Customer Reviews

Into the Forge (Hel's Crucible, Book 1)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Reading a Dennis L. McKiernan novel is like sitting down to a meal of your favorite comfort food (fried chicken and mashed potatoes for me!). You always know what to expect and although you've consumed it countless times before, you still savor every bite. Sure, McKiernan doesn't break any new ground here, but he tells his stories well, filling them with the heroic good guys, evil bad guys, and an epic quest that makes this an enjoyable escape into familiar territory.

Into the Forge is Book One of the Hel's Crucible Duology. While this two-part series is supposed to tell the story of the War of the Ban, we don't see much of the actual war until late in this book. Instead, we get the tale of two Warrows (think Hobbits or mini-Elves) and their mission to deliver a token to a king halfway across the world. What this serves to do is narrow the focus of the tale McKiernan is telling. This story is almost single-threaded, meaning that the narrative never departs from the two Warrows' point of view. And since they're together for most of the book, you end up with a single, simple plotline to follow. (If only some other authors had this kind of focus.)

I recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a light, quick fantasy read. Whether you've read any of McKiernan's Mithgar tales or not, you should be able to jump right into this one. If you're looking for something totally original or with a more complex tangle of plot lines, you probably want to give this one a pass.

Although I thought this book was going to be another Tolkien ripoff, I found that the story was an original in it's own right. Also, a book can not be considered a "ripoff" whent the author admits to have gotten "ideas" from a previous author. This book did a great job of telling the tale of the war of the Ban which is what all of his books have centered around since The Iron Tower Trilogy. This Title is Mckiernan's second best novel ever...only to be beaten by part two of this Duology, Into the Fire. but that is another tale...and it IS all connected you know!

Many people are speaking of a Tolkein rip-off. Well, _Into the Forge_ has a person of diminutive stature as the main character, he is on a quest, and possesses an important object that is round (for Bilbo a ring, for Tip a pewter coin). But folks, that's about as far as it goes. The main character being a Warrow (similar to a Hobbit) does *not* automatically make it a rip-off. And as every fantasy novel has a quest, that's hardly offensive. It's actually rather classic. So that's my support for the book.

I will agree with the comments about the characters being slightly immature, but that is most likely from McKiernan's efforts to make them "ordinary people", i.e. innocent. It works-- you sympathize with the characters and feel for them througth their trials.

This book was not the best ever, but it's good. And it's definitly McKiernan. It's worth reading if you've read any other McKiernan (probably not the one I'd start with, as he uses a lot of stuff from previous books--none of it's necessary, but it may help). So, four stars on my list-- a good, solid fantasy quest with touches of greatness and, yes, originality.

I don't expect anyone to ever really rival Tolkien, but I do wish that McKiernan could have been a little bit more creative in his efforts. Tip and Beau are such dull characters--almost as if they'd been cut out of a generic book. Tip's nsudden love interest, Beau's constant "Oh My" just gets more grating as the story goes on. I'm afraid this is another forgettable fantasy novel. What happened to the good old days of Shannara, Jennifer Roberson and Raymond Feist? Even the Iron Tower Trilogy seemed to have elements of deep thought rather than simple rehashing. DM can do better.

This is the first book of McKiernan's that I have read and it will be the last. After checking out the rest of the reviews posted here, I see that I am not the only one. Whether or not this was a Tolkien copycat was immaterial. I've read a lot of fantasy books that have similiar quests. The problem I had was that the writing and the characters were simply boring. I felt no emotional connection with any of them. If Beau or Tip had been killed at any point, I wouldn't have cared. There was nothing especially likeable about any of the characters. And I have never read a book with such an interminable journey. By page 200, the characters have been travelling for nearly a year. Nothing has happened. There's an interesting war going on all around them, but they are not involved in it in any way. I think the most amazing thing was that the entire world wasn't already conquered by Modru during the time the 'heroes' were travelling! He certainly had plenty of time as they wandered back and forth along the mountain range--all described in excruciating detail. Several chapters could have been completely deleted without affecting the story whatsoever because it only described the TRAVELLING--THE ENDLESS TRAVELLING! Who cares if they travel 3 days south, then 4 days east, then a week south again, blah, blah, blah. It would have been one thing if they were hounded by the evil army or went through some sort of peril, but absolutely nothing happened during this boring journey. Nowhere is there any sense of urgency about getting this coin to the High King. Instead they dally around with the elves and take their time trying to find a way through the mountains. A good author knows when to just move the characters along to just get them where they need to be so the action happens. This was about as interesting as writing a book about me driving to work. Still, a long journey could have been salvaged by some interesting character development and interaction. But, sadly, there was nothing. Tip and Beau were never advanced beyond the grade school level of taking direction from their elders. The elders had no more depth than an encyclopedia. They only provided information--no emotion. All in all, this is one of those books that makes you wonder how it made it past a half-decent editor. I can only assume that Mr. Mckiernan's other works must have been significantly better to even warrant publishing this thing. But based on this sad tale, I won't bother to find out.

Don't expect Dennis McKiernan's earthshattering War of the Ban to be half as epic as it sounds. Instead, the first book of the Hel's Crucible duology, "Into the Forge," focuses on people as far away from the actual war as possible. Paper thin, poorly characterized, this is a mind-numbingly slow journey with a pair of little twits.

The book opens in a small village (mostly populated by Men), where the Warrow Tipperton Thistledown is woken by weird noises in the middle of the night. It turns out to be a Man, fighting Rucks and who ends up being killed by them. Before he dies, he gives Tip a little coin on a thong and tells him to go east, give the coin to "Agron," and "warn all."

So, for reasons not entirely clear to them, Tip and Warrow healer Beau Darby set out through the Drearwood. They have to get to this guy Agron and give him the little coin. They hang around with Elves for a very long time before actually getting moving; in the meantime, the sinister Sauron-clone Modru is trying to take Mithgar over...

It's not much of a plot description, because there isn't much of a plot -- this duology might have worked better as a single work. It opens strongly, with some action and suspense, but as soon as Tip and Beau meet up with the Elves, the action stops dead. Apparently the weather is so rotten that they can't keep travelling, so they're forced to hang around and talk for hours with the interchangeable Elf lords. (Every Elf is a lord or a lady -- is any Elf NOT of the nobility?)

The only sense of urgency that McKiernan can summon up is the need to finish the book. Readers are told how horrible it would be if Modru conquered the world -- then are treated to pages of the Warrows and Elves ambling around, waiting for the weather to improve. The dialogue is absurd -- what half-asleep person thinks "distant metal striking metal"? What's with all the medieval English? And how many times can Beau say "oh my" before someone strangles him?

McKiernan's writing is not much better, full of odd old words like "siss" and "whelm." It's trite, flowery and overblown. And McKiernan throws in some obligatory romance for half the characters, usually involving lots of googly eyes, soulmates, and "making sweet, gentle love" several times. Yick. There's even an Elf pervert, who keeps talking about seeing Tip naked.

Tip is annoying and immature; it's hard to imagine entrusting a shopping list to this little idiot, let alone a fate-of-the-world mission. Beau is a little more memorable, but he also responds to any crisis by saying, "Oh my." You can guess how annoying it gets. Phais and Loric are dull, generic Elves. Warrow girl Rynna is apparently supposed to be spunky, but ends up being irritating -- what's even stranger is that Tip finds true love with her, merely because she's the first girl of his own kind that he's met.

"Into the Forge" is one of the worst fantasy books in publication -- a slow, lumbering, brain-dead behemoth of a story. Only to be read by aspiring writers... as an example of what NOT to do.

Ok. In Dragondoom it was 'whelmed'. I have to admit that I enjoyed Dragondoom (the only other book I've read by Mr. McKiernan) but if he used the word (or some form of the word) 'whelm' one more time...

In this book it's 'aught' (or some form thereof). I get the impression that Mr. McKiernan has an obsessive nature and once he gets something into his head, he just can't seem to shake it out. His characters also do alot of 'sissing' during one section of the book. I was rather taken aback until I realized that for some reason he was substituting this word for 'hissing'. I dunno. I kinda wish they'd just hissed. I also get the impression that either he doesn't have an editor or has a very poor one, as a good editor would point something like this out to him; would also bring to his attention various continuity problems. For example, on the first night of the elven festival "...the sun set, with the waxing half moon in the sky.", and on the very next night of the festival, we have "...the gibbous moon nearing fullness." Kinda makes yer head spin, no?

Another problem with this book is Missouri-born Mr. McKiernan's insistence on writing with 'an Irish brogue'. He explains in his foreward that elves speak in an archaic tongue, and I have no problem accepting this. But when this creeps into his narrative, all hell breaks loose, and we're forced to stumble through sentences like: "He clambered onto the bed beside Tip and under the remaining cover, flopping and flapping the one he had used for wrap in a futile attempt to spread overtop all." (direct quote...I swear!)

Also, Mr. McKiernan seems a little confused about who his target audience is here. Having his two heros behave like five-year-olds (even though they're adult, Mr. McKiernan seems to believe that because they're small, they can't be very bright.) leads me to believe that he's targeting the adolescent/pre-adolescent market. But all the thees and thous and 'whelms' and aughts and naughts would make any but a language scholar's head spin!

Finally - the map. It's a rather attractive map; pretty well thought out and rather detailed. And yet not a single location referred to in the story is indicated on the map! Generally when I read a book that has a map, I refer to the map whenever a location is referred to to see where we are. I gave up about halfway through the book and decided that the wrong map had been printed in the edition that I was reading. Mr. McKiernan! Why do you create a map for a book and then obstinately refuse to include the locations that you've written about!

I like fantasy. I will read even junk fantasy. I read quite fast and am willing to skim through pretty much anything. But I just couldn't finish this darned book. I bought this book, plunged into it, got to page 106 out of 410, and just surrendered. I couldn't read any more. This is a very rare experience for me.

First off, this book is not a veiled ripoff of Tolkien because THERE IS NO VEIL. A couple of hobbits [Mckiernan translation: warrows], who are good with bows and slings, are given a magic ring [uh, a coin with a hole punched in it] by a dying Ranger [King's man] who has been set upon by orcs [Rucks] and set off through the Mirkwood [Dreadwood] to take it to Elrond [Agron], dodging the trolls [trolls] and Uruk-hai [Hloks] and Nazgul [Ghuls] who have been sent by Sauron [Modru], ruler of Mordor [Gron] and servant of Morgoth [Gyphon], and finally meet some elves [elves], including Gildor [Gildor], who give them some waybread [waybread!]. "Well, it certainly puts cram [crue] to shame."

I'm sorry, but I can only take so much of this. I mean, of course Tolkien is the mitochondrial Eve of modern fantasy, and of course anyone who writes about Elves and Dwarves at all in these latter days is inevitably borrowing from Tolkien either consciously or unconsciously. And of course the whole genre of the tiny party of unlikely heroes setting out cross-lots pursued by the whole army of evil is straight from Tolkien, and anyone who attempts it will be compared to Tolkien. The first hundred pages of Jordan's "The Eye of the World" have the air of the Shire. But the difference is that Jordan quickly, much to the reader's relief, lets you know that he has many ideas of his own. Not the case here! It is a Bad Thing when the story is so uninteresting and the ripoffs so common that the reader just ceases to be at all interested in the story and is reduced to just playing "Tolkien match-up", sort of like playing the "License plate game" on a long and boring car trip. At page 106 I got out at a service area, and I refused to get back in the car.

Worried that I hadn't given the book a fair shake, I skipped ahead and sampled about eight or ten pages in the last three quarters of the book, wondering if there might be something interesting there. I found no evidence for this. Just a lot of wandering with elves speaking in medieval English ("Nay, Sir Beau, inconsequential art thou not") and some battles and slaughters and I guess there is even some love interest, but nothing that would convince me to get back into the car. Not without getting paid.

As I read through the scathing reviews of this book, I couldn't help but wonder what goes through people's mind when they give a fantastic book such as this poor reviews. Dennis McKiernan is one of the greatest fantasy writers in the genre. To call his work a blatent rip-off of Tolkien is a grevious sin. It must be said that Tolkien tales urged Mr. McKiernan to get into writing in the first place, and his Iron Tower Trilogy was originally written as a sequel to Tolkien's works; however, Tolkien's Estate declined to endorse such a sequel. Before typecasting McKiernan's works as unoriginal and boring, please read more of his Mithgar story arc. He is one of the most original authors around.

This book was not very good at all. McKiernan has unfortunately become more boring with each new book. This book mainly consisted of a detailed journey of a band of "heroes". Their travels were not exciting and were generally predictable. McKiernan still has a talent for describing battle scenes, but they are few and far between in this book. I've already bought "Into the Fire", so I'll probably end up reading it though I'm tempted to return it.