Erfyl

by Alexa Chipman

Guardians are humanity’s last defense against the Diras—creatures of ancient evil. Erfyl must reclaim a mysterious island and close the gateway before Earth is overrun.

169 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Alexa Chipman is a graphic designer, author, YouTuber and movie critic who resides in Sonoma County, CA.

Reviews

[April Sadowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alexa is a great tale-spinner and Erfyl will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Erfyl has nice pacing and I couldn't help but laugh at some of the references ("It was worse than forming a PUG with n00bs") she mentioned because I know all too well what she is talking about. Her character and Alexa's writing style for her reminds me very much of Codex (The Guild webisode series) at times.

I couldn't put my iPad down because I didn't want to stop without knowing what would happen next.

[Mercy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the book, very entertaining, profoundly engaging. Can't wait for the next book in the series

[Karl Orbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite some time ago, I came by this author in a very obscure way. I was playing a boardgame online, The Palaces of Carrara I think and watched a walkthrough video to get acquainted, by the author of this book. I thought she did a great job, so went to see if she had any other reviews and found a series of videos about Lord of the Rings. The reviews were chapter by chapter and I watched a couple at random, having read the books, my favourite character in those books is Treebeard, so I skipped to that review. She got emotional describing the world of Fangorn and the trees and I thought, here is someone I like, she is creative and has a good heart. There was an indication she was an author on said videos, so I promptly discovered books and ordered some. Took me a year or two to arrive at one on my strict schedule, but here I am!

This book is about a girl called Erfyl, she is a geeky, cosplaying, MMO playing lass who gets embroiled in a secret conflict between unseen forces, hidden corrupting voices that tempt and alter peoples' emotions to their own ends. She has friends to help her defeat these malevolent forces, people she plays games with in a guild online (nice that she knows guild friends IRL!) They all go through the stages of disbelief and acceptance of the altered reality they find themselves in, learning to trust their instincts and harness powers that they have within them.



In some ways it is standard fantasy fare, hack 'n' slash, light and darkness, with a gaming twist, but it is well handled and it feels like there are subtexts at play here.


There is an island she discovers that is called by her own name and reacts to her emotions, with a museum of her past in it, run down and in ruination, the dark forces have been let in here and most of the action centres on purifying the island with the help of her friends. It feels very much like a parable for the fight against depression, how dark voices can lie to you and make you take the wrong path to destruction, but with hope and friendship and belief in yourself you can tap in to the natural powers you possess and clear it out. I love the way it handled that and I may well be wrong, but it's what I took from it.




All in all, a very readable and enjoyable book. It might not appeal to those that like fifteen pages of description about how bright the sun was, or those that wish for ten chapters of backstory on each character so you know how an argument over breakfast as a toddler effected the current storyline; she zips through things pretty quick. But if you like the plot to roll along nice and quick and exciting, with a reasonable amount of emotion and creative ideas flying at you, then it's great. I have a couple of other books by the author, sci-fi ones, they will definitely get scheduled now.