Defender

Sanctuary #1

by Robert J. Crane

The world of Arkaria is a dangerous place, filled with dragons, titans, goblins and other dangers. Those who live in this world are faced with two choices: live an ordinary life or become an adventurer and seek the extraordinary. Cyrus Davidon leads a small guild in the human capital of Reikonos. Caught in an untenable situation, facing death in the den of a dragon, they are saved by the brave fighters of Sanctuary who offer an invitation filled with the promise of greater adventure. Soon Cyrus is embroiled in a mystery - someone is stealing weapons of nearly unlimited power for an unknown purpose, and Sanctuary may be the only thing that stands between the world of Arkaria and total destruction.

Genres: Fantasy, Dragons, Fiction, Adventure, Ebooks, Amazon, Epic Fantasy

267 pages, Paperback

First published June 22, 2011

About the author

Robert J. Crane was born and raised on Florida's Space Coast before moving to the upper midwest in search of cooler climates and more palatable beer. He graduated from the University of Central Florida with a degree in English Creative Writing. He worked for a year as a substitute teacher and worked in the financial services field for seven years while writing in his spare time.

Reviews

[[ J o ] · Rating 1 out of 5]

The basic rules of writing are fairly simple yet somehow are often ignored completely. One of the main ones is "show don't tell" and I'm afraid this book is all tell and very little show.

Shaky dialogue and far too heavily influenced by Tolkien that there were almost direct quotations. Using words that are different just to be different. Put the thesaurus down. The attempted humour is exceedingly cringe worthy and the characters all speak like those kind of people who laugh at their own jokes.

"And then, and then and then": this kind of storytelling gives no flow to the narrative, making it feel almost bulleted to you, hitting you with no grace whatsoever. Too much telling you everything through dialogue or bracketed prose. The actual storyline didn't seem to raise its head until very late into the book, and even then it was a vague and uninteresting plot that was being carried on in something that felt very World of Warcraft-like fanfic.

Characters felt pretty much like what you usually get without much development beyond, without much being given away.
Whole thing feels a little childish, from the words and expressions used ("adventuring") to the dialogue and it often felt unsure of itself.

The only thing missing from the heavily influenced by gaming video is a big booming voice every now and then. "You have levelled up!"



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[Joshua · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just couldn't keep on reading it. To me it read like someone's World of Warcraft Fan Fiction...

[The Jolly Elf · Rating 2 out of 5]

Αχ, απο που να ξεκινήσω.
Καταρχάς ειναι περισσότερο 2,5/5 και πραγματικά μέχρι ένα σημείο πίστευα θα κατέβει στο 1. Αλλά ας το πάρουμε απτην αρχή.

Το πιο βασικό πρόβλημα που είχα ήταν οτι μοιάζει υπερβολικά με βιντεοπαιχνίδι. Είναι κυριολεκτικα γεμάτο με φράσεις:
"Money buys armour, weapons, things with mystical power that can bear and deal damage better"
"Mystical equipment increases stamina"
"the armour increases the power of our spell caster's magic and in addition to giving more resistance to hostile spells...." Περίμενα να πετάξει "Loading, please wait"

Επίσης, με το που ξεκινάς το βιβλίο γνωρίζεις αμέτρητους χαρακτήρες που ανήκουν σε διαφορετικά είδη πλασμάτων και φυσικα ξεχνάς αμέσως. Εκτός απο τον πρωταγωνιστή και 2-3 ακόμα χαρακτήρες, όλους του υπόλοιπους τους ξέχναγα το οποίο δεν μου συμβαίνει ποτέ, όσοι και να είναι. Απλώς στα άλλα βιβλία τους γνωρίζεις σταδιακά. Εδώ έπρεπε απο το πρώτο κεφάλαιο να μαθω 30 ονόματα και να τα θυμάμαι κιόλας γιατί εμφανίζονταν ΟΛΟΙ ξανά και ξανά ταυτόχρονα.

Ας μην αναφερθώ στο γεγονός οτι όλοι έπεφταν σε 2 κατηγορίες προσωπικότητας.
Α: τίμιος, καλοσυνάτος, γενναίος
Β: τίμιος, καλοσυνάτος, γενναίος, σαρκαστικός.
Με εξαίρεση παλι 2-3, όλοι οι υπόλοιποι έμοιαζαν απίστευτα μεταξύ τους. Ακόμα και αυτοί που διέφεραν, δεν τους γνωρίζεις καλά. Δεν ξέρουμε ούτε τα βασικά για τον ήρωα και είμαστε και μέσα στο κεφάλι του.

Η μαγεία είναι κάπως. Οι μάγοι για παράδειγμα μπορούν να αναστήσουν τους πάντες με ένα απλό ξόρκι (ακόμα και τους ίδους τους εαυτούς τους). Άλλοι μπορεί να μην έχουν θέμα αλλα για εμένα χάνει η ιστορία γιατί δεν υπάρχει αγωνία. Αν πρόκειται να αναστηθούν όλοι, τι με νοιάζει εμένα αν θα τον κάνει χλαπάτσα ο δράκος;

Κάτι άλλο που με ενόχλησε ειναι οτι για τα 2/3 το βιβλίου δεν είχα ιδέα τι πλοκή ακολουθούμε. Αυτό ίσως οφείλεται στο οτι μέχρι το κεφάλαιο 25 που ΕΠΤΕΛΟΥΣ μπηκε σε μια σειρα η ιστορία απλώς πήγαιναν σε διάφορα μέρη και έκαναν μάχες (λογικά για να κάνουν level up και να πάνε στο boss για να τερματίσουν το παιχνίδι -.- ).
Χωρίς πλάκα, το κάθε κεφάλαιο συνοψίζεται σε ξύπνημα-μάχη-ύπνος.

Ας πούμε όμως και κάποια θετικά XD

Παρακάμπτοντας εντελώς τα πρώτα 2/3, στα τελευταια 16 περίπου κεφάλαια ο Cyrus χτίζει πολύ ωραία σχέση με ορισμένους χαρακτήρες και επιτέλους έχουμε συζητήσεις όπου όντως έχουν νόημα για τη πλοκή.
Επίσης αναλαμβάνει ρόλο και έχει έναν στόχο εκπληρώσει το οποίο έσπασε τη ρουτίνα-τρίπτυχο που ανέφερα πριν.
Η σχέση Vara-Cyrus θέλω πολύ να λειτουργήσει.
Ο κόσμος θυμίζει Άρχοντα των δαχτυλιδιών. Απέχει πολύ βέβαια σε ποιότητα και χτίσιμο απο τον κόσμο του Τόλκιν αλλά γενικά φαίνεται ενδιαφέρον μέρος.
Τέλος είχε αρκετά σημεία που με έκαναν να ψιλογελάσω, κυρίως με τα σαρκαστικά σχόλια της Vara και του Cyrus.

θα συνεχίσω;
Ναι. Το τέλος μου δημιούργησε περιέργεια να δώ τι θα συμβεί απο εδώ και πέρα. Επίσης έχω τα επόμενα 2 βιβλία δωρεάν οπότε και βλακειούλες να είναι, τουλάχιστον δεν θα έχω πετάξει τα χρήματά μου.
Δεν ξέρω αν αξίζει να το προτείνω. Μάλλον θα μπορώ να πώ πιο σίγουρα αν διαβάσω και το 2ο και δώ οτι φτιάχνει το πράγμα.

Για επιπλέον ερωτήσεις, θα χαρώ να απαντήσω σε προσωπικό μήνυμα! :D

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

As the two stars suggests, it was... OK.

First, the good. I like the possibilities of the world that Crane created, though I do think that he is cramming too much into one universe. The organizations known as guilds - groups of like-minded adventurers with common goals, beliefs, or values - is something that is pretty unique in my experience. Cyrus, the main character, grows on you over time, but since the whole story is told from his point-of-view, that's not surprising.

But now, the bad.

My main problem is just that too much happened. I felt like action was favored over characters, so we had a lot of stuff happen, but I wasn't invested enough to actually care about what was happening. This one novel, for example, could EASILY have had its events spread out over three volumes of a few hundred pages each, give me time to learn each character's motives and personality, so that I actually care when Narstron meets his fate, or when Orion's true colors are shown.

Then there's the problem with the magic use. Look, I like magic. But not at the expense of story. The magic-wielders teleport the characters across incredible distances, wasting journey time that could have been spent exploring their back-stories. And yet, in the middle of the story, suddenly Cyrus is spending six months walking or riding everywhere (coincidentally, those few chapters were, in my opinion, the most interesting, and re-invested me in the rest of the book). Why not just teleport around the kingdom? Similarly, in the heat of battle, the warriors are constantly healed, video game-style, taking some of the thrill out of those scenes. And if they get killed? Well, guess what, they can be resurrected. But only if the spell is cast in time. By a magic user who has enough energy. And unless they die of natural causes. Then they're dead. Or are they? Yeah, they probably are. There's a lot of rules that are convenient for the story that the author wants to tell, but don't necessarily make much sense.

In conclusion, it was... ok. Am I going to read the rest of the series? If I find the e-books for a reasonable price... Maybe.

[Chris · Rating 1 out of 5]

Picked this up because of some of the great reviews......put this book down without getting through more than a few chapters. It feels like I'm reading someone's raiding diary from world of Warcraft.

[Michael Campbell · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a fun book that didn't take itself too seriously. I will admit, the writing could have been a good deal better, but the characters were likeable. The world also shows a lot of promise, and the ending hinted at some hidden depths for the main characters. The dialogue had it's moments, both good and bad, but overall, I'm interested enough to read the next book and was entertained by this one.

[Matthew Coiner · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you've ever played a MUD, then you've read the first book. It's basically a bunch of people who go from room to room hacking and slashing. There are no real consequences to the actions and you're able to go back in a few days/months and do it all over again.

I honestly think Crane played MUDs online and wrote down his favorite adventures. It's not really until later in the first book that any character development begins to happen and even then it's shallow.

It's a fluff series and has a few consistent grammar problems that are pet peeves, but it's light reading. I picked up the first three for free. I'm almost finished with the third and am not sure that I'm going to continue the series. He had some interesting characters, but in three books, only a very little amount of time has been spent in developing or growing the characters.

[Traci Loudin]

I'm not having much luck with any of the books in the Quest box set. This one reads like a role-playing game, complete with dwarves and elves fighting dragons. In fact it's a 100-man raid group, with healers, druids, and everything! Yet despite the fact that they warn of how dangerous the dragon is, the dwarf and elf somehow find time to chat about their mutual hatred... during the fight!

"“I’m sorry,” she said without a trace of irony or sincerity. “Should I say ‘please’ when I direct you to help me kill our large and implacable foe? Would that help assuage that sense of inferiority dwarves carry like a shield anytime someone instructs you toward intelligent action?”"

I personally like playing my RPGs, not reading them. But if that's your sort of thing, this one's probably awesome. Not to my taste.

[Pietro Albano · Rating 1 out of 5]

Got this free and it was worth every penny.

We get one dimensional RPG characters, really basic writing (no foreshadowing, simplistic descriptions) and we get the absolute worst spell on top of everything: Resurrection Spell. Really? Characters die then - snap - bring them back to life. Really?

[Jodi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I grabbed a 99 cent set of 7 fantasy novels called Magic, Myth & Majesty on Amazon the other day. One of the authors in this set, Daniel Arenson, is one of my favorite fantasy writers, and although I have already read the book of his that was included in this box set, I thought maybe I could find some other good authors or series to read from it. The very first part, Defender, by Robert J Crane had me enthralled. The main character Cyrus Davidon is just starting his adventure to become a great warrior, and he joins a guild called Sanctuary that is everything I would ever want to be a part of (in my fantasy fantasies) honorable, strong, loyal, and fighting for those who are too weak to fight. I eagerly finished this novel and instead of continuing with the set of 7 different fantasy novels, immediately went on to purchase book two in the Sanctuary Series to continue to follow Cyrus and his adventures. He is the kind of hero you can love, cheer on, feel pain with, and ultimately want more of. I loved this book!!!!

[Sarp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whoever gave this a two star can't even fathom the epicness of this series. How a single man can link so many plot points together baffles me. At the end of Sanctuary Book Eight, I was left speechless and in tears and feeling so many things, so do not stop in the first book. Give it a chance, you are merely missing out on something great.

EDIT 2024: Book 1 is definitely not as good as I remember now that I have a better understanding of narrative structure, prose and character development. It’s still okay though, with memorable moments that have undoubtedly stuck with me for several years. The series does compound on itself really well though from what I can tell — maybe I’ll do a full reread this year, we shall see.

[Bill Tillman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Defender is the first book in a long series. Cyrus Davidon has lead a small guild in the human capital of Reikonos. Saved by the brave fighters of Sanctuary who offer an invitation filled with the promise of greater adventure. Soon Cyrus is embroiled in a mystery - someone is stealing weapons and Sanctuary may be the only thing that stands between the world of Arkaria and total destruction. A great start, look forward to at least next two!

[Nigel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Managed to struggle through only the first third of this novel, the first I’ve read by Mr Crane, before giving it up. Despite having read a third of the book I would be hard pressed to give any summary of the plot. There were two reasonably well written battles but they appeared to be unconnected. I do not think I will be reading more of this author.

[Art · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wish I could have given it zero stars but that doesn't seem to be an option.

[Dave · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pretty lame. No real story, just a bunch of aimless ramblings. It seems to be written for online gaming fanatics, not serious readers. For me, a waste of time.

[Tom Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first 75% of the book feels like Dungeons and Dragons or Might and Magic converted to story form. Join a guild of adventurers, go on campaigns and quests in search of treasure and weapons, get injured, and instantly healed or die and get resurrected by your resident wizard. Would have been two stars, but the last 25% of the book it seemed to actually turn into a real story and added some dimension to the characters. I won’t be buying any of the remaining books in the series though…

[Susan1566 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn’t sure about this book, it sounded good but there are a lot of negative reviews. I found it quite enjoyable, easy reading, lots of interesting characters and a fairly good story. There are almost too many characters - sometimes I really had to think who someone was but overall a pretty good read

[Lizzie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dnf - Just couldn't get into it... Might try again another time

[Artrain · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a review for books 1-8 which cover the actual Sanctuary series. For those unaware, book 9 onwards is pretty much like beginning of a new series.

So, this series started off with a very strong feel of a LitRPG, but from book two on it starts to feel more of a proper fantasy. The first book is awkward. You can tell that the author is finding his feet. It is entertaining enough though, and the writing is much improved when you move to book two.

One thing that feels off as you start to read is the mechanics. There is magic obviously, but there is also healing from near death and revival from complete death that is common occurrence. You get used to it later, but there's no denying that it takes away the sense of danger from the story. Granted there are limits to revival, but they are safely worked around in most scenarios.

The story and characters are both decent, but where this book really lacks is building those characters. Even after a full eight books you don't really feel as though you know the characters enough (including the protagonist). Also it does not help that the author seems to be not very good in writing about relationships between characters, or having them express emotions. And when I say relationships I mean not just lovers, but also friends and acquaintances.
It is very odd to see people who have been staying together and fighting together for years offer no emotional support to one another when they're clearly having a bad time. All they do is "give the person space". Giving a person space is not be all and end all of how you deal with your friend or someone you love when they're in a bad moment. And funny thing is, even in this book it never works, and still they do it.

Since we're talking about relationships, I'll continue with a word on the main relationship in the book (between the protagonist and the person he likes). The author stretches and stretches its buildup for the length of a whole five (yes five!) books, all the while we the readers can clearly see that its going nowhere, and then suddenly at the end of the fifth book, in the very last paragraph with a couple of lines worth of dialogue its done! And from the sixth book on they're both completely lovey-dovey. Like I said, the author cannot do relationships. This would not have been a problem, but considering half of the content of the first five books is about the protagonist dancing around his romantic relationships, you'd expect that the climax would at least be... well, good. But its non-existent.

Another issue with this series is the fade-to-black scenes. This includes everything from sex scenes, characters getting together to have an emotional talk maybe, the instance after a major battle ends, or other random points of the journey. The author just skips them. This is especially noticeable as majority of the series is a single POV or in rare cases a double POV. And it highlights my next issue with this series which is...

Lack of description. Reading these books always feels like you're watching something through a hazy fog. Nothing is clearly described. I was simply not able to immerse myself in any scene. This coupled with the previously stated frequent fade-to-black phenomenon makes it feel as if you're flitting through scenes of the story. Not surprisingly, I lost interest and speed-read most of the series purely for finishing the story.

And finally we come to the last issue: humour. Dear gods how much effort does it take to control your urge to throw in wise cracks after every sentence? And its literally after every single sentence. A character dies (this time for ever), you'd expect a sombre mood to last a while? No such thing, a few pages on and we're back to wise cracks. It is immensely annoying. Every single dialogue devolves into sarcastic back and forth. I get the need to have banter between characters, but the repetitive jokes from the same characters get extremely boring extremely fast. If half the effort of writing these wise cracks was spent on meaningful conversations between characters then this would have been a really good series.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a freebie with Kindle. I got the first three books in the series. This series is confusing me. You know with trilogies where the second book is usually a filler. Well, this is very much a filler series. It's full of fluff and it feels like it's working up to... something. But I can't pick what. There is a nice range of characters with lots of different personalities and skills. I do admire the world he's tried to create; almost Tolkien meets World of Warcraft in it's appearance. It just feels very jumbly. If I wasn't stuck in an English countryside house with no car, then I may not have continued on with the rest.

[The Phoenix · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the book. After reading it, I immediately checked for the 2nd in the series and for it for free for my nook. I highly recommend it if you are interested in Quest-like adventures with Dragons, trolls, elves, all types of creatures and physical gods, along with adventurers with skill sets such as magic, healing, necromancy and/or strong physical strength.

[Sinead · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal book series from one of my favourite authors.

[Erich · Rating 1 out of 5]

Agree with other reviews that this is just a role-playing walkthrough. An impossible read.

[Holey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have very mixed reactions to this book.

First, the negative:

The first sections, as well as the epilogue, are very awkwardly written. The word choices and sentence structure are often clunky. Occasionally a word is flat-out misused (i.e., one of the characters "furls" his brow). There are sporadic grammatical and punctuation errors. I gather the book is self-published, which explains a lot.

An editor could also have helped reduce the ludicrous frequency of a couple of elements: Characters are constantly raising an eyebrow. And they never just look at each other. No, their eyes "lock on" to the other person. It could be a drinking game.

As many other reviews have already pointed out, the fight scenes are heavily reminiscent of MMORPG battles. Fighting groups are composed of a warrior whose job is to deal and absorb damage, plus rangers, spellcasters and healers. There are realms that regularly regenerate bad guys and (for extremely flimsy reasons) treasure, providing convenient targets for routine raids.

Some aspects of the fantasy world aren't adequately explained. The main character's guild is supposed to be honorable and dedicated to protecting the weak. Yet for apparently no other reason than to gain loot, they separately attack two dragons and a town of titans. Instead of rooting for the guild, I found myself thinking they were greedy, self-serving and brutal. The attacks on the dragons are at least sort of explained much later in the book.

Other reviewers have also mentioned the fact that characters can apparently teleport anywhere instantly, yet the main character spends months in the second part of the book traveling everywhere on horseback. I also couldn't understand why, for example, their battle plans involved teleporting to a location that was a few hours' hike from the place they were invading. Eventually the book mentions a teleportation "portal," so I've concluded that teleportation can only deposit people at specific portals, but this is never spelled out.

Female characters are in general well-represented, but there are traces of misogyny, including one "she's uptight and just needs to get laid" joke.

Ok, that was a lot of negative commentary. Now for the positive:

In spite of its failings, I found the book to be pretty engaging. The author is imaginative and tells a good story. I wanted to see what happened next, I was rooting for the main character, and after finishing the book, I ordered the next one in the series. Go figure.

Also, after the first few chapters or so, the writing improves noticeably. At first I thought I had just gotten used to the awkwardness, but then it returned at the very end of the book. It reads as though the middle of the book was written later when the author was more comfortable with his writing - or else the beginning and end of the book were written later and did not have time to be fixed up by an editor.

Overall, this wasn't a slog to get through, once I got past the first couple of chapters. I'm not sure I would re-read it, because the plot is the main thing this book has going for it, and now I already know what happens; it's more of a one-time read. I do, however, think I'll reasonably enjoy Book 2.

More editing and revision could probably have bumped my rating up by one star.

[Nick Warner · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't really like being overly critical of author's work especially as they have put a lot of time and effort into it, however I'm struggling to find much positive about this book. I think my main gripes with the book are as follows.

Firstly the writing is very basic - solely action with little description of the world or any depth to the characters. Where characters become more than faceless it is very cliched and limited development. I wasn't bothered about any of them or the word itself. Most of the time it read like a child telling me about a session on a computer game "then I did this, then I did that" then any real storytelling.

Secondly there is no suspense and the main character can do everything. Time after time we read of a monster clobbering everyonez being really tough and then the hero jumps into the fray and hacks it down easily. It's unrealistic, boring and utterly incongruous - terrible monsters easily slain by a "normal" warrior. It's hard to get over how repetitive and jarring it is that the main character just comes along and sorts things with little effort.

Thirdly the world doesn't make that much sense either - possibly in part because there is no build up of it. It randomly seems to be lots of groups going on quests into other realms and areas to get treasure. There's no real reason for why people need the treasure, or how the realms work, or what anyone else is doing who isn't on a quest. It's not a world - it's a gaming platform.

In short these three huge issues come together to create no hook, interest or excitement whatsoever. I read the first couple of books (which I got as a deal on Kindle and read when I had nothing else to read) and both were of a similar low quality, so it wasn't a first book teething issues.

Looking for positives - it's a very easy read and there's lots of action. That said this is nowhere near enough to make it worth reading in my opinion and this is a really weak effort at a fantasy novel. Avoid.

[Childofhate · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's usually not a good sign when it takes me over a week to finish reading any book. I had to force myself to keep trudging through this cliche-ridden fantasy. Now, I realise that a truly original fantasy book is like a unicorn (in the way that it doesn't exist) but most the great fantasy authors put their own twist on the genre while writing their books. This book, sadly lacks any hint of the author even trying to find their own voice. The elves, dwarves, goblins etc. are all standard cliches and the guilds seem like right arseholes for the most part. For example, they see a dragon and then just decide to kill it on the spur of the moment. What the fuck did the dragon do to you? Later we find out that it's a violent psychopath, but none of the guilds' actions make them endear themselves to you. Even Sanctuary, the guild where honour is everything doesn't have members who pay more than lip service to the concept of honour. I found none of the characters to be particularly noteworthy and they all just blended into one another. I didn't care for anyone especially since they can all just come back to life (unless an arbitrary time limit expires) if they die. There are absolutely no stakes, tension or good characters here. I'm sorry but I can't continue reading this series.

[Cara · Rating 2 out of 5]

My boyfriend recommended this series to me, as it is one of his favorites of all time, and I wanted to love it, but I just could not get into the novel.

Introducing an overwhelming amount of characters in the span of a couple of pages with little distinction between each person made reading this novel a challenge. With little description to go off of and information given through dialogue and info dumps, as opposed to thorough descriptions and character actions/emotions, I often found myself having to reread sections over and over to truly understand what was going on.

The novel also contained a lot of typos and passive voice - so much so that I had to continuously push myself to read the book. Not to mention the lack of stakes/conflict. The second something bad happened to one of the characters, the conflict would immediately be resolved within the chapter, if not within a couple paragraphs. And the amount of times someone praised Cyrus for being amazing (eye roll) was infuriating. I understand that he’s supposed to be a bad***, but does everyone have to congratulate him every time he breathes?

With that said, I did enjoy reading the dialogue between the characters and laughed quite a bit.

[Dan Lunghofer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked up the boxed set of the first three books. That said, I will be writing reviews for each of the books as I finish them.

This book was very meh. It had the feel of someone whose exposure to fantasy was playing a little too much World of Warcraft (or similar MMO). The characters were a little under-developed, and I didn't really feel a connection to any of them.

One issue that I had is with Vara. She is a very young elf, who is very cold, a calculating warrior...who titters like a schoolgirl several times. I'm sorry, what? This for me ruined the character: is she the strong female character in the series, or is she the helpless plot device? I was unimpressed.

Also, it seems like the characters never REALLY face problems because everyone gets brought back from the dead. I have no problems with magic being used to bring characters back if there's a price to pay. But it seems like it's just "oh, so-and-so died, resurrection spell. Oh, someone else died, resurrection spell."

I almost put the book down because I was that unimpressed. However, from reading reviews from the boxed set many people seem to think that the author finds his voice in later books.

I hope so.

[Pau · Rating 1 out of 5]

As a world of warcraft player, who does raids every weekend. This book made me realize how some of the things we say as a group become cringy, oh... you don't have healing abilities, don't worry i brought bandages.
A common joke made by warriors, mages, hunters and other classes in game unable to heal.

Something similar was in this book. This author is definitely a world of warcraft player.

On this book, well, did I care when Norstom died, not really, he was lost in a tornado of names and characters that were undeveloped and made just to push the plot further.

Oh, he was the main characters bestie, cool! I didn't care. So many characters, gnomes, dwarves, elves, trolls, dragons.

A dwarf and an elf who hate each other and bicker? In the middle of a battle. Hmmm where have I read that before?

A ghostie guild master, hmmm anyone like Anime?

I don't think I will read the next 7 books.

[Rex Reads 📚📖⚔️ · Rating 4 out of 5]

All books got 4.75 stars

I had the three book box set but if I do not break the books down by each it does not count them as three. Making me do this the hard way.

This book left me wanting more and more. I will have to read book 0 for it fills the gaps apparently.

Well after almost 1300 pages of reading I can say this series was amazing 3 book start. This gave me the feel of lord of the rings, Elden ring if you have played and wheel of time. From wars, guild halls with honor to thieves making other arrangements. The story had so many turns and twist with other side plots. Easy to follow and the characters are developed to build and grow as the story grows. Does have some romance with very detailed parts so maybe not for younger children. The battle scenes are amazing and had me on the edge of my seat. I kept reading every time I opened the kindle app to read. I will be continuing to read the rest of the series.