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The Slave Within
Crone has long been a slave. He has long desired freedom. When the whispered words of a dream lead him to act upon desire, Crone and a small band of companions find themselves pawns in an ancient game of power. Hunted by the empire he defied and dark forces intent on keeping the secret of divine sin sequestered, Crone must must choose his fate. It may well shatter the spirit of friends and burn the soul of an entire world to ash. For in the gathering storm of war, a slave learns that freedom may be the harshest master of all. Now is the great push come before the birthing of a dark age. Now will freedom be forced.
340 pages, Paperback
4 people want to read
About the author
C.V. Dreesman
3 books38 followersCV graduated with a degree in English while married to the amazing love of his life and raising his son. As an author he seeks to take readers' breath away linguistically.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 10, 2016
The Slave Within, the debut novel of C.V. Dreesman, is one of the better self-pubs I’ve read recently. The storyline involves a quest tale involving an inter-pantheon struggle in which the gods struggle against each other for control of various aspects of deity, and the mortal representatives of the gods vie against one another for the glory of their individual gods. A third faction, and one that is not standard fare in the genre, is that of those mortals who are fighting against the gods, both literally and conceptually, attempting to eradicate the influence of the immortals, promoting what might be termed a form of supra-humanism.
Crone the Marksmith, a renowned former slave and archer, is the hero of the story. He moves from a supporter of the gods to one of those seeking to eliminate their influence on the mortal world. The story follows his escape from slavery to his joining with an Oracle serving the earth goddess, his best friend who is a former soldier of the empire from which he and Crone escaped (deserted in the soldier’s case), and a priestess of the moon, whose god is fighting with the earth goddess for dominance. Enter a group of starmen, a tribe of elves, and a tribe of northern barbarians who range from supporting the earth goddess to actively opposing the entire pantheon, and you have the ingredients for a rousing tale. The entire story is part high adventure, part mythic construction, and provides enough characterization to make the individual characters and the overall story interesting. Portions of the book reminded me of Weis and Hickman’s Dragonlance series, and part of it reminded me of The Lord of the Rings, especially the segment about the party entering an underground city and dealing with cursed undead a la Aragorn and the Dead Men of Dunharrow in The Return of the King.
The primary issue with the book involves editing and formatting. Their are a number of misspellings and other errors. The formatting is bad, too, with a number of sentences broken mid-line and carried to the next line. This is annoying, being essentially careless mistakes that are readily corrected, and I deduct two stars for this as it implies Dreesman just doesn’t care about his book’s appearance. The chapters are also short and sometimes seem arbitrary in that the second portion is a continuation of the first with no need of separation. Many of the chapter are only one to two pages in length, which I think is too short. I would have preferred to have seen the book with more normal chapter lengths as I feel the resulting broken text makes the story seem choppy. I deducted no stars for this as this is personal preference. Likewise, I’m neutral about the cover art. It clearly isn’t professional, but it isn’t horrible, and I deducted no stars for it.
This is a good tale that straddles the line between a typical high fantasy story and what might be termed a folkloric or mythic story. I think anyone enjoying either or both would like Dreesman’s adventure.
Crone the Marksmith, a renowned former slave and archer, is the hero of the story. He moves from a supporter of the gods to one of those seeking to eliminate their influence on the mortal world. The story follows his escape from slavery to his joining with an Oracle serving the earth goddess, his best friend who is a former soldier of the empire from which he and Crone escaped (deserted in the soldier’s case), and a priestess of the moon, whose god is fighting with the earth goddess for dominance. Enter a group of starmen, a tribe of elves, and a tribe of northern barbarians who range from supporting the earth goddess to actively opposing the entire pantheon, and you have the ingredients for a rousing tale. The entire story is part high adventure, part mythic construction, and provides enough characterization to make the individual characters and the overall story interesting. Portions of the book reminded me of Weis and Hickman’s Dragonlance series, and part of it reminded me of The Lord of the Rings, especially the segment about the party entering an underground city and dealing with cursed undead a la Aragorn and the Dead Men of Dunharrow in The Return of the King.
The primary issue with the book involves editing and formatting. Their are a number of misspellings and other errors. The formatting is bad, too, with a number of sentences broken mid-line and carried to the next line. This is annoying, being essentially careless mistakes that are readily corrected, and I deduct two stars for this as it implies Dreesman just doesn’t care about his book’s appearance. The chapters are also short and sometimes seem arbitrary in that the second portion is a continuation of the first with no need of separation. Many of the chapter are only one to two pages in length, which I think is too short. I would have preferred to have seen the book with more normal chapter lengths as I feel the resulting broken text makes the story seem choppy. I deducted no stars for this as this is personal preference. Likewise, I’m neutral about the cover art. It clearly isn’t professional, but it isn’t horrible, and I deducted no stars for it.
This is a good tale that straddles the line between a typical high fantasy story and what might be termed a folkloric or mythic story. I think anyone enjoying either or both would like Dreesman’s adventure.
Displaying 1 of 1 review