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The Tower of Shadows
From the boundless imagination and talented pen of a young storyteller springs the fabulous first novel in a major new epic fantasy series. Steeped in the traditions of its classic forebears, yet boldly original in its vision and sense of wonder, The Tower of Shadows swells with heroism, sings with enchantment, and carries the reader at full gallop into a marvelously wrought world of breathtaking adventure.
Untold ages ago, vainglorious spirits battled with the three gods in a bid for dominion over all–only to be defeated and banished below the earth to fester in their unquenchable evil. One of these vengeful demons eventually broke free and rained bloody death upon an innocent village in the land of Ellynrie. Few survived. The Starcross brothers, mere children orphaned by their parents’ slaughter, suffered very difficult fates. Corin Starcross was delivered to safety by the wizard Dale, while his brother, Cade, was abandoned to the flames that devoured their childhood home. Likewise, the mercenary Wren Tident saved his infant daughter, Kayla, from the monstrous fate that claimed her mother. When the demon retreated to its black abyss, the haunted souls left in its murderous wake did their best to carry on–save for one, who vowed retribution.
When Cade Starcross reappears, he immerses himself in a secret study of the blackest arts, and a grim dance of destiny begins. His humanity withered by grief and his mind twisted by his apprenticeship to darkness, Cade seeks to use sorcery to wreak vengeance on his demon nemesis. But in order to succeed, a dagger of unearthly power wrought by the gods themselves must be found. And the blood of Cade’s brother, Corin Starcross, must be spilled.
Yet all of Cade’s fury and magic will prove no match for the evil set free upon the earth. By any means and at all costs, the doomed vendetta must be stopped. A fledgling wizard, a tormented warrior, and a young girl burning with her father’s untamed spirit must rally together as the only hope of a world poised perilously at the abyss.
From the Hardcover edition.
Untold ages ago, vainglorious spirits battled with the three gods in a bid for dominion over all–only to be defeated and banished below the earth to fester in their unquenchable evil. One of these vengeful demons eventually broke free and rained bloody death upon an innocent village in the land of Ellynrie. Few survived. The Starcross brothers, mere children orphaned by their parents’ slaughter, suffered very difficult fates. Corin Starcross was delivered to safety by the wizard Dale, while his brother, Cade, was abandoned to the flames that devoured their childhood home. Likewise, the mercenary Wren Tident saved his infant daughter, Kayla, from the monstrous fate that claimed her mother. When the demon retreated to its black abyss, the haunted souls left in its murderous wake did their best to carry on–save for one, who vowed retribution.
When Cade Starcross reappears, he immerses himself in a secret study of the blackest arts, and a grim dance of destiny begins. His humanity withered by grief and his mind twisted by his apprenticeship to darkness, Cade seeks to use sorcery to wreak vengeance on his demon nemesis. But in order to succeed, a dagger of unearthly power wrought by the gods themselves must be found. And the blood of Cade’s brother, Corin Starcross, must be spilled.
Yet all of Cade’s fury and magic will prove no match for the evil set free upon the earth. By any means and at all costs, the doomed vendetta must be stopped. A fledgling wizard, a tormented warrior, and a young girl burning with her father’s untamed spirit must rally together as the only hope of a world poised perilously at the abyss.
From the Hardcover edition.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published December 12, 2006
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February 29, 2012
This book is a reminder that a book can be inoffensive (in terms of sex and language) and still be bad. Bad. The cover jacket says "fast-paced" and "action packed" and the dust jacket describes a conflict between two brothers.
The book follows several characters with varying degrees of closeness: Wren and his daughter Kayla, Corin (victim brother) and his friend Dusty, and wizard's apprentice Adriel (Adrien?). They are being chased hither and yon by assassins hired by Corin's brother, and oh, yeah, there are demons and weird covens, but none of them have much to do with the story. There is some weird back story that causes Wren great angst that is never addressed or apparently relevant, and these people really only get anything approximating rest towards the end of the book, when the "heroes" get split up and have a four day ride to the tower for the final confrontation.
1) There is no reason to care about any of these characters. They are all flat, they are all dull.
2) The main conflict, the "why" of the novel, is that Brother A wants to bring a demon into the world to destroy it, and needs the blood of Brother B to bind/summon it. Brother A is in for a page or two at the beginning, and 5(?) pages at the end. For the rest, he has a gang of assassins with an infinitely renewable supply of henchmen to chase Brother B and assorted other tag-ons.
3) (This is stupid I have to include it.) Brother B (17 years old!) manages to escape from bad guys and ride out 30 min ahead of experienced warrior Wren. What kind of crappy warrior is this guy that he can't catch up with him for 5 days?
I've always wanted to write my own novel, to tell some story that is loved and shared. I never have, and I suspect that it's because ultimately I would write something as hackneyed and cliched as this stupid thing. As irritating as it was, I'm even more irritated with myself for finishing it.
In short: clean does not equal good.
The book follows several characters with varying degrees of closeness: Wren and his daughter Kayla, Corin (victim brother) and his friend Dusty, and wizard's apprentice Adriel (Adrien?). They are being chased hither and yon by assassins hired by Corin's brother, and oh, yeah, there are demons and weird covens, but none of them have much to do with the story. There is some weird back story that causes Wren great angst that is never addressed or apparently relevant, and these people really only get anything approximating rest towards the end of the book, when the "heroes" get split up and have a four day ride to the tower for the final confrontation.
1) There is no reason to care about any of these characters. They are all flat, they are all dull.
2) The main conflict, the "why" of the novel, is that Brother A wants to bring a demon into the world to destroy it, and needs the blood of Brother B to bind/summon it. Brother A is in for a page or two at the beginning, and 5(?) pages at the end. For the rest, he has a gang of assassins with an infinitely renewable supply of henchmen to chase Brother B and assorted other tag-ons.
3) (This is stupid I have to include it.) Brother B (17 years old!) manages to escape from bad guys and ride out 30 min ahead of experienced warrior Wren. What kind of crappy warrior is this guy that he can't catch up with him for 5 days?
I've always wanted to write my own novel, to tell some story that is loved and shared. I never have, and I suspect that it's because ultimately I would write something as hackneyed and cliched as this stupid thing. As irritating as it was, I'm even more irritated with myself for finishing it.
In short: clean does not equal good.
August 8, 2008
This is a debut novel, and it shows in the writing. I found the description irritating, with similes dominating almost every page, along with consistent redundancy. The setting could have been much stronger, had Bowling not relied so heavily on this type of description.
The characters, while interesting at first, all blended together after awhile. The bad guys were typical and with the majority of them being hirelings, uninspired. None of the protagonists appeared to have any faults more serious than drinking too much, and with all of them sharing similarly tragic pasts, they seemed rather wooden. The two most interesting characters had the least amount of time on the page, unfortunately.
The story itself wasn't bad, and I did enjoy it, up until the last hundred pages or so. The plotting suddenly felt contrived, and the author's favorite characters were inexplicably invincible while everyone else met swift, bloody ends. What should have been the final climax also turned out to be one of the most anticlimactic encounters I've ever read in a novel. It was disappointing, particularly after the huge emphasis that was put on the gravity of the final battle's outcome.
With everything tied up so neatly, it's hard to see what could possibly be continued in the second book. The author himself definitely has potential, if he can just avoid the pitfalls of this first foray, an okay but not great beginning.
The characters, while interesting at first, all blended together after awhile. The bad guys were typical and with the majority of them being hirelings, uninspired. None of the protagonists appeared to have any faults more serious than drinking too much, and with all of them sharing similarly tragic pasts, they seemed rather wooden. The two most interesting characters had the least amount of time on the page, unfortunately.
The story itself wasn't bad, and I did enjoy it, up until the last hundred pages or so. The plotting suddenly felt contrived, and the author's favorite characters were inexplicably invincible while everyone else met swift, bloody ends. What should have been the final climax also turned out to be one of the most anticlimactic encounters I've ever read in a novel. It was disappointing, particularly after the huge emphasis that was put on the gravity of the final battle's outcome.
With everything tied up so neatly, it's hard to see what could possibly be continued in the second book. The author himself definitely has potential, if he can just avoid the pitfalls of this first foray, an okay but not great beginning.
December 8, 2012
I've got a handy little motto for fantasy writers: Never threaten the world's existence in your first book. For one thing, everyone does that schtick. Even if there is no new thing under the sun, try at least to show us less familiar things your first time out. More important to consider is the scale of what you're trying to do. It's possible to legitimately threaten the world in four hundred-odd pages (Tad Williams does it in both Tailchaser's Song and The War of the Flowers), but it's damned difficult. One must first establish the rhythms of the world, make us love the characters and the civilization, make us care. Only then can they be disrupted, have the Forces of Good discover the nature of the Villainous Blighters, and then (after much struggle) win. That's a lot to accomplish in short pages. Some writers could manage to get it done. Drew Browning cannot.
Of course, that's hardly his only problem. The man can't write prose, and especially write dialogue, to save his life. And, as the novel stretched on, I'm honestly convinced the writing got worse: every scrap of dialogue began to thud into my consciousness like a lead pipe against my skull. Time after time, the characters would wax everyone's favorite melodramatic old chestnuts about how perhaps they should turn back, or maybe Token Female (the Grizzled, Widowered Mercenary's daughter*) should stay behind. But No, one cries! They must save the world at risk to their lives, because they're dead if the world is destroyed. Melodrama, melodrama, melodrama.
The plot, in turn, is nothing worth reading: this is the sort of story where the entire backplot, everything that lead to the current crisis, is plainly laid out, by (of all people) the Old Wizard to the Apprentice Wizard, from the top of page 64 to the top of page 66: Three Gods made the world, built angels to help it flourish, watched them rebel (at which point, like all rebelling angels, they turned into devils), imprisoned them, and then created theDeus Ex Machina Exilon, a plot device holy dagger, which would seal them in if they could ever escape, or help them escape, depending on what you wanted with it.
Needless to say, someone wants to free them. Specifically, the Villain, Cade, whose parents were killed by... well the Prerequisite Prologue was particularly badly written, and so I'm not entirely sure whether it was just the Occult Witches who killed him, or an actual escaped demon. Anyway, his parents were killed; and so, he wants to free the greatest of the demons, Apollyon (subtle) in order to kill him.
The point of all this is, there ain't anything original to be found, except perhaps for the breadth of the plot holes. Instance: Why couldn't the God's just kill their angels, or else lock them up so securely that they wouldn't need a rutting magic dagger "just in case"? More central, perhaps: the Old Wizard, Dale, had rescued Cade's brother Corin (then an infant) at the start of the book, but had assumed Cade (who was six, and vanished in an enveloping hell) was dead. He had no reason to believe he was alive, much less that he'd be so scarred by the ordeal that he'd delve into Dark Arts (in the process making himself the apprenticed to Blaze (what a name), another member of Old Wizard's dying-out order, of which six remain), and then try to summon the damn thing using the dagger and his brother's blood (which is apparently part of the ritual). And yet, for no apparent reason beyond the Just In Case contingency, he not only brought the boy to his uncle's house (a task which could be chalked up to decency, although it must have been hard to do since Dale only knew Corin's name), but later would have Grizzled, Widowered Mercenary swear to protect the boy.
All I'm saying is, it's a good thing that the person who had the will and acquired the means to almost destroy the world (and am I spoiling anything if I say that he doesn't, although it's not entirely clear why he fails) was the guy Dale had inexplicably made preparations against rather than, say, anyone else in the world who had a brother. How did Dale know? Because Wizards are Mysterious
So, incidentally, is Del Rey editor Chris Schluep's glowing letter to the Advanced Reader. In it, he claims the book to be a fresh voice of fantasy: "There are no elves, dwarves, orcs, or any other familiar creatures in his world-except for one cameo by a fire-spewing dragon."(Incidentally: first time fantasy writers should also avoid using dragons.) The idea that someone could find The Tower of Shadows to be anything other than the most mimicking dreck is, ultimately, the most wondrous mystery of all.
Of course, that's hardly his only problem. The man can't write prose, and especially write dialogue, to save his life. And, as the novel stretched on, I'm honestly convinced the writing got worse: every scrap of dialogue began to thud into my consciousness like a lead pipe against my skull. Time after time, the characters would wax everyone's favorite melodramatic old chestnuts about how perhaps they should turn back, or maybe Token Female (the Grizzled, Widowered Mercenary's daughter*) should stay behind. But No, one cries! They must save the world at risk to their lives, because they're dead if the world is destroyed. Melodrama, melodrama, melodrama.
The plot, in turn, is nothing worth reading: this is the sort of story where the entire backplot, everything that lead to the current crisis, is plainly laid out, by (of all people) the Old Wizard to the Apprentice Wizard, from the top of page 64 to the top of page 66: Three Gods made the world, built angels to help it flourish, watched them rebel (at which point, like all rebelling angels, they turned into devils), imprisoned them, and then created the
Needless to say, someone wants to free them. Specifically, the Villain, Cade, whose parents were killed by... well the Prerequisite Prologue was particularly badly written, and so I'm not entirely sure whether it was just the Occult Witches who killed him, or an actual escaped demon. Anyway, his parents were killed; and so, he wants to free the greatest of the demons, Apollyon (subtle) in order to kill him.
The point of all this is, there ain't anything original to be found, except perhaps for the breadth of the plot holes. Instance: Why couldn't the God's just kill their angels, or else lock them up so securely that they wouldn't need a rutting magic dagger "just in case"? More central, perhaps: the Old Wizard, Dale, had rescued Cade's brother Corin (then an infant) at the start of the book, but had assumed Cade (who was six, and vanished in an enveloping hell) was dead. He had no reason to believe he was alive, much less that he'd be so scarred by the ordeal that he'd delve into Dark Arts (in the process making himself the apprenticed to Blaze (what a name), another member of Old Wizard's dying-out order, of which six remain), and then try to summon the damn thing using the dagger and his brother's blood (which is apparently part of the ritual). And yet, for no apparent reason beyond the Just In Case contingency, he not only brought the boy to his uncle's house (a task which could be chalked up to decency, although it must have been hard to do since Dale only knew Corin's name), but later would have Grizzled, Widowered Mercenary swear to protect the boy.
All I'm saying is, it's a good thing that the person who had the will and acquired the means to almost destroy the world (and am I spoiling anything if I say that he doesn't, although it's not entirely clear why he fails) was the guy Dale had inexplicably made preparations against rather than, say, anyone else in the world who had a brother. How did Dale know? Because Wizards are Mysterious
So, incidentally, is Del Rey editor Chris Schluep's glowing letter to the Advanced Reader. In it, he claims the book to be a fresh voice of fantasy: "There are no elves, dwarves, orcs, or any other familiar creatures in his world-except for one cameo by a fire-spewing dragon."(Incidentally: first time fantasy writers should also avoid using dragons.) The idea that someone could find The Tower of Shadows to be anything other than the most mimicking dreck is, ultimately, the most wondrous mystery of all.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 12, 2015
For a first time writer this was a great book. It was a little hard to follow some of the events that were happening and I found myself thinking that this was just a typical fantasy book with nothing newer but in the end I enjoyed reading it.
June 3, 2012
Read for the Fantasy requirement of my Popular Materials class. Considering how much young adult and middle-grade fantasy I've read, it's weird to think how little . . . I don't want to say "adult fantasy," because that sounds dirty . . . regular fantasy? . . . I've read. I think there are some pretty big differences, too. Very often, I've found my beloved YA and MG fantasy novels to revolve around a coming-of-age and/or first-love plotline, like many other YA and MG novels, only set in a fantasy world. (I like to think of this as "dragon-flavored.") I chose this book because, while the jacket copy made it sound like a pretty typical, and thus representative, work of epic fantasy plot-wise (and pretty swashbuckling), it has unusual and appealing cover art, is shorter than I think of fantasy novels as typically being, and is a stand-alone volume.
In some ways, I'm reminded of Eragon. The Tower of Shadows was published in 2006, and the jacket copy emphasizes the author's youth - a college student when the book came out, he began writing it in high school. As with Eragon, I'm afraid this is all too believable.
(I'm not entirely sure what going on about the author's age is supposed to accomplish, anyway. Yes, if the book was awesome, I'd be extra impressed because the author's so young, but as it is, my thought is, "It's impressive for being written by a high school student." When you're getting a book published, I think you should be held to a standard of excellence, not a standard of excellence for your age. If you write a book that's great for a high schooler, but mediocre overall, then I think publishers should hold off on snapping you up until you can write a book that's great, period. After all, what's the rush?)
Right! So, per my usual pattern, I'll start with what I like. There's some beautiful and evocative description ("bruised sky" is one I like, off the top of my head). I also like the way the evil and corruption of the land takes the form of creeping red vines. Also, if you're looking for a cinematic read, this definitely has that quality.
Indeed (launching seamlessly into criticism), one of my big issues with the book is a lack of grounded point of view in the writing, which I suspect comes from the story being written as if someone were transcribing a movie (including voiced-over thoughts and internal conflicts), rather than actually following characters. Eragon did this, too. It may be that this is actually a commoner writing technique than I realize - a sort of third-person-sometimes-distant-and-periodically-omniscient.
The story spends most of its time following one of four characters:
1. Seventeen-year-old Corin, an innocent and sheltered orphan who assists in his kindly uncle's bakery but whose blood, unfortunately, is an evil MacGuffin (we pretty much know his history from the prologue, so this isn't a big reveal)
2. World-weary ex-adventurer Wren, who just cares about raising his daughter - the only family he has left - right, but can't bring himself to talk to her about the past that's about to drag them both into crazy danger
3. Sixteen-year-old Kayla, Wren's daughter, who wants adventure, from which Daddy Dearest insists on protecting her
4. Seventeen-year-old Adriel, a wizard's apprentice (and another orphan), who's not that good at magic and decidedly does not want adventure, but no one cares what Adriel wants
(It's worth noting that, among these four, we have a total of six entirely separate murdered parents. Rough world these people live in.)
We get very occasional omniscient glimpses of what's in some other character's head, or a note about some local legend or someone's history that our current point of view character has no business knowing. For the most part, though, the story follows one of these four, giving us her/his thoughts as well as keeping the camera pretty well focused on her/him.
The language and tone of the story doesn't change in any way I can perceive with POV changes, nor does it seem to reflect the way any of these four would likely speak or think. The language is . . . lavish. By this I mean that the author has bought his adjectives in bulk. Sometimes, he uses them in nice phrases, like the aforementioned "bruised sky." At other times, we get multiple mentions of "nether light" (seems to be used for any light caused by . . . evil things), and a sentence saying that the moon casts "lunar light." After calling it "the moon". As in, "the moon cast its lunar light". Most of the actual sentence construction is pretty nice, so at least there's that.
There's also some showing-not-telling - I had to laugh when, during one of Adriel's POV sections, he's been scolding his master's pet fox, and the fox is all being annoying, and the book says Adriel "criticized the fox again for good measure." It doesn't tell us what he actually says, or even say something a little less formal and weird, like that he "grumbled at the fox" or "swore at the fox." Can't you just see this apprentice, our current POV character, thinking, "Let me just criticize that fox again for good measure"?
This leads into a related issue, and one of my biggest problems with the book: in the dialogue, of which there's a lot, every character speaks exactly the same way. Farmers, knights, bandits, wizards, and pirates; young and old; hailing from different places (though the whole country is pretty small) . . . they all speak in eloquent and grammatically correct sentences that read much like the writing outside the quotation marks. I love dialogue, so this really bums me out. The only variation I can think of occurs when Sir Lancet is dying (*pout*), when he has the presence of mind to throw in a lot of ellipses out of respect for his acute case of punctured torso.
Aside from my problems with the voice (and some sadness about a couple of characters who died, and the small factual error of a fox baring its teeth, which foxes are unique among canines in not being able to do - it's quite possible, though, that this one is magical), I'd have to say my other big problem is the lack of female characters being awesome. Kayla's not a bad character, but she's basically useless, doing nothing but be protected by Wren (to be fair, this is largely true of Corin, too) and periodically be the target of gross lusty bad men (not true of Corin, as far as we know). It's pretty realistic for Kayla to be useless, given her sheltered life - indeed, I wonder a bit why she's able to ride a horse on her own. Still, let's have a run-through of named female characters in this book:
- Kayla
- Lori (Kayla's mom, murdered between the prologue and Chapter One)
- Amber and Marian, old wizards who toss out some semi-useful advice when Kayla and Wren basically trip over their wizardly haunts
- Jezebel (pirate torturer, killed)
Aaand . . . is that it? I think that might actually be it. Seriously. Unless you count the pet fox, who's female. And who is also killed.
Here's your (not terribly) quick plot summary:
When Corin was a baby, his village was attacked by crazy evil people who were trying to summon a demon. Wren and his wife happened to be in the neighborhood, and they and a wizard named Dale saw Corin's parents get murdered by aforementioned crazy peeps. They managed to rescue baby Corin and get the hell out of Dodge. Unfortunately, they failed to rescue Corin's older brother Cade, who was left behind, assumed dead.
Fast-forward to now: Cade's living in the Tower of Shadows, a nasty bad blighted place, having completed his eeevil wizard apprenticeship by killing his master. He's on a mission to . . . summon the demon the crazy peeps were trying to summon. So he can kill it. To avenge his parents. And the only way he can summon the demon is to spill the blood of a sibling (of his, presumably, not just any sibling, e.g. me) with a special dagger. So, he sends assassins out to get the dagger and his brother, and while they're at it kill whatever people seem like they might be a threat to the plan, e.g. Wren and Dale.
Corin, meanwhile, lives a normal life in a little village, working for his uncle and chilling with best friend Dusty. Notices the world seems to be suffering from some blight and harbingers of evil darkness. Feels uneasy. Also, he has a limp, due to babyhood injury at the hands of crazy would-be demon-summoners.
Kayla wants adventure, and also friends, and also to draw pictures. Daddy Wren wants her to study and not have or do any of those other things. They communicate poorly. Then Kayla witnesses some of Cade's assassins doing their murdery thing, and Dale summons Wren to repay an old debt. (Apparently, years ago, Dale helped to protect Kayla's mother from . . . something bad. When she managed to get herself murdered anyway, by unspecified persons or forces, Dale helped Wren avenge her. Amazingly, this is never elaborated on. A little strange, but it does lend the story some of that "there's more than what's on the page" feel.) Dale wants Wren to protect Corin, in order that Cade not summon a demon he can't possibly defeat and cause darkness to overrun the world. Wren resents this mightily.
Meanwhile, Dale's apprentice Adriel can't catch a break. Just in general. Dale tells him he's graduated early from apprenticeship and is a full-blown wizard, despite the fact that the one spell we've seen him attempt ended with a crab clinging to his ear. Dale then sends him packing - in the middle of a thunderstorm, no less - to find and protect Corin, whom he is to easily identify because he is blond and has a limp.
Wren and Kayla set off to meet up with Dale for further instructions. Wren cuts Kayla's hair in an attempt to disguise her as a boy, which seems to fool about fifteen percent of the people who see her. Kayla is spirited but utterly useless in any practical sense, while Wren does a good round of head-cracking every time someone looks at her funny.
Everyone wrangles with assassins, except for Adriel, because assassins don't care about Adriel. (I care about you, Adriel! Even if you apparently talk and think in the exact same terms everyone else does!)
Eventually, the party meets up and flees the two master assassins together. They've got Dusty in tow, and are also joined by the strangely likable and totally random Sir Lancet Rhymewind. Sir Lancet was hunting a dragon, but dumps that quest to join our heroes. Sadly, I wouldn't get too attached to either of these two. (Especially tragic because Dusty provides basically all of the comic relief. Which isn't to say he has a unique voice, but only that he's the one who gets to say the funny things in the same voice in which they all speak.)
Our heroes run to a pirate town, where they encounter the assassins, and also (surprise!) pirates, who have their own beef with Wren, insomuch as they killed Wren's father, which apparently causes them to hate Wren and want to kill him, too. Anyway, it's here that we say goodbye to Dusty and Sir Lancet, and also to the assassins, who are killed by (can you guess?) Wren. Corin decides to run off (er, ride off, as he's not so much with the running, given the limp) and find his brother in hopes of convincing him not to be evil. Our heroes haste after him. On their way, they kill the dragon Sir Lancet was after.
Big confrontation at the Tower of Shadows. Cade alternates between being reasonable - he has no intention of killing Corin, just needs a drop of his blood for the spell's mechanics to work - and idly torturing the captured Dale. (Corin's backup appears just in time to watch Dale die. Very dismaying for poor Adriel, who was raised by Dale after his own parents were murdered.) In the end, Cade stabs Corin, and the demon shows up, but all of our heroes are protected by what seems to be a combination of their medallions (symbols of their faith in the three gods) and the Power of Goodness and Love. Cade is not. The demon snatches him and goes back to demonland.
Corin is miraculously healed, including his limp! (Because we can't have a hero with a physical disability, can we?) We have a charming few closing paragraphs wherein, perhaps due to relief at saving the world and/or the effects of shock, our heroes seem to be recovering remarkably well from the recent deaths of lots of people they care about (only Kayla didn't really lose anyone super-important - "thanks, Dad, for not letting me have friends!"), and are optimistic for the future.
A couple of things the book surprised me by not doing (mostly pleasant surprises):
1. No romance plotline. Man, I was so sure he'd do this! Kayla's description makes it clear she's pretty, and she's so useless that I was sure she'd wind up being someone's designated romantic interest. Kind of refreshing that it doesn't happen.
2. No explanation of Lori's death or the murders of Adriel's parents. I'll admit, I was curious about what happened to Lori, but leaving it this way kind of gives the sense that it's too painful for Wren to even think about. As for Adriel's parents, it is, again, refreshing, that they don't turn out to be tied into the plot somehow.
So, that's pretty much it. Totally random thing I wonder about: when they get to that inn in the pirate town, why does Sir Lancet ask whether it's where Wren's father was killed? I'm pretty sure Wren never said anything about that to anyone . . . Perhaps Sir Lancet is just that awesome.
In some ways, I'm reminded of Eragon. The Tower of Shadows was published in 2006, and the jacket copy emphasizes the author's youth - a college student when the book came out, he began writing it in high school. As with Eragon, I'm afraid this is all too believable.
(I'm not entirely sure what going on about the author's age is supposed to accomplish, anyway. Yes, if the book was awesome, I'd be extra impressed because the author's so young, but as it is, my thought is, "It's impressive for being written by a high school student." When you're getting a book published, I think you should be held to a standard of excellence, not a standard of excellence for your age. If you write a book that's great for a high schooler, but mediocre overall, then I think publishers should hold off on snapping you up until you can write a book that's great, period. After all, what's the rush?)
Right! So, per my usual pattern, I'll start with what I like. There's some beautiful and evocative description ("bruised sky" is one I like, off the top of my head). I also like the way the evil and corruption of the land takes the form of creeping red vines. Also, if you're looking for a cinematic read, this definitely has that quality.
Indeed (launching seamlessly into criticism), one of my big issues with the book is a lack of grounded point of view in the writing, which I suspect comes from the story being written as if someone were transcribing a movie (including voiced-over thoughts and internal conflicts), rather than actually following characters. Eragon did this, too. It may be that this is actually a commoner writing technique than I realize - a sort of third-person-sometimes-distant-and-periodically-omniscient.
The story spends most of its time following one of four characters:
1. Seventeen-year-old Corin, an innocent and sheltered orphan who assists in his kindly uncle's bakery but whose blood, unfortunately, is an evil MacGuffin (we pretty much know his history from the prologue, so this isn't a big reveal)
2. World-weary ex-adventurer Wren, who just cares about raising his daughter - the only family he has left - right, but can't bring himself to talk to her about the past that's about to drag them both into crazy danger
3. Sixteen-year-old Kayla, Wren's daughter, who wants adventure, from which Daddy Dearest insists on protecting her
4. Seventeen-year-old Adriel, a wizard's apprentice (and another orphan), who's not that good at magic and decidedly does not want adventure, but no one cares what Adriel wants
(It's worth noting that, among these four, we have a total of six entirely separate murdered parents. Rough world these people live in.)
We get very occasional omniscient glimpses of what's in some other character's head, or a note about some local legend or someone's history that our current point of view character has no business knowing. For the most part, though, the story follows one of these four, giving us her/his thoughts as well as keeping the camera pretty well focused on her/him.
The language and tone of the story doesn't change in any way I can perceive with POV changes, nor does it seem to reflect the way any of these four would likely speak or think. The language is . . . lavish. By this I mean that the author has bought his adjectives in bulk. Sometimes, he uses them in nice phrases, like the aforementioned "bruised sky." At other times, we get multiple mentions of "nether light" (seems to be used for any light caused by . . . evil things), and a sentence saying that the moon casts "lunar light." After calling it "the moon". As in, "the moon cast its lunar light". Most of the actual sentence construction is pretty nice, so at least there's that.
There's also some showing-not-telling - I had to laugh when, during one of Adriel's POV sections, he's been scolding his master's pet fox, and the fox is all being annoying, and the book says Adriel "criticized the fox again for good measure." It doesn't tell us what he actually says, or even say something a little less formal and weird, like that he "grumbled at the fox" or "swore at the fox." Can't you just see this apprentice, our current POV character, thinking, "Let me just criticize that fox again for good measure"?
This leads into a related issue, and one of my biggest problems with the book: in the dialogue, of which there's a lot, every character speaks exactly the same way. Farmers, knights, bandits, wizards, and pirates; young and old; hailing from different places (though the whole country is pretty small) . . . they all speak in eloquent and grammatically correct sentences that read much like the writing outside the quotation marks. I love dialogue, so this really bums me out. The only variation I can think of occurs when Sir Lancet is dying (*pout*), when he has the presence of mind to throw in a lot of ellipses out of respect for his acute case of punctured torso.
Aside from my problems with the voice (and some sadness about a couple of characters who died, and the small factual error of a fox baring its teeth, which foxes are unique among canines in not being able to do - it's quite possible, though, that this one is magical), I'd have to say my other big problem is the lack of female characters being awesome. Kayla's not a bad character, but she's basically useless, doing nothing but be protected by Wren (to be fair, this is largely true of Corin, too) and periodically be the target of gross lusty bad men (not true of Corin, as far as we know). It's pretty realistic for Kayla to be useless, given her sheltered life - indeed, I wonder a bit why she's able to ride a horse on her own. Still, let's have a run-through of named female characters in this book:
- Kayla
- Lori (Kayla's mom, murdered between the prologue and Chapter One)
- Amber and Marian, old wizards who toss out some semi-useful advice when Kayla and Wren basically trip over their wizardly haunts
- Jezebel (pirate torturer, killed)
Aaand . . . is that it? I think that might actually be it. Seriously. Unless you count the pet fox, who's female. And who is also killed.
Here's your (not terribly) quick plot summary:
When Corin was a baby, his village was attacked by crazy evil people who were trying to summon a demon. Wren and his wife happened to be in the neighborhood, and they and a wizard named Dale saw Corin's parents get murdered by aforementioned crazy peeps. They managed to rescue baby Corin and get the hell out of Dodge. Unfortunately, they failed to rescue Corin's older brother Cade, who was left behind, assumed dead.
Fast-forward to now: Cade's living in the Tower of Shadows, a nasty bad blighted place, having completed his eeevil wizard apprenticeship by killing his master. He's on a mission to . . . summon the demon the crazy peeps were trying to summon. So he can kill it. To avenge his parents. And the only way he can summon the demon is to spill the blood of a sibling (of his, presumably, not just any sibling, e.g. me) with a special dagger. So, he sends assassins out to get the dagger and his brother, and while they're at it kill whatever people seem like they might be a threat to the plan, e.g. Wren and Dale.
Corin, meanwhile, lives a normal life in a little village, working for his uncle and chilling with best friend Dusty. Notices the world seems to be suffering from some blight and harbingers of evil darkness. Feels uneasy. Also, he has a limp, due to babyhood injury at the hands of crazy would-be demon-summoners.
Kayla wants adventure, and also friends, and also to draw pictures. Daddy Wren wants her to study and not have or do any of those other things. They communicate poorly. Then Kayla witnesses some of Cade's assassins doing their murdery thing, and Dale summons Wren to repay an old debt. (Apparently, years ago, Dale helped to protect Kayla's mother from . . . something bad. When she managed to get herself murdered anyway, by unspecified persons or forces, Dale helped Wren avenge her. Amazingly, this is never elaborated on. A little strange, but it does lend the story some of that "there's more than what's on the page" feel.) Dale wants Wren to protect Corin, in order that Cade not summon a demon he can't possibly defeat and cause darkness to overrun the world. Wren resents this mightily.
Meanwhile, Dale's apprentice Adriel can't catch a break. Just in general. Dale tells him he's graduated early from apprenticeship and is a full-blown wizard, despite the fact that the one spell we've seen him attempt ended with a crab clinging to his ear. Dale then sends him packing - in the middle of a thunderstorm, no less - to find and protect Corin, whom he is to easily identify because he is blond and has a limp.
Wren and Kayla set off to meet up with Dale for further instructions. Wren cuts Kayla's hair in an attempt to disguise her as a boy, which seems to fool about fifteen percent of the people who see her. Kayla is spirited but utterly useless in any practical sense, while Wren does a good round of head-cracking every time someone looks at her funny.
Everyone wrangles with assassins, except for Adriel, because assassins don't care about Adriel. (I care about you, Adriel! Even if you apparently talk and think in the exact same terms everyone else does!)
Eventually, the party meets up and flees the two master assassins together. They've got Dusty in tow, and are also joined by the strangely likable and totally random Sir Lancet Rhymewind. Sir Lancet was hunting a dragon, but dumps that quest to join our heroes. Sadly, I wouldn't get too attached to either of these two. (Especially tragic because Dusty provides basically all of the comic relief. Which isn't to say he has a unique voice, but only that he's the one who gets to say the funny things in the same voice in which they all speak.)
Our heroes run to a pirate town, where they encounter the assassins, and also (surprise!) pirates, who have their own beef with Wren, insomuch as they killed Wren's father, which apparently causes them to hate Wren and want to kill him, too. Anyway, it's here that we say goodbye to Dusty and Sir Lancet, and also to the assassins, who are killed by (can you guess?) Wren. Corin decides to run off (er, ride off, as he's not so much with the running, given the limp) and find his brother in hopes of convincing him not to be evil. Our heroes haste after him. On their way, they kill the dragon Sir Lancet was after.
Big confrontation at the Tower of Shadows. Cade alternates between being reasonable - he has no intention of killing Corin, just needs a drop of his blood for the spell's mechanics to work - and idly torturing the captured Dale. (Corin's backup appears just in time to watch Dale die. Very dismaying for poor Adriel, who was raised by Dale after his own parents were murdered.) In the end, Cade stabs Corin, and the demon shows up, but all of our heroes are protected by what seems to be a combination of their medallions (symbols of their faith in the three gods) and the Power of Goodness and Love. Cade is not. The demon snatches him and goes back to demonland.
Corin is miraculously healed, including his limp! (Because we can't have a hero with a physical disability, can we?) We have a charming few closing paragraphs wherein, perhaps due to relief at saving the world and/or the effects of shock, our heroes seem to be recovering remarkably well from the recent deaths of lots of people they care about (only Kayla didn't really lose anyone super-important - "thanks, Dad, for not letting me have friends!"), and are optimistic for the future.
A couple of things the book surprised me by not doing (mostly pleasant surprises):
1. No romance plotline. Man, I was so sure he'd do this! Kayla's description makes it clear she's pretty, and she's so useless that I was sure she'd wind up being someone's designated romantic interest. Kind of refreshing that it doesn't happen.
2. No explanation of Lori's death or the murders of Adriel's parents. I'll admit, I was curious about what happened to Lori, but leaving it this way kind of gives the sense that it's too painful for Wren to even think about. As for Adriel's parents, it is, again, refreshing, that they don't turn out to be tied into the plot somehow.
So, that's pretty much it. Totally random thing I wonder about: when they get to that inn in the pirate town, why does Sir Lancet ask whether it's where Wren's father was killed? I'm pretty sure Wren never said anything about that to anyone . . . Perhaps Sir Lancet is just that awesome.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 5, 2022
I gave this three stars, mostly because of the potential it had. The basic storyline was good, if still based off the old fantasy comfort zone of "long lost young man discovers he's the needed hero" line. After all, there is a reason this has worked so well over the years. However, what could have been an epic fantasy book, or even a trilogy/series, was cut down. The overall writing was basic and rushed. The various journeys of the characters takes place in what appears to be month or so. Side quests are achieved nice and neatly in a single chapter. Battles are over in a paragraph after just a few flicks of the wrist. (The author uses that term way too much.) Also, attention to details was needed. The character "Cade" was referred to as "Cane" at least once. A village described as being northeast of the town of Merrifield is northWEST of it on the map. Small things like that, that added up over the course of the book, bothered me. The story just felt very immature and after reading about the author, I see why. He started writing it while in high school, and it feels like it. It lacks the maturity that this story deserved.
January 4, 2020
This was really bad. Very predictable plot, characters with no personality, terrible writing. Bowling abused the hell out of similes and metaphors, and most of his comparisons made no sense. I didn't DNF because it was short and a lot like watching TV shows about hoarders; I was horrified but couldn't look away.
June 27, 2017
Just could not get past how poorly written this book is. Felt like I was reading something my 10 year old wrote. Finally gave up and put on my did not finish list.
Read
July 7, 2019The rest of the series is unavailable currently so didn't start this.
April 2, 2025
This was a random find. this author has great potential but I cannot find any more books he has authored. Loved this one though!
January 8, 2026
Picked up the book randomly through a library sale
Very obviously a young author. Not offensively the worst but really not that great either.
I think my favorite part was where it was obvious Bowling didn't know how to write the deep lore that he'd set up in the creation of this world so he has the whole scene of the exposition witch and her deep and fantastical explanation for the world and its conflict glossed over in a passing paragraph.
Weirdly anticlimactic
Very obviously a young author. Not offensively the worst but really not that great either.
I think my favorite part was where it was obvious Bowling didn't know how to write the deep lore that he'd set up in the creation of this world so he has the whole scene of the exposition witch and her deep and fantastical explanation for the world and its conflict glossed over in a passing paragraph.
Weirdly anticlimactic
November 6, 2012
Reviewed by Carrie Spellman for TeensReadToo.com
Technically, neither of the Starcross brothers should have survived the massacre that night. The night the magician, Dale, interrupted a dark ritual, and the monsters destroyed the town. Had it not been for Wren Tident and his pregnant wife, Lori, no one would have been there to save baby Corin from the monster who devoured his parents. His older brother, Cade, is left for dead in the tower of flames that was the Starcross home.
Fast-forward some sixteen years.
Wren Tident is a single father. After having tragically lost his wife, he has given up adventures. He's intent only on the safety and welfare of his daughter, Kayla. Kayla finds him to be overbearing and overprotective, but distant. She's heard stories of her father from before she was born, and she has a hard time believing that the daring, exciting, almost carefree Wren Tident could be the same man she lives with.
Dale has become a bit of a recluse. With the exception of the training of his apprentice, Adriel. Dale and Wren have had very little communication since they parted ways many years ago. While they were close friends once, Wren now prefers the lack of contact.
Corin lives in the countryside, where he was raised by an uncle. He has lived, to this point, a simple and relatively quiet existence. Despite being an orphan and a cripple (one leg is permanently lame thanks to the events of the night he lost his parents) he is a curious and generally cheerful young man.
They are all being hunted.
Survival requires Wren to re-enter the dangerous lifestyle he abandoned for the sake of his daughter. And he'll have to drag Kayla in, too, not that she requires much convincing. It means that old friends, turned enemies, will have to reconnect. It means danger and loss and sacrifice and faith in each other at the darkest of moments. To save themselves, and the world around them, they will have to face the darkness that has taken over the boy who was left for dead. And Cade Starcross does not intend to lose.
Such completely absorbing fantasy that you won't want to come up for air. And when you've finished, you'll want to go back and read it again to see what you might have missed. Thankfully, this is intended to be only the first book. What I'd really like to read, though, is the story of the time in between. There is a big chunk of time missing between the prologue and the beginning of this piece of the story. That was the only thing I found lacking in this book. I want to know how and why everyone got to where the story starts. I guess I just liked these people, the world they live in, and their story so much that I want to know more about all of it!
Technically, neither of the Starcross brothers should have survived the massacre that night. The night the magician, Dale, interrupted a dark ritual, and the monsters destroyed the town. Had it not been for Wren Tident and his pregnant wife, Lori, no one would have been there to save baby Corin from the monster who devoured his parents. His older brother, Cade, is left for dead in the tower of flames that was the Starcross home.
Fast-forward some sixteen years.
Wren Tident is a single father. After having tragically lost his wife, he has given up adventures. He's intent only on the safety and welfare of his daughter, Kayla. Kayla finds him to be overbearing and overprotective, but distant. She's heard stories of her father from before she was born, and she has a hard time believing that the daring, exciting, almost carefree Wren Tident could be the same man she lives with.
Dale has become a bit of a recluse. With the exception of the training of his apprentice, Adriel. Dale and Wren have had very little communication since they parted ways many years ago. While they were close friends once, Wren now prefers the lack of contact.
Corin lives in the countryside, where he was raised by an uncle. He has lived, to this point, a simple and relatively quiet existence. Despite being an orphan and a cripple (one leg is permanently lame thanks to the events of the night he lost his parents) he is a curious and generally cheerful young man.
They are all being hunted.
Survival requires Wren to re-enter the dangerous lifestyle he abandoned for the sake of his daughter. And he'll have to drag Kayla in, too, not that she requires much convincing. It means that old friends, turned enemies, will have to reconnect. It means danger and loss and sacrifice and faith in each other at the darkest of moments. To save themselves, and the world around them, they will have to face the darkness that has taken over the boy who was left for dead. And Cade Starcross does not intend to lose.
Such completely absorbing fantasy that you won't want to come up for air. And when you've finished, you'll want to go back and read it again to see what you might have missed. Thankfully, this is intended to be only the first book. What I'd really like to read, though, is the story of the time in between. There is a big chunk of time missing between the prologue and the beginning of this piece of the story. That was the only thing I found lacking in this book. I want to know how and why everyone got to where the story starts. I guess I just liked these people, the world they live in, and their story so much that I want to know more about all of it!
August 14, 2014
Φάντασυ, με αγόρι που ο αδελφός του θέλει να το σκοτώσει για να ξυπνήσει έναν δαίμονα που θα φέρει το τέλος του κόσμου. Μπλέκεται ένας τυχοδιώκτης που έχει τώρα πια αφιερώσει τη ζωή του στη σωστή ανατροφή της κόρης του κι ένας μάγος που ενσαρκώνει την τελευταία ελπίδα αυτού του είδους της μαγείας. Ξεκινάει απελπιστικά αδύναμα, με εντελώς παιδιάστικα λάθη πλοκής, ατμόσφαιρας, αληθοφάνειας κλπκλπκλπ, αλλά χτίζει σιγά-σιγά και ατμόσφαιρα και χαρακτήρες. Μετά τη σελίδα 50 μάλιστα αρχίζει να γίνεται πραγματικά ενδιαφέρον και δε μπορείς να το αφήσεις κάτω, παρά που κάθε τόσο ξεπετιούνται μικροί λόξιγκες, που φανερώνουν την αρχική αδεξιότητα του κειμένου. Το δε τέλος ξαναπέφτει στην παγίδα των παιδικών λαθών και αποδυναμώνεται ενώ περιμένεις πράμματα και θάμματα. Πάντως διαβάζεται ευχάριστα και φαίνεται ότι ο νεαρός (25 ετών σήμερα, αλλά το εξέδωσε το 2006 που ήταν 21) έχει και προοπτικές και εξελισσόμενη πένα.
Δεν ξέρω αν θα έπρεπε να το αναφέρω εδώ, όμως η επιμέλεια της ελληνικής έκδοσης δεν είναι και από τις καλύτερες.
Δεν ξέρω αν θα έπρεπε να το αναφέρω εδώ, όμως η επιμέλεια της ελληνικής έκδοσης δεν είναι και από τις καλύτερες.
November 2, 2015
The plot of "The Tower of Shadows" is very cliche. A lot of it is. I think that I would normally give a book like this two stars--so why does this one get four?
The writing. Bowling's writing style in this book is fantastically descriptive and beautiful, and I got very strong images of what was going on while I read this. In fact, the writing was so great that I didn't notice the book's cliche-ness very much. So while I wouldn't normally recommend this book to anyone other than those who can stand Eragon (though I guess this book's plot isn't nearly as bad), I can also recommend it to anyone who wants to see a great example of great writing. Readers and writers looking for inspiration and technique ideas should definitely give this book a spin.
The writing. Bowling's writing style in this book is fantastically descriptive and beautiful, and I got very strong images of what was going on while I read this. In fact, the writing was so great that I didn't notice the book's cliche-ness very much. So while I wouldn't normally recommend this book to anyone other than those who can stand Eragon (though I guess this book's plot isn't nearly as bad), I can also recommend it to anyone who wants to see a great example of great writing. Readers and writers looking for inspiration and technique ideas should definitely give this book a spin.
Read
August 18, 200716AUG07 I'll let you know when I have finished reading the book.
18AUG07 I finished the book and found it to be a good read. However, it loses cohesiveness towards the end, where is becomes a series of choppy "action scenes," reminiscent of a draft screenplay for a movie, rather than a novel. As the author experiences more life (he's in his early 20's) and writes more, this tendency to describe action like a screenplay should disappear as he learns to be more descriptive.
18AUG07 I finished the book and found it to be a good read. However, it loses cohesiveness towards the end, where is becomes a series of choppy "action scenes," reminiscent of a draft screenplay for a movie, rather than a novel. As the author experiences more life (he's in his early 20's) and writes more, this tendency to describe action like a screenplay should disappear as he learns to be more descriptive.
August 4, 2015
This book is one of my absolute favorites. My dad bought it for me one Christmas/Birthday(my birthday is December 27th). Though it took me about 2 weeks to get past the first 2 chapters because I found it a bit slow for my taste, it was a very satisfying read. The story picked up quickly after I got past the initial drag and kept me quite literally on the edge of my seat. It is definitely on my list of books to read again.
April 11, 2012
I know Drew Bowling and I am immensely fond of him, but I confess this kind of fantasy just isn't my cup of tea, as it were. It's good, intense and very violent in parts, but ultimately didn't grab me, and I'm not quite sure why. I wish I liked it more, and it certainly is a fantastic first book. I hope he writes more.
August 9, 2016
This wasn't bad, but seemed to bear the marks of a young and inexperienced writer, which this author is. Plenty of action; I was drawn to purchase the book when I read that on the cover. Some occasional descriptions that I enjoyed. But a lot of the prose was so-so, and a lot of the dialogue sounded stuffy.
Read
April 2, 2011I thought it was a little dry and slow to start. Jumped around a bit much in the beginning. But towards the end it got good. It did leave you a bit hanging. Am hoping for a second book. Not too bad considering this was written be high school-er. If he kept to it I bet his other books are better.
October 27, 2012
Preston recommended this book to me, but he also told me it had some very dark points in it. I'm enjoying it so far - almost halfway through it - but I'm really gonna need something uplifting after this to break my streak!
April 29, 2014
I love reading adventurous books and the synopsis of this book is interesting but after finishing it I just didn't like it. The first few chapters are good but the middle part dragged on and on til the end.
May 29, 2007
Awful - couldn't even make it halfway through. Author started writing it in college and it shows.
Want to read
August 20, 2007Started, then got into another one, its just kinda sitting on my book shelf. I really should finish it...
November 8, 2007
This is one of those books you regret buying once you get to the end. Common themes, common characters, this book goes over everything that's ever been done in fantasy, and adds nothing new.
October 27, 2008
Good! Can't believe it was written by a college sophomore...anyone who enjoys fantasy, Tolkien-type, would like this!
May 26, 2011
Slow start, great middle, abrupt end. I liked it though. Amazing story written by such a young author.
August 3, 2011
I was expecting sth like Eragon, but it wasn't even close. Very promising, but somehow ''lost in translation'' Could have been better.
February 3, 2012
Suffered from poor pacing (especially the end) and was rather unoriginal and cliched. I guess it kept me interested enough though since I read the whole thing.
November 3, 2013
There was nothing original about the concept of the story nor was there anything very amazing about the writing but it was still a fun read.
Want to read
September 18, 2012I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/11408894
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/11408894
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