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Tales of Ealoryn #1
Relioc Tower
Relioc Tower has awakened.
The magic has stirred.
It is reaching out.
The dark, powerful magic contained within Relioc Tower, secluded and withdrawn for fifty years, is quiet no more. It demands one thing: twenty-eight-year-old Ethan, adventurer, explorer, dreamer.
The task falls to Luanna, a mage and personal advisor to the king, to ensure that the tower gets what it wants, before the entire kingdom is consumed by magical war.
A war which it has no hope of winning.
---
A story of kings, wizards, adventurers, weird creatures, and a girl who’s happiest when bouncing around with her giant axe, Relioc Tower is the first novel set within the magical world of Ealoryn.
The magic has stirred.
It is reaching out.
The dark, powerful magic contained within Relioc Tower, secluded and withdrawn for fifty years, is quiet no more. It demands one thing: twenty-eight-year-old Ethan, adventurer, explorer, dreamer.
The task falls to Luanna, a mage and personal advisor to the king, to ensure that the tower gets what it wants, before the entire kingdom is consumed by magical war.
A war which it has no hope of winning.
---
A story of kings, wizards, adventurers, weird creatures, and a girl who’s happiest when bouncing around with her giant axe, Relioc Tower is the first novel set within the magical world of Ealoryn.
- GenresFantasy
297 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 16, 2016
9 people are currently reading
43 people want to read
About the author
Richard Lucas
2 books8 followersRichard is a British-born author and traveller. His biggest talent is the ability to type quickly and inaccurately, however he hopes that people enjoy the unravellings of his rather bizarre imagination.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 17, 2021
You know those fun D&D campaigns where every party member has their own quirks, and they get into silly scrapes and heckle each other between quests, but pull together for serious compatibility when sh*t gets real? That's the same feeling I got reading Relioc Tower.
I went in with tempered expectations - I've read my fair share of debut, self-published novels. I ended up being super impressed by how polished this story was. No glaring typos, and while there were some sections here and there that could have used more ruthless trimming by an editor for flow and repetition, the characters and world more than made up for it.
The characters! I love them.
Ethan - a Flynn Rider/Dandelion type, who is having the worst week of his life and is surprisingly emotionally vulnerable.
Luanna - a powerful mage with a powerful secret, with a heart of gold that grows more and more as the story progresses.
Stumpy - my favourite, an oddly lanky lady with a hot temper and a dismissive attitude. Or so it seems.
The side characters are awesome, too, with glimpses of things like PTSD and tragedy and complexity. A hefty percentage of the cast are women, with varied character traits and not just "rah rah sisterhood", which I GREATLY appreciated. (A nice change from the travelling brotherhood trope with the token girl or two that happens often in the genre.)
The tone swings from tongue-in-cheek (a bit Pratchett-esque, I'd say) to serious and emotional. It's a comfortable and engaging read, and the author has a fluid and interesting written voice.
Honestly, I'm shocked the reviews here aren't higher - I'd rank it a solid 4.5, and I'm rounding up to 5 because I loved the characters so danged much. This was thoroughly enjoyable and I look forward to book 2.
I went in with tempered expectations - I've read my fair share of debut, self-published novels. I ended up being super impressed by how polished this story was. No glaring typos, and while there were some sections here and there that could have used more ruthless trimming by an editor for flow and repetition, the characters and world more than made up for it.
The characters! I love them.
Ethan - a Flynn Rider/Dandelion type, who is having the worst week of his life and is surprisingly emotionally vulnerable.
Luanna - a powerful mage with a powerful secret, with a heart of gold that grows more and more as the story progresses.
Stumpy - my favourite, an oddly lanky lady with a hot temper and a dismissive attitude. Or so it seems.
The side characters are awesome, too, with glimpses of things like PTSD and tragedy and complexity. A hefty percentage of the cast are women, with varied character traits and not just "rah rah sisterhood", which I GREATLY appreciated. (A nice change from the travelling brotherhood trope with the token girl or two that happens often in the genre.)
The tone swings from tongue-in-cheek (a bit Pratchett-esque, I'd say) to serious and emotional. It's a comfortable and engaging read, and the author has a fluid and interesting written voice.
