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Chronicles of Caleath #1
Exiled: Autumn's Peril
Book One in the Chronicles of Caleath. Science fiction Fantasy Best Seller. Available from Amazon for a short time at $2.99
Exiled and driven by guilt and vengeance, Caleath, adept in virtual reality games, finds himself on a world where magic rules.
Assassins hunt him, ghosts haunt his nights, a sorcerer covets his knowledge and a beautiful hostage complicates his escape.
Exiled and driven by guilt and vengeance, Caleath, adept in virtual reality games, finds himself on a world where magic rules.
Assassins hunt him, ghosts haunt his nights, a sorcerer covets his knowledge and a beautiful hostage complicates his escape.
253 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 28, 2011
1 person is currently reading
61 people want to read
About the author
Rosalie Skinner
13 books19 followersRosalie lives in Australia with her supportive husband and close to her family.
She is proud to announce the acquisition of her first series 'The Chronicles of Caleath' by Museitup Publishing.
A mix of science fiction and fantasy, eight books, an addictive story you can sink your teeth into.
Rosalie can be contacted through her website www.rosalieskinner.com or follow her on her blog at
http://rosalieskinner/blogspot and keep up to date with when the books are coming out.
The Chronicles of Caleath has a page on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Chroniclesof... where updates and new releases are showcased.
She is proud to announce the acquisition of her first series 'The Chronicles of Caleath' by Museitup Publishing.
A mix of science fiction and fantasy, eight books, an addictive story you can sink your teeth into.
Rosalie can be contacted through her website www.rosalieskinner.com or follow her on her blog at
http://rosalieskinner/blogspot and keep up to date with when the books are coming out.
The Chronicles of Caleath has a page on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Chroniclesof... where updates and new releases are showcased.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
September 21, 2011
I like books where the main character is not always loveable and where most of the characters are neither black nor white. Mixed with a fascinating background story which is revealed slowly, fantasy and science fiction, supernatural, magic and tech, Autumn's Peril is a great start for a new eight book series.
Can't wait to readSummer's Peril Winter's Curse. Fortunately Rosalie Skinner informed me about the confusion with the titles. You can read her explanation in the comments section... Read my full review over at Edi's Book Lighthouse.
Can't wait to read
May 24, 2012
A friend recommended this book to me and I sure am glad she did. I really enjoyed reading it. Years ago I read a lot of sci fi and fantasy, but haven't had access to as much recently. This book does an excellent job of combining both scientific and magical elements into one exciting story. I am really looking forward to losing myself in the rest of the series.
You shouldn't read this book if you like happy, light-hearted books that fill you only with warm fuzzy feelings. The book instead shows and accepts the darker side of the characters and their flaws and we see them clearly. Although the main character might not exactly be considered loveable, but I do find myself respecting and even liking him. It will be interesting to see how he develops as the series continues and to see what other characters end up making of him.
In my opinion, this is a very good book that has the potential to be a GREAT book if placed in the hands of a truly competent editor. Unfortunately those seem to be hard to come by and not just with smaller publishing houses. The issues needing attention are two-fold. The basic copy editing/proofreading is quite simply insufficient (I hope it is a matter of insufficiency and not pure incompetence). Beyond that, I think a skilled editor could have helped the author find a way to make the beginning less confusing and easier for a reader to get into. It can be a bit tricky initially to sort out the many characters and influences and the scientific and magical elements. Once you get past the start, any lingering confusions are quickly cleared up. But I am certain that the author could have improved the start given the right support to do so. All authors need the support of good editors, but not all are lucky enough to be partnered with the right ones.
You shouldn't read this book if you like happy, light-hearted books that fill you only with warm fuzzy feelings. The book instead shows and accepts the darker side of the characters and their flaws and we see them clearly. Although the main character might not exactly be considered loveable, but I do find myself respecting and even liking him. It will be interesting to see how he develops as the series continues and to see what other characters end up making of him.
In my opinion, this is a very good book that has the potential to be a GREAT book if placed in the hands of a truly competent editor. Unfortunately those seem to be hard to come by and not just with smaller publishing houses. The issues needing attention are two-fold. The basic copy editing/proofreading is quite simply insufficient (I hope it is a matter of insufficiency and not pure incompetence). Beyond that, I think a skilled editor could have helped the author find a way to make the beginning less confusing and easier for a reader to get into. It can be a bit tricky initially to sort out the many characters and influences and the scientific and magical elements. Once you get past the start, any lingering confusions are quickly cleared up. But I am certain that the author could have improved the start given the right support to do so. All authors need the support of good editors, but not all are lucky enough to be partnered with the right ones.
May 22, 2012
Review of Exiled: Autumn's Peril. Book One.
I found this book easy to read and enjoyable. The writing style masterfully blends action, emotion and description.
The characters the unwilling hero meets are so finely drawn I feels as if I know each one—a young lad with a pure heart and a ready smile, a beautiful, powerful woman and past friends who turn against him. As the stakes become higher, we wonder if Caleath can survive all his suffering, let alone reach his goal and free himself from the alien world on which he's landed or the wielders of dark magic who track him down.
When Caleath struggles ashore, supporting a well-fed man, I bonded with a hero who cares about his companion. I suffered with his pain from injury and exhaustion as I learned about his background on another world of slavery. The hero gradually reveals his flaws, which only endear him more as he fights and protects the people around him although they didn't value his admirable qualities. I want him to escape his enslavement from those who follow through the bitter cold and snow.
The beauty of the prose leads the reader into a thoroughly enjoyable experience.
I found this book easy to read and enjoyable. The writing style masterfully blends action, emotion and description.
The characters the unwilling hero meets are so finely drawn I feels as if I know each one—a young lad with a pure heart and a ready smile, a beautiful, powerful woman and past friends who turn against him. As the stakes become higher, we wonder if Caleath can survive all his suffering, let alone reach his goal and free himself from the alien world on which he's landed or the wielders of dark magic who track him down.
When Caleath struggles ashore, supporting a well-fed man, I bonded with a hero who cares about his companion. I suffered with his pain from injury and exhaustion as I learned about his background on another world of slavery. The hero gradually reveals his flaws, which only endear him more as he fights and protects the people around him although they didn't value his admirable qualities. I want him to escape his enslavement from those who follow through the bitter cold and snow.
The beauty of the prose leads the reader into a thoroughly enjoyable experience.
May 26, 2012
Exiled: Autumn's Peril is the first book in Rosalie Skinners's Chronicles of Caleath, where sci-fi meets fantasy. Fast-paced and vividly written, the story takes unexpected twists that keep you turning the pages. Even though you find yourself on a roller coaster, you can always trust never to be thrown off.
August 11, 2012
This genre-bending tale of Caleath's exile from his home planet was part fantasy, part sci-fi, part thriller, with a touch of romance. By all rights I should've disliked Caleath, but I found his situation sympathetic and I rooted for him from the start. The ending left me wanting to immediately pick up book 2.
February 18, 2013
This is the first book in what promises to be an epic series. It combines the best of Fantasy and Sci-Fi along with themes of friendship, loyalty and trust as well as darker themes of revenge, hatred and a need for violence.
Read
November 27, 2010 Exiled Autumn's Peril is book one in the series, Chronicles of Caleath by Rosalie Skinner
November 13, 2012
*Review on its way*
April 4, 2013
A Trickster Eric Novels review
Rosaline Skinner asked me to read Exiled: Autumn's Peril-Book One (The Chronicles of Caleath. It's about a virtual reality champion turned gladiator turned fugitive.
Plot
The story begins with Caleath crash landing on a pre-industrial planet and dodging assassins sent by the villain on his way to a beacon that will teleport him off the planet so he can kill the villain. Around him there are two plots that hedge his movements.
1.) On the galactic scale, Caleath is the unwilling star of a new reality show called Real Time. It's set up by the villain to make money off his suffering. His flight from ranger/wardens forms the plot of this show and they are all magically compelled to kill him to prevent a peaceful resolution.
2.) On a local scale (i.e. everyone else) there is a problem with giant ants. These creatures will make the planet uninhabitable within years and conventional methods have minimal affect on them. This makes Caleath, an alien with different methods, a subject of interest to the Council of Mages.
These three plots (revenge, TV show, and killer ants) work together because Caleath is at the center and his response to the other two is 'leave me alone'.
I could nitpick some aspects of the plot (like how the villain installed his assassins as authority figures in a backwater planet far from home) but my main beef with the plot involves the ending. I like my plots to have resolution. Regardless of whether or not they are part of a series I don't like plots that just end. This book stands on edge of that cliff.
COURTESY SPOILER WARNING
On the one hand, there is resolution in the initial conflict; the assassins. By removing his implant, Caleath has rendered himself legally dead and so the magical compulsion driving the assassins has deactivated. That part of the plot is closed; they still want to kill him but for other reasons. Also, since the beacon can't teleport him off the planet he is stuck in exile which closes the 'escape' conflict of this book. On the other hand, the rangers still want to kill him, the villain is still tormenting Caleath, the giant ants are still ravaging the planet, and the book ends with Caleath in the same position as he started; running and plagued with guilt.
It makes more sense to consider the events from the prospective of someone watching this story in-universe. They see the end of an episode instead of the end of a book. If this is shown in real time, then there is no end at all. As the end of a book, it annoys me.
END SPOILER WARNING
Characters
Caleath is a complicated anti-hero; rude, paranoid, not necessarily interested in helping others but refuses to let anyone come to harm because of him. If not for his circumstances, he could be a straight up hero. Other characters receive less characterization. The wardens, for instance, are introduced in sequence and the best way to tell them apart is their order because there is only one trait that makes them different from the others. Rybolt's subtitle is 'Caleath's best friend' because he has nothing else. Penwryt is a guy I like; the old wise wizard archetype and his affable sense of humor. The contrast between this genuinely friendly wizard and Caleath's distrust of all magic users is another point in the plot's favor; conflict is created despite both sides being unambiguously good people. The only truly bad thing I have to say about the characters here concerns Nasith.
She is introduced as a historian, a capable fighter, and a respected enough figure in her community to be their representative at a Summit meeting. Then she's kidnapped by Caleath and suffers the dreaded Chickification. She cares less about the Summit (which is going to discuss the survival of the world) then about clinging to Caleath the further the plot continues. She relies on him to do the fighting and becomes borderline hysterical over having her fortune told. The fact she was under some sort of spell at the time does not make it rankle any less because it continues the trend and the trend does not stop after the spell was supposedly removed. Stockholm Syndrome sounds too romance-novely for this story and in any case it settles into quickly and she has a quick opportunity to rejoin the rangers and go to the Summit.
Setting
The most intriguing aspect of this story's setting is the interplay of science and magic. Most stories that have a space age protagonist drop on a pre-industrial world involve a heavy use of Clarke's Third Law. Anything from the protagonist's technologically advanced homeworld will be called 'magic' on the other world but that is not the case here. Caleath's society not only has magic side by side with super tech but it is the same kind of magic as this 'primitive' society. Thus, it can be confusing as to what is is genuine magic and what is technology-that-is-easier-to-call-magic but I find this more interesting than confusing.
Prose
The vast majority of the story is written in Beige Prose, which I appreciate. My biggest pet peeve is word cruft/purple prose. I like the short and concise sentences used by Miss. Skinner.
Rank
Trickster Eric Novels gives "Exiled: Autumn's Peril-Book One (The Chronicles of Caleath) a C.
Rosaline Skinner asked me to read Exiled: Autumn's Peril-Book One (The Chronicles of Caleath. It's about a virtual reality champion turned gladiator turned fugitive.
Plot
The story begins with Caleath crash landing on a pre-industrial planet and dodging assassins sent by the villain on his way to a beacon that will teleport him off the planet so he can kill the villain. Around him there are two plots that hedge his movements.
