“His mother’s screams remained etched in his mind. He promised himself that night he would never again stand by as people he cared for suffered, and he would one day kill Volcseck. He intended to keep those promises.” Falcon Hyatt has a problem. For reasons unknown to him he can wield all the elements, not only basics like fire and water, but also those more advanced, like space and poison. And now the chaos element, the same one his parents’ killer Shal-Volcseck wields, has awakened within him, with catastrophic results. To complicate matters, the Suteckh Empire has declared war on the capital cities of Va’siel. Now he must venture out into the world with his friends Lao, Faith, and Aya on a mission to stop the Suteckh from taking over Va’siel, and find his parents killer, as all the while he struggles to suppress his newfound abilities. In his quest Falcon is forced to question what he’s really fighting for, where his loyalties lie, and his own character. Is he truly a good person, or an even more dangerous menace than the dreaded Shal-Volcseck? Element Wielder is the story of faith, love, and a young man’s struggle to continue on his quest, when surrendering to his emotions and giving up is so much easier.
César González has been writing since he was a kid. In his spare time he enjoys reading, writing, reading, writing, and then for good measure he writes some more. He lives in California.
He is always setting up diets that he can't keep, and loves to run a lot, that way he can justify eating cake with coffee every day.
César is also an avid anime fan and is constantly on the lookout for the next anime series to binge on.
Mr. Gonzalez has struck the perfect balance between white-knuckle suspense, action, mystery, humor, and a richly emotional romance. Element Wielder simply flows wonderfully and the entire read felt so easy and nice (Great books will do that). I found myself immersed in Va'siel, happily following our hero Falcon in his quest to find his brother and parents' killer. it must sound cliché, but, much like he did in THE LOST AND THE WICKED, Mr. Gonzalez manages to surprise and dazzle in a genre that is ridden with clichés (chosen one, parents death, etc...). he does this by impeccable pacing, vivid characters, and a world creation that rivals those of Star Wars (Yes, I said it).
Cons- no book is perfect, and I always try to fond something wrong with each book (I'm too critical I suppose. If I had to point at something, it would have to be that some of the elements (like lightning) are under represented in this book. I hope they get more time to shine in the next.
Falcon wanted to avenge his parents death and has to protect his childhood best friend "Faith". But Shal Valeshok (the guy who killed his parents) has to get Faith's emblem which is the last one he needs to conquer the planet. So Falcon protects Faith every time Shal Valeshok attacks and is mastering his powers everyday. Then he fights with his home village to save Sandoria the capital city.
The series is not finished so there is no ending yet.
The three themes are: Scared, Betrayal, Determination.
I loved this book!!! I really enjoyed how the story progress even if there were a couple time jumps that could have been fun if they had been written about as well. I think I would prefer it if Falcon ended up with Aya, but since the story has already been concluded in the third book, I guess I will see what happens. I am so glad I found this book while goofing around on amazon. I decided to buy the book before reading it because I knew I would love it as much as I do. Thank you Mr. Gonzalez for bringing me such an amazing story!
Really loved this one!!! As a huge anime, fantasy, YA, and just reading fan in general, I fell in love with this book. I read it in one day and devoured the sequel on the second day.
The world-building is top notch.
The characters are awesome and very relatable.
All I have to do now is wait until early 2015 for the third book of the series.
This book is amazing. Great plot, top notch world creation, and an easy read for anyone from the age of 8-99.
I love how the story doesn't get bogged down by useless gibberish. Instead the world creation is presented at a slow and steady pace, but in a way that always feels natural without being rushed.
I saw some reviews point out the grammar, but like someone already said, it must have been fixed because I had no problem on my end. Grammar was excellent.
Very few times will I go out of my way to leave a review, I just had to leave one for this book. It's really that good.
This was readable, but not terribly outstanding. The writing and characters seemed somewhat stilted and all the secondary characters seemed one note and lacked depth, rather like cardbord cut outs of people. They were either "the bully", "wise wizard", "the traitor" etc and never really seemed to develop as people. I don't think I'll bother with the next book in this series.
Through some agitation, I must give this book a 2-star rating. The characters were bland. I swear, if the story didn't hold a bit of interest for me, I would have given up here.
Falcon? One of the worst characters there is. I mean, all I hear from him is his need for revenge. One page he's 12 and the next he's 18 years old. And still, his mind remains unyielding. Falcon, wants nothing more than to seek out the man who killed his parents. He studied with one of the best fighters of all, who I might add, had requested that Falcon does not succumb to his desires, yet nothing seemed to rub off on Falcon. Come one, were they even trying? Again, how am I suppose to know they tried or even trained him. I mean, we skip all of this with a rather fast whiplash jump in time. The worst part is, I have read the last three books of this series, and it isn't until the final chapter that Falcon seems to change into something greater, but even then, it was not of his own doing.
Yes, I read the remaining two books. But in my defense, I did say the story was somewhat interesting even if it was poorly delivered. And bonus for me, I didn't have to pay for this book, since I do have Amazon prime, I think If I had paid for these books, I would have been singing a much rather bitter toon than this. I will continue my rant when I review book two. I just want to point out, I finished this book and found nothing that resembled a different world. It was bland, no creativity. I would have let this go if the dialect was so poor, Jesus, grammar should be perfect when you speak among your friends.
I really enjoyed this. Most of it. I liked the characters, the world and the magic, and most of the storytelling.
But there were too many times when I wished the author would have shown instead of telling. Too many times he basically said "this thing is going to happen later, and the main character has intuited this because he is amazing."
There were a couple of plot points outside of these that were so overt that it completely took you out of the story. The roles of Aya, Lao and the white-grey Knight were telegraphed so blatantly in advance that it detracted from the fact they were all pretty compelling characters.
I'm definitely going to read book two, because everything else is there, and these are the sort of things you can get better at as you go along.
Element Wielder is a book that takes place in a world where everyone has control over an element and they divide the elements into two groups, the basic elements and the advanced elements. The basic elements consist of Fire, Earth, Water, Air, Void, and Mind. Void is the ability to control all the basic elements, but only to a small degree, and Mind is the ability to mold the brain however you want. The advanced elements are, Space, Poison, Darkness, Chaos, Lightning, and Holy. The main character of this story, Falcon Hyatt, was originally a Void wielder, so he could only use the basic elements, but then one day he got into a fight, actually that's a lie he was assaulted and in self defense he discovered that he could use the Lightning element, and red lightning at that, which before he used it it just so happens that he and everyone else thought that red lighting was only a myth. He ends up running away to save his own life, and meets the man that became his guardian. Then it skips forward a few years and it's explained that he's going to a school where people learn wield their respective elements, and then it skips forward many more years and shows what happens after they graduate from the academy, they become mercenaries. On Falcon's first mission he was sent to help his old home, however he didn't remember it because the last time he was there his parents had been murdered by the only other Chaos wielder Shal'Voseck, and he was hurt or something and ended up forgetting all about that place and about all his friends. However his best childhood friend helped him remember all about everything and helped him overcome SOME of his anger at Shal'Voseck.
Near the end, it is revealed that one of Falcon's best friends was a pretty bad person. At this point in the book Cesar uses the surprise Falcon feels and Falcons love of the friend (close friend love, not gay love) to make it so that Falcon ends up letting his friend go. But then a few chapters later he "shows" his friend dying. Falcon ends up losing control over his Chaos element during the fight between him and his friend, but he ends up bringing it back under control. He was really depressed after he learned that his friend was killed.
When things start getting hard many of us humans start wanting to give up. When Shal'Voseck was being raised and trained by the man who found him, all he wanted was to learn to use the chaos element. However when the man refused to teach him until he went to a monastery and trained there for five years, Voseck got really angry, but he went. However after he had been there for a few years, Voseck gave into the Chaos element and started wanting to kill everyone, and he succeeded. When Falcon learned that he had the chaos element he started freaking out believing that he was going to go crazy and start killing everyone, however he managed to control it some, but that was in the second book.
In my opinion it was a pretty good book, not great but pretty good. The plot was good, well thought out, but there were a few to many time jumps for my taste. Because I actually enjoy learning about all the different ways the heroes would learn there powers, I also like it when people don't just suddenly learn to use there powers. Meaning I like it when they have to actually work to be good, instead of just having every thing click into place, and suddenly being able to save the world without any work.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
As I read this book, I had a little bit of deja-vu. I realized that this book was very similar to another series I’ve read called the Summoner Series. The book does have its own original ideas however, and held my attention raptly. At first I thought the progression of time in it was a little odd, but it’s just perfect for its own storyline and actually helped with attention grabbing now that I think back on it. It’s not the most fantastic book I’ve ever read, which is why it’s received 4 and not 5 stars from me.
As an avid fan of the fantasy genre I have read dozens of series and I can easily see this one becoming one of my favorites. The book itself doesn’t stand out to much when compared to many other series in the genre but it has its own unique charm. The characters are well portrayed and the magic system has well set laws that like many series are casually broken by the main character. so while not particularly outstanding, it is a good read and I look forward to reading the rest of the series.
Ok this book is perfectly amazing. It doesn't spend too much time on Falcon's training with K'ran because that's kinda boring. Cesar also manages to have that right balance of romance, fantasy and adventure. This book doesn't spend time on boring parts but also doesn't only talk about battles. It follows Falcon as the main character but at the same time also shows the reader the POV of the other characters. 100/10. Absolutely amazing.
Though I’m not an English native speaker I couldn’t help but noticed a couple of grammatical mistakes, however, overall the book has an appealing storyline for those who like adventure and superpowers
easy read. liked how the elements work. even if we don't really go into the details of how it works exactly. but it's fast pace and looking forward to the 2nd book
This story is disappointing I tried to get into it ,but it kept leaving me wanting for more excitement. I recommend reading it even though it was lacking Action?
I think it was ok, I enjoyed reading it but I was not wowed. I think there may be more development in later books, but for now I thought this was ok, I more fell in love with the side characters more than falcon. Falcon is probably a little bit of the reason I keep my rating at a 3 as I was not super fond of him, but maybe it’s because I am not so on board as when we look in his mind the only thought in it is revenge, but it did not irritate me which is good. But other than that it was good.
when I first saw the reviews for this book I couldn't decide whether to get it or not on one hand were the good reviews then on the other were the bad. I decided to bite the bullet and go ahead and get it but after going through I have to say it's neither as good or as bad as some people have reviewed it there are a lot of problems with this book namely the beginning and several areas throughout in the beginning the author quit literally puts the powers into a girmoire right at the beginning witch was a real waste the powers could have been worked into the story easily. another problem well part problem anyway was the speed of witch the book was written now normally this is all good but and at first it was the pacing was doing well we saw the main character struggling after a tumultuous start and the book was doing well then he enters the academy and things start to go downhill new characters start to be glossed over with only a small amount of background that's not nearly enough and to make matters worse the author skips an entire five years of the mc training basically all the time to create complex side characters is just completely pushed aside and we resume on the day of the last test witch is over far to quickly but we do get a look at our stars main power even though he can't control it and even at the end of this book he still can't use it witch is a nice change of pace from the hero miraculously gaining control of his dark power it's obvious he still has a long way to go from controling it. after that our hero is pushed into his first quest witch goes completely out of control and is way to rushed the last battle scene should have been saved for later in the series and well I won't say anymore I've already dropped enough spoilers needless to say this book has a lot of work to do. that being said the main hero has a lot of anger issues witch he only begins to start working through by the end of this book so I already really like this character. there are hidden gems in this book but probably not enough if you want to get devoted to this series if you just want a quick read to pass the time this would be a ok book .it has potential but doesn't really make it all the way there that said I enjoyed the main character so I decided to give this book a three out of five if the author reads these all I gotta say is keep trying man you have a lot of potential just work more on your side characters and slow the plot down just a tad and you'll be great.
This is a pretty good story. There’s a couple things that bother me though. For one thing, it reads like a first book. I can’t find on Google whether it actually is the author’s first book, but it just gives me that sort of awkward vibe. They use a bunch of unnecessary big words. Like vociferous. And a lot of the time they’re used wrong. Again, like vociferous. Or serendipity. Just slightly wrong, but that’s almost worse than very wrong.
This one’s just a tiny little thing, but it drives me crazy. Whenever a minor character is speaking (like the person explaining the tournament rules), the author will interrupt what they’re saying to say they took a breath. Like this:
“The rules are simple. Element wielding is allowed; additionally, each fighter is allowed a weapon of their choosing.” The announcer took a breath. “The person who makes their opponent yield to them will be declared the winner. Contestants at the ready!””
Absolutely fell in love with this story. It examines many aspects of a young adult growing up in a place that isn't exactly welcome of him. The strengths lie in its characters and believable dialogue. I enjoyed watching grow and I especially liked the colorful variety of characters around Falcon. Everyone seems top love Aya and Faith, but I think that Lao is the unsung hero of this book. I don't wish to spoil the story, but in many ways he is the person who carries the story. He is such a tragic figure, and part of me found myself relating to the character. While not always agreeing with him. This is the kind of character that borders in the gray area, and makes ones question who is right or wrong.
First the good, mildly interesting and mostly correct grammar. The author has potential if he can avoid, what seems to be, copying other people's work.
The bad, as others have already pointed out. The Last Air Bender, Harry Potter, and Speed Racer seem to be heavily copied. The conversations between characters are dull and boring. Characters are poorly developed and lack substance. You constantly feel like you are reading a rip off of other people's work. The powers system is undeveloped and the characters seem to forget they even have them.
I would agree with others that the good reviews are family and friends of the author. I hate giving bad reviews and I hope the authors future work is much, much more developed.
I don't really like knocking books especially since Cesar Gonzalez and writers in general put a lot of work into their stories. Even though this book is clearly for a younger age range than myself I imagine even they would feel that its not ready for publication and needs a serious workover by an editor. Unfortunately I don't think I will be continuing with this series, however best of luck to mr Gonzalez in his future works.
This book was very well written and was captivating from page to page, leaving you hungry for more. It was hard for me to put it down and actually get any work done. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good fantasy read or has an affinity for the elements.