Customer Reviews

Heresy Book One

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Dear. God. What an awful book. Audley's total lack of skill shows frightening consistency. Four hundred pages and none of them worth reading. This is the first book in a very long time I have absolutely nothing good to say about.

Audley's prose is halting, cumbersome, infantile, full of run-ons, and deliberately pompous. Awkward words like "tiredness" keep popping up. The characters' actions are often illogical and entirely unmotivated, while their personalities change arbitrarily from chapter to chapter. Audley's worldbuilding efforts are laughable. If Aquasilva's global ocean is 11,000 miles deep, why do landmasses exist at all? What are "flamewood" and "seawood", besides cheap excuses not to invent real technology? The "mantas" have flown straight out of Star Trek, force-field defenses and all ("Increase shield strength as much as you can, and launch the pressure charges!") The politics of Audley's world are muddled and confusing. Half the countries mentioned aren't even on his map. Who conquered what and when are questions that long for real answers. When a king is assassinated, not only would I have been hard-pressed to identify what exactly he ruled, but that he existed at all. It is also unclear why Aquasilva's organised religion is so totally corrupt. Audley's bad guys aren't even bad as individuals; his Domain is a facelessly nefarious force of such absolute, uneffable evil that it must be hated wholeheartedly and without explanation.

As for the device of first-person narration - wishful thinking. In a certain scene a young woman rather spontaneously teaches the viewpoint hero "the arts of the night", which he finds rather pleasant. The young woman is never again mentioned. Cathan does however, have three other love interests, so that he can swtich between them as situation dictates. Throughout the book it is also revealed that he is a brilliant strategist, a superb swordsman, and the most powerful mage on the planet.

The bottom line is that Audley just doesn't know enough - as a writer as well as a person - to tackle a project of such scale. He cobbles together a semblance of a plot, and then barely manages to keep it from disintegrating. He tries to prove his worth as a storyteller through scrupulous attention to minor detail, which is not only distracting and irritating to the reader, but also exposes Audley's weaknesses, forcing him to demonstrate non-existent technical knowledge. A better writer would have done research... Because of this there are scenes of staggering, jaw-dropping idiocy, such as when Cathan conjures up and is washed away and covered "up to the neck" by a ton - one cubic meter - of water.

I would like to say that the author might improve with future novels, but I doubt he will. Audley shows no particular affinity for fantasy; he is looking for easy victories and takes too many shortcuts to generate anything worth reading. His debut is easily the worst book I've read all year.

We've heard all the media blurb - teenage guy writes novel, pockets a mini-mountain of cash, what a guy, etc...
But does the book measure up? This is the question that screams for an answer.
In short, no it does not, not in the slightest.
Now, this is just my personal opinion, so please if you completely disagree and want to tear my hair out, I would advise you not to continue reading this.

Importantly, Heresy is not terrible. In fact, there are many positive elements in the novel that are genuinely encouraging.
But this does not get Mr Audley out of jail, nor does the fact that he is only nineteen. Sure, he is young, but the publishers should have thought about that before they published the book.

With regards to the novel itself...it just doesn't make the grade. The concept is original in portrayal, but not in the nitty-gritty of the plot workings. Young boy sees danger, young boy tries to save homeland, etc with all the trappings that come with a young hero.
The world of Aquasilva itself is reasonably interesting, but confused. Take for example, the fact that weapons such as swords and crossbows are still in use, yet there are submarines that have 'flame lances' and torpedoes. Come again?
The prose itself is stiff, unnatural and often downright annoying, with Audley struggling to create memorable or even realistic relationships between characters. Detail is all to often lacking and many characters are introduced but left half undeveloped. Some elements of the novel are a little too 'fortunate', such as the fact that Cathan - the main protagonist - needs to undertake a desperate mission, and oh, he just happens to be a competant mage. Overall, there are just too many times when attempting to turn the page is more stressful than Cathan's own journey.

This isn't a terrible book, and there are small signs that perhaps Audley is better judged on his next offering.
But there - for me at least - is the unmistakeable sign that the publishers are trying to sell the book on the basis of the author's age, which is not the way to go about things.

Maybe 'Inquisition' - the next title - will show better things to come, but 'Heresy' unfortunately falls flat on its face.

Don't get me wrong, the idea behind this book is great. The idea of the Aquasilva world is amazing; the descriptions of the water-world are inspiring. But the telling of the story itself is HORRIBLE. The story-line is confusing, the supporting characters are cardboard, and the main character is your typical hero gifted with all-mighty superpowers. Several phrases are repeated ALL too often--phrases such as "looked smart" and "waved cheerily". I "waved cheerily" to this book as I threw it into the garabage. Trust me, if you want a good book, stick to David Edding's The Belgarion, or the Otherland series. Leave this one where you found it. On the shelf.

Upon encountering a poorly written book, we frequently respond by labeling it juvenile and immature, and suggesting that we have a six-year-old waiting at home who could do better. Lately the publishing companies have dsicovered a possibly brilliant way to preempt this insult. They hire children to write books. "Heresy", by Anselm Audley, was written by a teenager. Moreover, it looks like it was written by a teenager. And I do not mean that as a compliment.

When I myself was an acned adolescent, I began working on a big epic fantasy. That project now languishes unpublished in my parents' attic, unfinished and unpublished because it contained no real plot. I was, at the time, more interested in world-building than in telling a story. In "Heresy", Anselm Audley has poured his heart into the details. You'll learn about which countries produce which goods and export them to where, and which religious sects believe what, and which cities have what forms of government. But as for anything actually happening to catch your attention, forget it.

Young Cathon is an orphan boy who, guess what, proves to be the long lost heir to the throne and possessor of whopping magical powers to boot. Arrayed against him we have a cliche band of evil priests, as well as some nasty traders of some sort from a "great house". Characterization flops totally, with Cathan showing barely any personality, and the villains failing to even reach the level comic book stereotype. Particuarly noxious is Cathan's relationship with a cycle of interchangable love interests, each more smashingly beautiful than the last. Times change, but teenage boys' sexual fantasies remain quite predictable.

Ever heard of space-fillers? The term gets redefined here. "The garden was specially designed to collect water below the soil and funnel off excess down the storm drains, thus ensuring the extra weight didn't bring the building down every time it rained." Even accepting the dubious proposition that drainage makes good fiction, I think we could have divined the purpose of the funnel without being told. After many hundred pages of this, Anselm tacks on a very hasty ending that totally doesn't fit with the rest of the book. And for writing skill, the lest said the better. Subordinate clause piles on top of ungainly subordinate clause, and Audley's abuse of the semicolon borders on criminal.

So to conclude, "Heresy" is yet another overhyped, underperforming wannabe in the fantasy field, a further insult to our intelligence from publishing companies that are leaking credibility faster than Donald Rumsfield. For real fantasy entertainment, may I suggest Memeory, Sorrow, and Thorn by Tad Williams or perhaps "The High House" by James Stoddard. These authors actually built their worlds around a story rather than the other way around. And they are, not coincidentally, adults.

First off someone should have proofed the book, numerous punctuation mistakes and even words left out that would have made some sentences comprehensible. That's OK because the plot was incomprehensible, characterizations were meant to be complex, but instead were just cliches. The two main characters Cathan and Ravenna act like they hate each other, but are really in love. I mean how sophmoric. AS another reviewer mentioned, the technology base is never explained and is grossly inconsistent. Don't waste your time.

While the story is halfway decent, this book really is in desperate need of some proof-reading to make sure that dates and facts match. The dialogue is wooden I can't imagine anyone ever speaking in the manner in which the characters of this novel speak.

I really like the cover. It's pretty. That's the most elegant part of the book. Several other reviewers have more eloquently expressed their distress over the plot and the writing style, so I'll narrow down on just one bit - the major love plot.

The characters meet each other. They fight. Later, they have to pretend to be in love. They don't actually ever do that on screen, but maybe they're doing it between chapters or something. Then they have to fight some more. Then their companions remark that they must really be interested in each other. The main character decides that he must be, because other people noticed it. Of course, we the viewers have seen none of it. We've hardly even seen the fighting, it just gets mentioned constantly. Then they have a big fight.

Oh, the romance. I can hardly stand it.

I agree with some of the above reviews regarding the crossbows and swords. Could have come up with something a little more original than that given the mention of some high tech other "stuff". I do think the book is a nice fantasy and a remarkable first work. The one thing I did not like was the vagueness about the some of the clans. I found that all very confusing....Thetians, arphelagians, etc. Too much was not explained or very vague. I was getting confused as to who was who and had to really keep rehashing it in my mind which was annoying. The book was interesting enough and I will have to read the next two, although I will take the books out of the library rather than buy them.

The first book of the Aquasilva trilogy was, to put it simply, bad. A muddled SF/F story, with tinges of lackluster commentary, romance and action, this book is bloated, pretentious, humorless, and poorly written and characterized.

On the waterworld of Aquasilva, Cathan is the adopted son of a count, living in the remote province of Lepidor. The discovery of iron ore in their lands sends him to the capitol of Aquasilva, Taneth, to tell his father about their new wealth. Except nothing is as simple as Cathan expects. A religious and political war is breaking out in Taneth. The vicious Domain, with its loathsome holy warriors, is oppressing anyone who dares to step outside their mandates.

To act against the Domain is considered heresy. So Cathan joins a group of other heretics, some of whom are from a fragmented royal family that is now under the control of the Domain. There he learns new truths about his past, about his incredible elemental power, and about the future of Aquasilva.

Teenage authors tend to gain a great deal of positive press, whether they deserve it or not. Audley and fellow teen author Amelia Atwater-Rhodes do not deserve their press. While it is possible to write a good novel in one's teens, these two have not managed it. The plot itself is a fairly interesting idea, and if handled with delicacy and skill, it might have been an excellent book.

However, the writing and dialogue are as turgid and slow-moving as frozen mud. While the writing skills are on par with the average young adult novel, Audley tries to make his prose impressive and adult. This proves to be literary suicide: his lengthy descriptions are framed by rambling, overlong sentences and misplaced modifiers. The action scenes are quite dull to read. Audley tries hard to make them thrilling, but only succeeds in making them even duller. The climax sputters and dies out. His dialogue is clumsy and uneven, ranging from extremely formal to one man slapping another on the back and addressing him as "chap." The love story is as clumsy as anything written by Robert Jordan: the hero and his girlfriend fight constantly, but they really love each other.

The idea of the planet of Aquasilva is intriguing in itself, a planet mostly covered with water except for a relative few land masses. The problem is that Audley creates improbable plant and sea life on the surprisingly Earthlike land masses, while introducing us to hardly any animal life. The oceans described are too deep to have bits of land sticking up. His technology is uneven as well; the mantas appear to be some exotic sea transport out of Star Wars, powered by the unexplained "firewood" and "seawood." Audley makes a few halfhearted attempts to explain how these machines work, but the two kinds of wood are simply a cheap way out of this situation. He also does not explain why crossbows and similar weapons are used on a presumably advanced planet. This problem might have been solved if he had made up an ongoing tradition regarding the ancient weaponry, but he did not, and so that is another weakness.

The political and religious conflict on Aquasilva might have been interesting if presented well. But the hero's allies are noble and idealistic, while the Domain is utterly evil and cruel. There's no depth to the conflict or the sides on it. There are no bad heretics or good Domain people. It doesn't help that the conflict is also needlessly complex, with dozens of people introduced, mentions, and then all but discarded. This mix of complexity and shallowness only produces a muddled, incoherent mess.

Perhaps the most difficult flaw is the characterizations. Cathan and his friends will fail to inspire any affection, interest, or even disgust from readers. They are two-dimensional cut-outs who drift through their tasks without any recognizable emotions. Audley fails to make any of the characters interesting or rounded; Cathan seemed to drift through shocking and angering situations without so much as a twitch, as if nothing at all bothered him. Ravenna is the only character who shows any passion, and she is so obnoxious that readers will hope the Domain burns her.

Audley writes a somewhat non-traditional Fantasy beginning set in what was one of the most creative environments I have read recently. The main character is very typical for most Fantasy in that he has powers he doesn't know about, is the son of a noble and gets caught up in a major struggle that will affect the world. Cliche....

The bad guys are a group of fanatic priests who are trying to control the whole world and make the worship of their God the only acceptable form of religion. They are bad, the good guys are good. Cliche....

Now, this is why the book got 4 stars. The setting is a planet where the ocean is much larger than what we have on Earth. Sea travel is a major theme and the author does a good job of reflecting the impact that distance and geography could have on a culture. Audley's ability to create a functioning economy and infrastructure in this planet borders on science fiction, but it was really cool. I liked the way that he incorporated magic into combat and didn't forget that using magic should be a really difficult thing. I had to buy this book used, but I will now be hunting for the next one because the first was that interesting.