What do you think?
Rate this book
Arlinga #1
Concerning a Man
Hunter was only a mule driver, and the problems of his kingless home did not concern him. But with the rescue of a beautiful slave, and his oldest friend’s connection to the ancient past, he would soon find himself at the center of the struggle for the freedom of Arlinga.
384 pages, Hardcover
Published December 14, 2015
2 people are currently reading
853 people want to read
About the author
Ben Livingstone
4 books21 followersBen Livingstone (formerly Roan Clay) lives in Western Canada and has been an avid writer for many years. His interests in storytelling, languages, music, tea, riding and gemology have all influenced his writing, as well as his experience with jewelry, precious stones and the book trade.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 27, 2017
This book was okay, though I will admit that I did find this book to one that was hard to finish. At times it felt like it was a bit heavy (well, to my personal taste anyway) and I think it could have used a bit more editing, just to help make it more polished. I'm not sure I would recommend it.
*won as a GoodReads Giveaway*
*won as a GoodReads Giveaway*
March 14, 2016
DNF at 35 pages.
Concerning a Man, the first installment of the Arlinga series, follows Hunter and Byorneth, two mule drivers selling wares to various towns and villages along the road. Through a series of events, they end up at a slaver's property where Hunter meets a beautiful slave revered by other slave-owners as deesard, a beautiful female slave owned by the richest man in the community as a symbol of purity and prosperity, named Srstri (Crystal).
I read an interview in my local paper about the author who "wanted to write a fantasy that didn’t depend on magic for its plot development." Thus Arlinga was conceived.
Concerning a Man is in dire need of an editor. Not only is the writing pretentious and heavy, it insults the reader's intelligence at every opportunity or simply fails to explain what is going on. Characters are 2D mouthpieces walking around and letting things happen to them, as if they're passive observers to their own lives.
In the beginning of the book, there is a To The Reader. I was curious so I read on and found myself being disrespected within the first sentence: "Fear not, kind purchaser." Now I'm bewildered. What is there to fear? The author paints himself as some sort of benevolent patron of the arts who has faithfully transcribed the original text in the "dialect of the Indo-European language known by some as English" however, even if English is your first language, you're in for even worse treatment than this.
Let's start with Hunter, the new leader of the caravan passed on by his predecessor Byorneth, is our noble hero unconcerned with the politics of his country or the status of others around him, but he's a non-event. If he gets a personality by the end of the book I'd be surprised but I'm not going to waste hours better spent. He's very boring without any sort of long-term goal other than mule-driving. As a main character, I expected more.
Byorneth likes to speak with exclamation points! Continually! I don't know if this is intentional, but I kept reading his dialogue like he was Gandalf, which was particularly irritating even though he has few lines. Also, like Gandalf, Byorneth is the info-giver of mysterious far-off lands that are unbeknownst to Hunter, even though Hunter has lived in this land his entire life. His knowledge of surrounding areas and people is limited in spite of him travelling around.
While were on the topic of surrounding areas, there are infodumps every 5 pages of this book, about this tree or that stretch of road and the caravan mules themselves who have more personality than Hunter it seems. At least they're described as stubborn but soon defeated. Infodumps in fantasy and science fiction are common and to be expected and I can handle them to a certain extent. But if your extent is a half-page paragraph, bet your bottom dollar I'm going to skip it.
Srstri/Crystal is a slightly more interesting character but equally as boring as Hunter and Byorneth. And I really don't know how to pronounce her name, even with the guide in the back.
Other characters were introduced in the middle of a paragraph in the middle of a chapter that did not read naturally. I had to go back a reread the page because I was so caught off guard by the sudden change of narrative that I was certain I had skipped a page or chapter or something. These new characters said about as much as Hunter has in the same tone of voice even though they're from a separate region.
Clay lists his influences as Kipling and George R.R. Martin (according to the newspaper interview. He has others on his Goodreads author page) which is apparent in his endless descriptions of meaningless things that contribute nothing to the story, world-building or character development. His very high-brow way of writing brings back feelings of Tolkien's writing style and not in a positive light. I read something a while back about how The Hobbit and LOTR would not have been published today because of the amount of information thrown at you in a short amount of time and style of writing. Where Tolkien succeeded, Clay has failed trying to replicate this particular style for a modern audience. An old hand at fantasy novels might appreciate that, but writing to an audience who'll keep reading your novels needs to be fresh and not of a bygone era.
Throughout Concerning a Man, I was dreading even reading the few pages I forced myself to slog through. It's pretentious and lacking any actual story with flat characters I really don't care about, sympathize with or relate to. It's a genuinely boring and confusing read with ghastly grammatical errors, a language I'm not interested in trying to pronounce even with my undying love of the written word, and unoriginal characters all bundled up in a haughty style of writing.
I wouldn't recommend this to even the most die-hard of fantasy readers.
Concerning a Man, the first installment of the Arlinga series, follows Hunter and Byorneth, two mule drivers selling wares to various towns and villages along the road. Through a series of events, they end up at a slaver's property where Hunter meets a beautiful slave revered by other slave-owners as deesard, a beautiful female slave owned by the richest man in the community as a symbol of purity and prosperity, named Srstri (Crystal).
I read an interview in my local paper about the author who "wanted to write a fantasy that didn’t depend on magic for its plot development." Thus Arlinga was conceived.
Concerning a Man is in dire need of an editor. Not only is the writing pretentious and heavy, it insults the reader's intelligence at every opportunity or simply fails to explain what is going on. Characters are 2D mouthpieces walking around and letting things happen to them, as if they're passive observers to their own lives.
In the beginning of the book, there is a To The Reader. I was curious so I read on and found myself being disrespected within the first sentence: "Fear not, kind purchaser." Now I'm bewildered. What is there to fear? The author paints himself as some sort of benevolent patron of the arts who has faithfully transcribed the original text in the "dialect of the Indo-European language known by some as English" however, even if English is your first language, you're in for even worse treatment than this.
Let's start with Hunter, the new leader of the caravan passed on by his predecessor Byorneth, is our noble hero unconcerned with the politics of his country or the status of others around him, but he's a non-event. If he gets a personality by the end of the book I'd be surprised but I'm not going to waste hours better spent. He's very boring without any sort of long-term goal other than mule-driving. As a main character, I expected more.
Byorneth likes to speak with exclamation points! Continually! I don't know if this is intentional, but I kept reading his dialogue like he was Gandalf, which was particularly irritating even though he has few lines. Also, like Gandalf, Byorneth is the info-giver of mysterious far-off lands that are unbeknownst to Hunter, even though Hunter has lived in this land his entire life. His knowledge of surrounding areas and people is limited in spite of him travelling around.
While were on the topic of surrounding areas, there are infodumps every 5 pages of this book, about this tree or that stretch of road and the caravan mules themselves who have more personality than Hunter it seems. At least they're described as stubborn but soon defeated. Infodumps in fantasy and science fiction are common and to be expected and I can handle them to a certain extent. But if your extent is a half-page paragraph, bet your bottom dollar I'm going to skip it.
Srstri/Crystal is a slightly more interesting character but equally as boring as Hunter and Byorneth. And I really don't know how to pronounce her name, even with the guide in the back.
Other characters were introduced in the middle of a paragraph in the middle of a chapter that did not read naturally. I had to go back a reread the page because I was so caught off guard by the sudden change of narrative that I was certain I had skipped a page or chapter or something. These new characters said about as much as Hunter has in the same tone of voice even though they're from a separate region.
Clay lists his influences as Kipling and George R.R. Martin (according to the newspaper interview. He has others on his Goodreads author page) which is apparent in his endless descriptions of meaningless things that contribute nothing to the story, world-building or character development. His very high-brow way of writing brings back feelings of Tolkien's writing style and not in a positive light. I read something a while back about how The Hobbit and LOTR would not have been published today because of the amount of information thrown at you in a short amount of time and style of writing. Where Tolkien succeeded, Clay has failed trying to replicate this particular style for a modern audience. An old hand at fantasy novels might appreciate that, but writing to an audience who'll keep reading your novels needs to be fresh and not of a bygone era.
Throughout Concerning a Man, I was dreading even reading the few pages I forced myself to slog through. It's pretentious and lacking any actual story with flat characters I really don't care about, sympathize with or relate to. It's a genuinely boring and confusing read with ghastly grammatical errors, a language I'm not interested in trying to pronounce even with my undying love of the written word, and unoriginal characters all bundled up in a haughty style of writing.
I wouldn't recommend this to even the most die-hard of fantasy readers.
January 8, 2017
I very much enjoyed the book Arlinga, Concerning A Man. I looked forward to following the three main characters and was anticipating to see what would happen next. I liked the twists and turns throughout the book and in no way could guess what surprise was coming. I could very much relate to the characters because they were ' real' -- no magic, no dragon connections needed. For me, Arlinga was a wonderful , exciting adventure (and love story) that I could not put down!! Looking forward to Roan Clay's next creation.
I would definitely recommend this book.
I would definitely recommend this book.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews