Customer Reviews

Rise of the Wyrm Lord: The Door Within Trilogy - Book Two

5 star:		(50)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When Aidan Thomas learned he was moving away from home and his best friend to live with his eighty-year old ailing grandfather halfway across the country, life turned inside-out. Without Robby, it was back to being un-athletic, unpopular, bullied and pushed around. It was the end of life as he knew it, a new beginning he wanted no part of.
However, Aidan finds the sacred scrolls of Alleble in his grandfather's basement and embarks upon a journey to The Realm, changing his life forever. A place of ancient magic embroiled in war; on one side stands King Eliam - loving, eternal ruler of Alleble, and Paragor - once trusted herald of King Eliam, now evil ruler of the hellish lands of Paragory. In The Realm, Aidan surmounts challenges revealing his true measure, and when he finally returns home, he burns with the desire to impart King Eliam's love to everyone.

Things aren't turning out as great as he'd hoped. While leaving The Realm, he received a disturbing vision, one showing Robby's mirror-self serving Paragor. Worried about Robby's eternal destiny, Aidan emails repeatedly for weeks with no answer, and when he finally does get ahold of Robby, he's distant, guarded, and acting very strange.

Aidan is convinced Robby's in eternal danger, but what can he do? The rules are clear; King Eliam calls a person to The Realm once a lifetime - there's no way he can reach Robby's mirror-self with King Eliam's love.

Enter Antoinette Reed, Aidan's art classmate at his new school. When he sees her artwork - a rendition of Paragory's outer gates, and she sees his, The Seven Fountains of Alleble, they realize the amazing truth: they're both believers of King Eliam, true citizens of Alleble.

Even more astounding; Antoinette receives a ghostly vision of Aidan in warrior dress, and on the back blank pages of her Book of Alleble, the same poem that brought Aidan to The Realm appears. Antoinette has been called to serve King Eliam, but before she goes, Aidan tasks her with a desperate plea - find Robby's Glimpse, and somehow convince him of the truth of King Eliam's love, to save Robby's soul!

When Antoinette arrives in The Realm, she discovers another shocking truth: she is the mirror-self of Lady Gwenne, Aidan's close comrade and friend! Though heartened by this, as well as warmed by her quick friendship with Aidan's Glimpse, Aelic, Antoinette encounters a world in turmoil: imposters have spread everywhere, speaking falsehoods and lies, attempting to destroy alliances with Alleble. Even worse, rumors abound that Paragor seeks to unleash an ancient evil power locked away for centuries. The fearful question lingers: is the rumored Wyrm Lord a myth, a fable - or Paragory's new weapon against Alleble?

The Rise of the Wyrm Lord, the second installment in Wayne Thomas Baston's The Door Within Trilogy, jacks up the action a notch, successfully following up The Door Within. Baston continues to weave classic Bible stories into an intriguing tale, and makes this novel even better than the first - which is not easy to do - by going "off the Biblical" map with the Wyrm Lord and the Seven Sleepers' mythology. The second novel is an excellent tale, building on and improving The Realm mythos.

At first I was disappointed Aidan wasn't returning to The Realm¸ but this offers a fresh new story from Antoinette's perspective. In The Door Within, the characterization was solid, believable, but in this novel they grow and acquire depth in ways most Christian fantasies don't today.

The pace picks up, the threat of the Wyrm Lord and the Seven Sleepers looming over every page. One thing to admire: many writers make the mistake of showing off their hidden bad guys too early, and in this novel, we only get tantalizing, shadowy, menacing glimpses of the Wyrm Lord and his minions. This adds suspense; Baston is now playing the "cruel author", (which we all love so much), by making us wait for the last novel for the pieces to fall into place.

The Rise of the Wyrm Lord ends in a cliffhanger: we are left suspended, in true Empire Strikes Back fashion, without a clue as to what's going to happen next, as we learn that not only is Antoinette in mortal danger, but so is Aidan - even in the "safer, real world". All we can do is trust in King Eliam and his grace, and wait until the series concludes in the final novel, The Final Storm.

In my review for "The Door Within", the first book in the trilogy, I said that the beginning-->middle of the book is bad and that the middle-->end of the book is excellent. "The Rise of the Wyrm Lord" is much like that, except it is more divided.

The beginning of the book far surpasses the beginning of book one. Aidan has evolved into a likable character, and his daily non-Realm life is interesting, especially when he meets Antoinette.

The middle of the book, in which Antoinette enters the Realm, becomes problematic. "The Door Within" is plot-driven as opposed to character-driven, and that isn't a problem. However, the plot here requires heavy, heavy suspension of disbelief. Antoinette doesn't come off shocked or amazed that she was able to enter a different dimension, nor does she seem out of place or foreign to the setting, as Aidan initially did in book one. It is also strange that she was able to be deemed equal to the warriors of Alleble, who have spent their entire lives training for war. Antoinette has learned martial arts and fencing. They should be in entirely different leagues, but they are not.

The end of the book picks the pace up, and it is exciting. Almost every chapter has a different protagonist, and that is risky as the majority of the book featured Antoinette as the protagonist up to this point. However, Batson's risk paid off. The end of the book is highly entertaining and suspenseful, even more so than the climax of book one.

Let's dissect a bit...

The Bad...
+ The dialogue is stiff, and not on account of the medieval-esque language. It's on account of the dialogue itself. It's forced. Mallik is more than three times called a "hammer-wielding friend" instead of just his name. Stiff. This shows traces that the characters in this series are characterized by their skills, not their motivations or their... well, characters.
+ As mentioned above, the characters are flat and undeveloped. They seem to be pawns in the story. The story moves them, they rarely move it.

The Good...
+ Antoinette's entering the Realm gives a different perspective than that which we read in book one, and it was interesting to see the world through her eyes.
+ Plenty of suspense.
+ The world is richly described, particularly the scene where the lava veins down the volcanoes.
+ Batson's switch from Aidan as protagonist in the beginning to Antoinette was daring, and paid off well. However, I feel that the story should have traded off between Aidan and Antoinette as the story developed. All Aidan has after Antoinette enters the Realm is two pages at the end of the book. I feel as if his character should have had a few chapters through the course of the novel.
+ The book is paced well, and was consistently enjoyable. The allegory was never overly cheesy, and I found myself hoping that Kearn would except King Eliam.
+ The book cover and pages are beautiful.
+ The Robby/Kearn situation is handled well. Since the first book, I've wondered why "cool guy" Robby befriended Aidan. Prior to his adventure in Book One, Aidan was not only a "nerd", he was also an unpleasant person. In this book, it is revealed that Kearn (Robby's twin in the Realm) finds meaning in life only when he feels superior to other people. This makes sense when Robby/Kearn and Aidan's friendship is analyzed. Robby befriended Aidan because he felt superior to him, not because he wanted to help him. That was definitely a good tidbit of info.

"The Rise of the Wyrm Lord" is flawed, but always entertaining. The writing is good, with moments of excellence. I only wish that Mr. Batson restricted the use of exclamation points to his characters' dialogue(!). For example, from page 298:
They all turned and looked to the sky above the ruin of Clarion. And there, just as the sun broke through the clouds, the sky filled with dragons! (Batson).
Not only does the exclamation point here (used liberally throughout the novel) ruin the mood, it also seems childish and unnecessary to add.

However, this novel withstands its flaws and Batson proves himself to be a formidable writer. I hope to hear a lot more from him, and my copy of "The Final Storm" is on its way to my house right now! <-- ;)

And I must add: Not only is Wayne Thomas Batson a good writer, he is also a good man. Whenever I e-mail him, he always returns with a personally addressed e-mail with nothing but kindness and good advice, as I too am an aspiring writer.

7/10

Aiden, having completed his mission, finds himself at a new school back home. Meeting a girl that also believes in the realm that he went to, he quickly starts up a conversation with her. Visiting their house, Aiden finds that they all believe in the realm and are astounded at his announcement that he had visited the realm. However, they soon go from excited to scared when they find out that their daughter was being called to the realm to go on her own adventure. Will they see their daughter again? Will she come to know the truth about the realm that she grew up to believe in? Read and find out.

Mr. Batson takes another big risk in this sequel to The Door Within because he comes dangerously close to repeating the plot of the first novel, just with a girl hero instead of a boy. Fortunately, he avoids the error. Antoinette Reed is in many ways following in the footsteps of Aidan Thomas but precisely because her path to belief and her personality is so different from Aidan's, her experiences in the Realm are quite different. Where Aidan was struggling with disbelief and doubting of his own abilities, Antoinette is absolutely certain in her beliefs and absolutely confident in her own abilities.

The result makes for an interesting comparison and contrast as Antoinette faces situations and makes choices in a wholly different manner than Aidan did. In addition the threats she faces are much greater as Paragor's master plan begins to be revealed, events throughout moving with that relentless "Batson pace" that readers of Isle of Swords and Isle of Fire are well familiar with, and she also has to struggle with a favor requested by Aidan that may conflict with King Eliam's task for her. Another difference is that while it takes about the same number of pages for Antoinette to finally enter the Realm as it took Aidan, the wait is much more pleasant because instead of listening to Aidan raging and bemoaning his fate, we get to watch Aidan and Antoinette meet and become friends (and maybe something more?), and as is usually the case with the middle book in a trilogy, we don't really have an ending here, just a pause in the midst of ongoing disaster that must get a lot worse before it gets better.

Mr. Batson has created a fascinating world in the Realm, with similarities to but not quite like any other fantasy world I've ever seen, with Biblical references that are quite obvious to those who are looking for them but no stumbling block to those who are not. I bought this book shortly after I bought The Door Within as part of a promotional deal, but I never got around to reading them. Now I shall have to leap into the final book: The Final Storm.

Note: Other than a lower price the chief attraction of the paperback edition is the inclusion of the so-called "Lost Chapters", basically earlier draft versions of the first four chapters accompanied by author's commentary. The most interesting addition is "Farix's Tale", which provides something of an origin for this most interesting character.

The second in The Door Within Trilogy is even better than the first. Instead of Aiden as the main protagonist, Antoinette (Gwenne's glimpse) is the heroine. In direct contrast to Aiden, at the beginning of this story Antoinette is looking for a way to enter the door within to help the kingdom of Alleble in their time of need. Paragor's armies are amassing with the Wyrm Lord in their head. When she meets Aiden in an art class, Wayne Thomas Batson' story is lifted out of the boundaries of mere words. With his trademark action packed, lightning-paced writing takes you to a place you won't want to leave.

Eep!! I could not put this book down, no matter how hard I tried. I believe I read it in an afternoon. It held even more messages than the first, but I never felt like I was being preached at or hit over the head with a hammer. (Well, I might have felt like I was being hit over the head by a hammer, but that was out of sympathy for those unfortunate enough to meet with a certain character.) Please read this book. And the one after it. And all of Mr. Batson's books, present and future!

If you liked the Door Within, you are going to LOVE Rise of the Wyrm Lord.
Fantasy novels are my favorite and I have always had a hard time finding one that is not dark and is clean!
Rise of the Wyrm Lord was the type of book I was looking for!
I would recommend this story to any reader bother young and older!

(Lindsay W.)

In the last book, Aidan Thomas travelled through The Realm as a knight. Now it's his friend Antoinette's turn to have an adventure. She is called to Alleble and fills Aidan's place as the Twelfth Knight. She and his returning friends from The Door Within, along with some new characters, travel to a city deep within the Blackwood forest to solve a mystery and keep the evil Paragor from conquering the forest. Along the way, they discover an ancient evil that is awakening from their sepulchers. And to make things worse, Aidan's friend from earth is on the enemy's side! Will the knights from Alleble be able to stop Paragor from releasing the ancient Wyrm Lord from his tomb? Read this exciting book by Wayne Thomas Batson to find out!

"The door was tall, hewn form gray stone and engraved intricately with castles, unicorns, warriors, and a long and winding road that led to two mountains. The sun rose between those peaks, and Antoinettes's heart rejoiced.
Seeing the silver ring, she reached down and pulled. Light, fiercer and startlingly pure, shone forth from behind the door. Antionette shielded her eyes with one arm and walked through The Door Within."
Aidan Thomas is a proud follower of King Elium. After his first trip to the other realm, Aidan was worried because he had a vision of his best friend, Robby Pierson. Each person in this world had his or hers glimpse twin. Robby's glimpse was following King Elium's enemy and traitor, Paragor.
Robby Pierson was Aidan's friend from Maine. Robby was very athletic, handsome, and cool. For some reason he wanted to be Aidan's friend. Aidan had to move from Maine to Colorado to take care his grandfather, Grampin, and had to leave Robby behind. After Aidan's vision, Aidan tried to call and email Robby, but he never responded. When Aidan finally contacted Robby, Robby acted strange and troubled. Aidan didn't know how to save Robby from the evil and from the lies of Paragory.
When the summer ended, Aidan met a girl named Antoinette Reed. She was an intelligent, artistic girl who was also a follower of King Elium. Antoinette discovered she was to be sent on a mission by King Elium to go to the other realm. Aidan told Antoinette about Robby and handed her a picture of him to try to find Robby's glimpse. Once in the Realm, Antionette had to abandon King Elium's mission in order to find Robby's glimpse. Robby's glimpse was a powerful Lord of Paragory. She needed to persuade him to turn against evil. Will she be captured, and did she make a big mistake by abandoning King Elium?
This Fantasy fiction book teaches you that even when you turn your back on God and do what you want to do rather than what God wants, He will still be with you forever. King Elium didn't abandon Antoinette even when she abandoned Him, just like God wont leave us. Wayne Thomas Batson adds suspense to the story by not telling you what will happen to Antoinette on her journey to find Robby's glimpse and also adds action to the story by the battles Antoinette faces while on her mission. I would recommend this book to all Christians who love fantasy about knights and dragons and also to people who like war and battles. Anyone who read the book "The Door Within" would love this book. I am exited to read the final book that conclude sthis trilogy, "The Final Storm."

Though the second book of a trilogy, it feels much more like a sequel, using the old formula or having another character revisit the experiences of the hero of the original. Here, this other character is Aidan's friend and possible love interest Antoinette. Back in the real world, Aidan attempts to save his friend Robby while Antoinette searches for Robby's Glimpse twin, a servant of the evil Paragor, to convert him as well.

In The Realm, there are three categories of people: those who follow King Eliam (good), those who follow Prince Paragor (bad), and the "undecided" people, which also includes good people who simply do not believe in the existence of The Realm at all. There is no explicit mention of hell, so it is unclear why it is so important for people to believe. What happens if you die while still in the undecided camp? Perhaps that will be addressed in the third and final installment. I hope so, because without that vital bit of information, the characters' motivation is pretty arbitrary.

Anyway. This story is a lot more of the same stuff as The Door Within, so if you liked that one, you'll like this one too. It was a bit more rushed and a lot more violent, and leaves you with a cliffhanger, almost as if the second and third books originally were meant as one big sequel that was too long for a single volume. I'll be curious to see how it wraps up all its loose ends.