Honestly, I'm shocked the reviews here aren't higher - I'd rank it a solid 4.5, and I'm rounding up to 5 because I loved the characters so danged much. This was thoroughly enjoyable and I look forward to book 2.
September 10, 2017
I thoroughly enjoyed this. I felt that the characters developed well, although it took a couple of chapters to really get into them, and the story moved along at a good pace to always keep things interesting. Despite one quite dark scene, the story had a fairly lighthearted feel to it. Some parts felt almost film-like. The plot wrapped up well, with a few hooks left dangling for a potential sequel. Definitely recommended.
March 9, 2018
An interesting story, told with easy to read style. There's more in the series but I have other things to read first
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June 16, 2020Sorry, but this plainly isn't for me. The author may be having fun, but it's all very self-indulgent and redolent of bad '90s fantasy knock-offs. The genre has moved on so much since then.
DNF.
DNF.
March 4, 2017
Decent story but overburdened by long info dumps that take you out of the story. Not worth continuing at this point
February 14, 2017
I got half way through and stopped reading. It's not bad, but it just wasn't pulling me into the story. The tone of the book seemed "off" to me. It would be serious for pages and then all of a sudden start throwing jokes into into the description. Normally that would be cool but it just seemed so out of place. Character development was done entirely through info-dumps.
I might go back to find out how it ends, but at this point I have no attachment to any character.
I might go back to find out how it ends, but at this point I have no attachment to any character.
February 3, 2017
More of a 3.5 star book.
Relioc Tower follows three primary characters who don't really get along with each other at first, but over time they start to at least respect each other. One of them is a mage and advisor to a king who has some lost memories she's trying to recover. The second is a young, gangly female contract adventurer with a large axe, insane speed and agility, and a penchant for being a loner. The third is a bro-ish male adventurer who is constantly being kidnapped by woman but all he seems to think about (at first) is why he can't get any of them to bed him.
The story is decent but fairly predictable and feels like an open-world RPG that is actually quite linear in storymode despite the breadth of the world. The characters take quite a while to warm up to, but eventually you learn to mostly like them.
My biggest problem with the book, however, were the info dumps on the history of man and other creatures on the continent, magic, and geography. None of these were organically done and instead the author literally cuts away from the story and writes things like "now let's take a few pages to talk about the geography..." I feel like all of these info dumps could have been more organically done within the story. Especially the one about magic use. I mean, one of the main characters is a mage for crying out loud!
For a debut novel, it's not bad. There is plenty of room for the author to grow as a writer and he does leave the world open for another follow on story (which to be honest was the story I was most interested in because it's alluded to from the beginning!). I'll read the next one if it's the story I expect and want it to be.
Relioc Tower follows three primary characters who don't really get along with each other at first, but over time they start to at least respect each other. One of them is a mage and advisor to a king who has some lost memories she's trying to recover. The second is a young, gangly female contract adventurer with a large axe, insane speed and agility, and a penchant for being a loner. The third is a bro-ish male adventurer who is constantly being kidnapped by woman but all he seems to think about (at first) is why he can't get any of them to bed him.
The story is decent but fairly predictable and feels like an open-world RPG that is actually quite linear in storymode despite the breadth of the world. The characters take quite a while to warm up to, but eventually you learn to mostly like them.
My biggest problem with the book, however, were the info dumps on the history of man and other creatures on the continent, magic, and geography. None of these were organically done and instead the author literally cuts away from the story and writes things like "now let's take a few pages to talk about the geography..." I feel like all of these info dumps could have been more organically done within the story. Especially the one about magic use. I mean, one of the main characters is a mage for crying out loud!
For a debut novel, it's not bad. There is plenty of room for the author to grow as a writer and he does leave the world open for another follow on story (which to be honest was the story I was most interested in because it's alluded to from the beginning!). I'll read the next one if it's the story I expect and want it to be.
February 13, 2017
It was a wannabe Dark Tower series, and not a good one. I had little interest in any of the characters, and it wasn't clear who was supposed to be the protagonist, or who we should care about. I gave it 3 stars because there was some interesting plot and I did finish it, but wouldn't recommend it at all.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews