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The Soulstealer War #1
The First Mother's Fire
Unemployed after graduation, Kenneth McNary seeks inspiration on the Appalachian Trail. He never suspected that it would find him first. Ken is transported to a fairytale world by a god-like sentience and is tasked with uniting the world's denizens for a coming war-a war with eternal consequences for every soul consumed by the Enemy. While grappling with metaphysics and the dangers of his strange surroundings, Ken learns that the few humans inhabiting the realm are meek slaves to near-immortal beings who have lost their magic. Complicating this situation is a mysterious new race of magic wielders and the reappearance of subterranean, flesh-eating creatures long thought extinct. To survive the perils and embrace his destiny in a land hostile to humanity, Ken must discover the Fire within. But he faces two he is a novice pitted against masters, and the magic may kill him before the masters do!
- GenresFantasy
280 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 21, 2008
It took me a while to figure out what to do about this. I mulled over it for several weeks, trying to consider all the different ways I could deal with this. The decision, obviously, is that I'm going to talk about this book because that's what I'm supposed to do.
Very rarely do I drop a book completely. It takes a lot to really irk me enough to drop something and most of the time when I do drop a book I make plans to go back to it again to see if it grows on me (perhaps I wasn't into the book because I was too stressed, or the story wasn't what I was prepared to read at the time).
Hoffman's first book in The Soulstealer War series (called The First Mother's Fire) is a self-published novel that looked like it had a lot of potential. I've agreed to take self-published novels under the condition that such novels will be read the same as any other novel from a legit press, which is why I'm talking about Hoffman's novel today.
The novel follows Kenneth McNary, a recent college graduate who has decided to head off to the Appalachian Trail for some hiking. On his hike he discovers a strange pool hiding in the brush, which turns out to be magical and, well, beyond that I don't know. You get a glimpse in the prologue of another world where things are going bad, and according to the synopsis on the back, that's where he ends up. But, I couldn't finish it. It was too much for me.
The problems with Hoffman's novel stem from poor style, poor characterization, and poor plotting. I'm trying not to be mean about this, because I get the impression that he put a lot of work into this book. The cover is beautiful and the book itself is put together very well. But it's a difficult read. Not too long into the book I already hated the main character, not because he was a bad guy, but because he was annoying. Kenneth periodically goes on random rants about, well, just about anything so long as it sounds intelligent (philosophy, history, etc.). He not only does this in thoughts (italics), but also in dialogue, even though he's the only person out on the trail. He talks to himself, to the trees, etc. in a manner that is loaded with relatively pointless information. If Kenneth is wondering why the trees are the way they are, then just say that he's wondering and move on. We don't really need a history lesson or to listen to Kenneth talk to himself about how he's curious about the trees.
Additionally, the narration follows a similar pattern, delving into Kenneth's past to bring forth things that are just as useless. Almost nothing happens and by the time something "interesting" happened I just didn't care anymore--not to mention that it shouldn't have taken so long for something "interesting" to happen anyway (where's the hook?). I was so irritated by Kenneth and his random rants that there was no point in continuing (and I sort of wished he would just die so the author could give us someone more interesting and less annoying).
There are also huge problems with the story. From what I read it all sounded like rehashes of stories that followed Tolkien's success with LOTR. Maybe it becomes more "original" later in the novel, but again, I couldn't get through it. The prologue suffers from "old speak" or "ancient speak" or whatever you want to call it when an author has characters who talk like they just graduated from 15th century nobility school. The result is that the whole opening chunk feels very antiquated.
Again, the novel looks beautiful. The art must have cost Hoffman a fortune, but what's inside is what counts. What's inside is not nearly as lovely as what's outside. And that's all I can really say about this.
Very rarely do I drop a book completely. It takes a lot to really irk me enough to drop something and most of the time when I do drop a book I make plans to go back to it again to see if it grows on me (perhaps I wasn't into the book because I was too stressed, or the story wasn't what I was prepared to read at the time).
Hoffman's first book in The Soulstealer War series (called The First Mother's Fire) is a self-published novel that looked like it had a lot of potential. I've agreed to take self-published novels under the condition that such novels will be read the same as any other novel from a legit press, which is why I'm talking about Hoffman's novel today.
The novel follows Kenneth McNary, a recent college graduate who has decided to head off to the Appalachian Trail for some hiking. On his hike he discovers a strange pool hiding in the brush, which turns out to be magical and, well, beyond that I don't know. You get a glimpse in the prologue of another world where things are going bad, and according to the synopsis on the back, that's where he ends up. But, I couldn't finish it. It was too much for me.
The problems with Hoffman's novel stem from poor style, poor characterization, and poor plotting. I'm trying not to be mean about this, because I get the impression that he put a lot of work into this book. The cover is beautiful and the book itself is put together very well. But it's a difficult read. Not too long into the book I already hated the main character, not because he was a bad guy, but because he was annoying. Kenneth periodically goes on random rants about, well, just about anything so long as it sounds intelligent (philosophy, history, etc.). He not only does this in thoughts (italics), but also in dialogue, even though he's the only person out on the trail. He talks to himself, to the trees, etc. in a manner that is loaded with relatively pointless information. If Kenneth is wondering why the trees are the way they are, then just say that he's wondering and move on. We don't really need a history lesson or to listen to Kenneth talk to himself about how he's curious about the trees.
Additionally, the narration follows a similar pattern, delving into Kenneth's past to bring forth things that are just as useless. Almost nothing happens and by the time something "interesting" happened I just didn't care anymore--not to mention that it shouldn't have taken so long for something "interesting" to happen anyway (where's the hook?). I was so irritated by Kenneth and his random rants that there was no point in continuing (and I sort of wished he would just die so the author could give us someone more interesting and less annoying).
There are also huge problems with the story. From what I read it all sounded like rehashes of stories that followed Tolkien's success with LOTR. Maybe it becomes more "original" later in the novel, but again, I couldn't get through it. The prologue suffers from "old speak" or "ancient speak" or whatever you want to call it when an author has characters who talk like they just graduated from 15th century nobility school. The result is that the whole opening chunk feels very antiquated.
Again, the novel looks beautiful. The art must have cost Hoffman a fortune, but what's inside is what counts. What's inside is not nearly as lovely as what's outside. And that's all I can really say about this.
Read
January 14, 2012Sounds interesting, right? I was talking to the author at BEA last year and he was explaining the premise to me and it just sounded so neat. Scientific fantasy. Stuff that might be explainable. It was different from a lot of the fantasy I'd read so I snagged a copy. It sat in my reading pile since then simply because it got buried and I just didn't get around to reading it until last week.
Or attempting to read it is more like it.
It was like wading through sludge up to your neck. This is pure masturbatory work if I've ever read any. If you're unfamiliar with the term, when I say a work is masturbatory, I'm meaning that it's nothing more than the author exerting their stash of fifty cent SAT words and patting themselves on the back for it. Or grabbing for the lotion, as it were.
This book is so bogged down in overwrought nonsense that I consistently found myself pondering the mystery of shirt fuzz to bring some excitement into my reading. It was a process just to get about 50 pages in and then I just couldn't handle it anymore. There were way too many "he thought about it" followed by large blocks of italicized text of the MC talking through explanations. Nothing is shown. Everything is told. I was lectured at the entire time I was reading.
There is a potentially good story and great world buried until all the pretentious crap flooding the pages but the ground was too frozen for me to keep digging. I just had to stop. Yeah, I know I was getting into science but I wasn't expecting this:
. . . Although Ken rarely spoke about his sixth sense, as it wouldn't mesh with the propriety necessary for a corporate legal career, it wasn't long before he had elicited Barb's opinion during one of the crew's midnight sessions. In her classic psych way, between a cigarette puff and a sip of gin, she had summed it up as fleeting microcapsules when his subconscious tapped a high awareness state, collated information strands from the surroundings into bundled inference, and then manifested the resulting cues to his conscious self as a motor response. It was a comfortingly mundane explanation for something that for so long had seemed so baffling.
Isn't that just so clear? Like reading a physics textbook when you're failing the class. Everything I read was like this, either from a legal or scientific standpoint. I wasn't expecting this level of technicality when I picked up a work of fiction. If I wanted something like this, I'd actually grab a textbook.
I just felt the author didn't want to so much tell a story as he wanted to showcase his vocabulary and scientific knowledge. Thanks, but I'll pass. If you can wade through something like this, more power to you. Tell me how it pans out. But I just couldn't bring myself to slog through it. I didn't find it worth my time. Any book that can't keep my attention I'm not about to force myself to read. I'm not in school anymore hence I don't have any grades pending on my knowledge of the material.
Because I couldn't finish it, I'm not rating it although I doubt it'd rate very high even if I got to the end. The language and writing style didn't seem to be letting up any time soon.
Or attempting to read it is more like it.
It was like wading through sludge up to your neck. This is pure masturbatory work if I've ever read any. If you're unfamiliar with the term, when I say a work is masturbatory, I'm meaning that it's nothing more than the author exerting their stash of fifty cent SAT words and patting themselves on the back for it. Or grabbing for the lotion, as it were.
This book is so bogged down in overwrought nonsense that I consistently found myself pondering the mystery of shirt fuzz to bring some excitement into my reading. It was a process just to get about 50 pages in and then I just couldn't handle it anymore. There were way too many "he thought about it" followed by large blocks of italicized text of the MC talking through explanations. Nothing is shown. Everything is told. I was lectured at the entire time I was reading.
There is a potentially good story and great world buried until all the pretentious crap flooding the pages but the ground was too frozen for me to keep digging. I just had to stop. Yeah, I know I was getting into science but I wasn't expecting this:
. . . Although Ken rarely spoke about his sixth sense, as it wouldn't mesh with the propriety necessary for a corporate legal career, it wasn't long before he had elicited Barb's opinion during one of the crew's midnight sessions. In her classic psych way, between a cigarette puff and a sip of gin, she had summed it up as fleeting microcapsules when his subconscious tapped a high awareness state, collated information strands from the surroundings into bundled inference, and then manifested the resulting cues to his conscious self as a motor response. It was a comfortingly mundane explanation for something that for so long had seemed so baffling.
Isn't that just so clear? Like reading a physics textbook when you're failing the class. Everything I read was like this, either from a legal or scientific standpoint. I wasn't expecting this level of technicality when I picked up a work of fiction. If I wanted something like this, I'd actually grab a textbook.
I just felt the author didn't want to so much tell a story as he wanted to showcase his vocabulary and scientific knowledge. Thanks, but I'll pass. If you can wade through something like this, more power to you. Tell me how it pans out. But I just couldn't bring myself to slog through it. I didn't find it worth my time. Any book that can't keep my attention I'm not about to force myself to read. I'm not in school anymore hence I don't have any grades pending on my knowledge of the material.
Because I couldn't finish it, I'm not rating it although I doubt it'd rate very high even if I got to the end. The language and writing style didn't seem to be letting up any time soon.
January 18, 2019
I quite enjoyed this book. While unique, there is a “feel” of both Lord of the Rings and Hitchhiker’s Guide. The world building was pretty good, the characterization believable and the story line was engaging.
I connected with the main character, Ken. While it took me a chapter to get used to it, I found his internal thoughts were completely in character for someone who had both law and science background and they added depth to the story. The logical “if this principle is true in my world, can a variation of it be applied to a magical world, and if so, how?” way he thinks was a refreshing change from the purely emotional angst often found in magical fiction. Should I ever find myself in such a situation, I could see myself approaching things this way.
I plan to start the second book right away.
I connected with the main character, Ken. While it took me a chapter to get used to it, I found his internal thoughts were completely in character for someone who had both law and science background and they added depth to the story. The logical “if this principle is true in my world, can a variation of it be applied to a magical world, and if so, how?” way he thinks was a refreshing change from the purely emotional angst often found in magical fiction. Should I ever find myself in such a situation, I could see myself approaching things this way.
I plan to start the second book right away.
July 14, 2019
Awesome book. Great story using a human from earth sent to a new world, but with so many different twists and turns. Also not a coming of age or I dint know my heritage story, it’s a man with insight given the chance to win a war. The main character has depth and is very likable. The author builds the characters as well as this new world, which truly allows you to feel a part of the story and wonder what happens next. I must know where the story leads in the second book. I definitely recommend this book as it is an awesome read!
September 8, 2010
it was aiiight
February 28, 2010
Met the author at Comic Con in NY City and bought the book. I really liked it and I would like to read more from this author!
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June 12, 2018My mom met the author through her work and was he nice enough to give her two of his books for free (autographs included). According to the author the theme is supposed to be metaphysical or as he puts it “if lord of the rings and Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy had a baby”. So far I’m barely getting lord of the rings vibes. The main character is cringey to say the least and attempts to sound edgy and cool even though he’s by himself.Then again I just read the first chapter so I hope to see more of what he claims.
- written by RVCC student Cara Perrone
- written by RVCC student Cara Perrone
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews