or his twin, Gabe, until the sequel.
In the sequel, one focus is on Corus of Lotsley, a descendant of Lahns of Lotsley. Lahns had also traveled between worlds, only going the other way from the Barlow boys. If you think about his name, Lahns of Lotsley, you might figure out how his name was corrupted and by what name he became known here. In Karac Tor, Corus was once the greatest champion in the land, but he bears the family curse, and he has been long missing. Is he alive? What happened to him? What is the family curse? What was the relationship between Corus and Sorge, the warrior-monk?
There are multiple story-lines here. While Sorge seeks Corus, Evan and Gabe seek the legendary Sleeping King, but must first escape the Fey. Hadyn and his companions are trying to unite the different lands of Karac Tor, as they believe war is coming. Who will succeed? Who will survive? At what cost?
What about the fourth Barlow brother, Garrett? Well, he was quite busy traveling. When he went through the arch in the family's backyard, he did not end up in Karac Tor. Instead, he found himself in Ynys-Witrin, where he met a rather unusual traveling partner and witnessed a piece of history. He and his new friend then traveled through the arches, to different times and places, so that Garrett would learn certain things. What he learned would prove very useful when he finally arrived in Karac Tor and was reunited with his brothers.
After setting a very high standard with the first book, I was wondering if Mr. Briggs would be able to maintain the quality of the writing. While this book can be a bit confusing at first, as it assumes the reader is very familiar with the first book and able to jump right back into the story where it left off, the answer is a definite yes. Not only is the very high writing quality maintained, the story is faster-paced, more action-packed, and more complex. The different story-lines switch from chapter to chapter, and I felt the continuity and flow were maintained throughout.
I believe I did not do a great job of giving a good plot summary here, but the story is complex enough to make it a challenge to summarize it without spoiling it. The bottom line, for me, was that it was consistently difficult to put this book down. While I will not spoil the ending, I will say that it involves quite a surprise, and amounts to a great cliff-hanger.
What I admire about the writing in this series is that it does not "dumb down" the vocabulary for the Young Adult target audience, as some YA novels and series do. The word-choice, phrasing, and imagery are just as complex as the story. Young Adult readers are probably some of our most avid readers, and I believe they deserve books that can honestly be labeled as literary and literature. This book and its predecessor both fit those labels. By doing this the author opens his work to be enjoyed as much by adults as by younger readers.
Until the publisher is able to correct it, I did find one, rather startling, editing error. On page 309, there is a sentence fragment, completely unrelated to the story, buried within a sentence. It creates a somewhat jarring interruption in an otherwise smoothly-flowing story. I did notify the author, by e-mail, and he had thought that error had been corrected before printing; he later discovered that the error was a by-product of a tornado hitting the editor's hometown. I want to stress, though, that this book, except for that one error, is extremely well edited.
The next book in the series,
The Song of Unmaking (Legends of Karac Tor), is scheduled for release this fall (2011), and I eagerly await it, especially with this book having a startling development right at its cliff-hanger ending.
It is 418 pages long. Both books, by the way, have excellent cover-art.
(This review was first posted on Epinions)
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