1.) On the galactic scale, Caleath is the unwilling star of a new reality show called Real Time. It's set up by the villain to make money off his suffering. His flight from ranger/wardens forms the plot of this show and they are all magically compelled to kill him to prevent a peaceful resolution.
2.) On a local scale (i.e. everyone else) there is a problem with giant ants. These creatures will make the planet uninhabitable within years and conventional methods have minimal affect on them. This makes Caleath, an alien with different methods, a subject of interest to the Council of Mages.
These three plots (revenge, TV show, and killer ants) work together because Caleath is at the center and his response to the other two is 'leave me alone'.
I could nitpick some aspects of the plot (like how the villain installed his assassins as authority figures in a backwater planet far from home) but my main beef with the plot involves the ending. I like my plots to have resolution. Regardless of whether or not they are part of a series I don't like plots that just end. This book stands on edge of that cliff.
COURTESY SPOILER WARNING
On the one hand, there is resolution in the initial conflict; the assassins. By removing his implant, Caleath has rendered himself legally dead and so the magical compulsion driving the assassins has deactivated. That part of the plot is closed; they still want to kill him but for other reasons. Also, since the beacon can't teleport him off the planet he is stuck in exile which closes the 'escape' conflict of this book. On the other hand, the rangers still want to kill him, the villain is still tormenting Caleath, the giant ants are still ravaging the planet, and the book ends with Caleath in the same position as he started; running and plagued with guilt.
It makes more sense to consider the events from the prospective of someone watching this story in-universe. They see the end of an episode instead of the end of a book. If this is shown in real time, then there is no end at all. As the end of a book, it annoys me.
END SPOILER WARNING
Characters
Caleath is a complicated anti-hero; rude, paranoid, not necessarily interested in helping others but refuses to let anyone come to harm because of him. If not for his circumstances, he could be a straight up hero. Other characters receive less characterization. The wardens, for instance, are introduced in sequence and the best way to tell them apart is their order because there is only one trait that makes them different from the others. Rybolt's subtitle is 'Caleath's best friend' because he has nothing else. Penwryt is a guy I like; the old wise wizard archetype and his affable sense of humor. The contrast between this genuinely friendly wizard and Caleath's distrust of all magic users is another point in the plot's favor; conflict is created despite both sides being unambiguously good people. The only truly bad thing I have to say about the characters here concerns Nasith.
She is introduced as a historian, a capable fighter, and a respected enough figure in her community to be their representative at a Summit meeting. Then she's kidnapped by Caleath and suffers the dreaded Chickification. She cares less about the Summit (which is going to discuss the survival of the world) then about clinging to Caleath the further the plot continues. She relies on him to do the fighting and becomes borderline hysterical over having her fortune told. The fact she was under some sort of spell at the time does not make it rankle any less because it continues the trend and the trend does not stop after the spell was supposedly removed. Stockholm Syndrome sounds too romance-novely for this story and in any case it settles into quickly and she has a quick opportunity to rejoin the rangers and go to the Summit.
Setting
The most intriguing aspect of this story's setting is the interplay of science and magic. Most stories that have a space age protagonist drop on a pre-industrial world involve a heavy use of Clarke's Third Law. Anything from the protagonist's technologically advanced homeworld will be called 'magic' on the other world but that is not the case here. Caleath's society not only has magic side by side with super tech but it is the same kind of magic as this 'primitive' society. Thus, it can be confusing as to what is is genuine magic and what is technology-that-is-easier-to-call-magic but I find this more interesting than confusing.
Prose
The vast majority of the story is written in Beige Prose, which I appreciate. My biggest pet peeve is word cruft/purple prose. I like the short and concise sentences used by Miss. Skinner.
Rank
Trickster Eric Novels gives "Exiled: Autumn's Peril-Book One (The Chronicles of Caleath) a C.
April 15, 2014
This book was recently entered in The Wishing Shelf Awards. This is what the readers thought:
Cover 4/10
Generally the readers thought the cover was very poor. When the cover was held up to the readers nobody correctly guessed the genre: sci-fi fantasy; they all thought it was probably romance! Also, although the blurb was well written, it was overly long and told the readers too much of the story.
Editing 9/10
The book was well structured with no apparent spelling or punctuation errors. The pacing was generally good to excellent. One of the readers did feel that the author was, on occasion, overly descriptive.
Theme 7/10
All of the readers seemed to think the strong theme of revenge in this book worked well in driving the central character. They also thought that Caleath was an excellent hero for the book: complex, but not too complex. However, the readers did seem to find the ending ‘ungratifying’. Although they understood the fact that the book was part of a ‘set’, they still wished for a few more of the dilemmas facing Caleath to be overcome.
Style 9/10
The readers thought this book was well written. Short, well put together paragraphs, very descriptive with an excellent pace. They felt that the author created an interesting and exciting universe for your characters to inhabit and the mix of magic and high-tech scifi worked well. They also thought that she handled speech with confidence.
STATS
Of the 16 readers:
14 thought the first page/chapter was gripping.
13 want to read the next book in the set.
16 thought the cover was poor and needed to be changed.
6 though the blurb revealed too much of the plot.
10 thought that character development was your strongest writing skill.
6 thought your ability to describe action was your strongest writing skill.
To Sum Up
The readers very much enjoyed the novel and many of them plan to read the next in the set. From the feedback, it seems the author's ability to mix magic with high-tech and the strong central character she created really pulled the readers in.
Really, it was only the cover that (BADLY) let down the book.
“A pulsating sci-fi fantasy. Highly recommended.” The Wishing Shelf Awards
Cover 4/10
Generally the readers thought the cover was very poor. When the cover was held up to the readers nobody correctly guessed the genre: sci-fi fantasy; they all thought it was probably romance! Also, although the blurb was well written, it was overly long and told the readers too much of the story.
Editing 9/10
The book was well structured with no apparent spelling or punctuation errors. The pacing was generally good to excellent. One of the readers did feel that the author was, on occasion, overly descriptive.
Theme 7/10
All of the readers seemed to think the strong theme of revenge in this book worked well in driving the central character. They also thought that Caleath was an excellent hero for the book: complex, but not too complex. However, the readers did seem to find the ending ‘ungratifying’. Although they understood the fact that the book was part of a ‘set’, they still wished for a few more of the dilemmas facing Caleath to be overcome.
Style 9/10
The readers thought this book was well written. Short, well put together paragraphs, very descriptive with an excellent pace. They felt that the author created an interesting and exciting universe for your characters to inhabit and the mix of magic and high-tech scifi worked well. They also thought that she handled speech with confidence.
STATS
Of the 16 readers:
14 thought the first page/chapter was gripping.
13 want to read the next book in the set.
16 thought the cover was poor and needed to be changed.
6 though the blurb revealed too much of the plot.
10 thought that character development was your strongest writing skill.
6 thought your ability to describe action was your strongest writing skill.
To Sum Up
The readers very much enjoyed the novel and many of them plan to read the next in the set. From the feedback, it seems the author's ability to mix magic with high-tech and the strong central character she created really pulled the readers in.
Really, it was only the cover that (BADLY) let down the book.
“A pulsating sci-fi fantasy. Highly recommended.” The Wishing Shelf Awards
October 19, 2014
Read this as part of a 0.99 book from iTunes called Prodigies of Sci-Fi. I really disliked this story but not as much as I hate the way this goodreads app doesn't allow me to see more than the first 4 lines of my review on my iPhone 4! I am pretty much typing blind now! This app sucks and so did this story which felt like it is one book of a much larger series ... Typing blind sucks!
September 17, 2011
This is the first book in the epic fantasy sci fi series The Chronicles of Caleath.
To be released as an ebook in Sept 2011 by Museitup Publishing.
Caleath is master of his own Destiny until a powerful enemy with a grudge decides otherwise.
To be released as an ebook in Sept 2011 by Museitup Publishing.
Caleath is master of his own Destiny until a powerful enemy with a grudge decides otherwise.
May 19, 2015
This is such a good idea that I would love if the story were developed more. The prose is so sparsely written that it lost me many times over.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews