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Vanor: The Journey Begins
"Why had the Gods decided that she was the one to hold so much power and why had they not given her a book of instructions?"
Under the tutelage of a wise old wizard and a dashing knight, country girl Vanor assumes an apprenticeship in all things mighty and magical. Vanor's quest to be a force of good leads her into other worlds peopled by extraordinary creatures and characters.
But exactly who are friends and who are foes? Challenges abound and Vanor must face her darkest hour before she can fully realise her magical powers.
Under the tutelage of a wise old wizard and a dashing knight, country girl Vanor assumes an apprenticeship in all things mighty and magical. Vanor's quest to be a force of good leads her into other worlds peopled by extraordinary creatures and characters.
But exactly who are friends and who are foes? Challenges abound and Vanor must face her darkest hour before she can fully realise her magical powers.
146 pages, Paperback
First published December 25, 2012
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November 17, 2015
This book came highly recommended. I did take a peek inside to check out the first chapter. Very impressive. It opens with the wolf fight depicted on the front cover. So I bought it.
But after the first chapter it's downhill all the way.
Kajn is a knight assigned by an old and powerful magician to protect Vanor, a girl who might be 'the one'.
After the first hundred pages, the use of the title 'the old man' to describe the magician really started to grate. I think it was the three-sentence paragraph in which 'the old man' was used five times that finally did me in. A major character who never acquires a proper name is not mysterious, just irritating. Even Cynthia Voight in Flight of the Falcon eventually realised this about her nameless boy.
Point-of-view in Vanor was so lacking that occasionally a single paragraph contained details of an incident in one city along with another incident in another city. Which might not have been so bad except that the geography wasn't clear for several more paragraphs. Times and scenes were as hopelessly tangled as the geography.
I'm not sure why I persisted to the end of the novel. But I did - and was duly rewarded. The epilogue is by far the best part of the entire book - it is absolutely intriguing and had obviously been written with the same skill and care as the first chapter. It's a pity that no one seems to have given Vanor more than a cursory edit - or maybe they figured there are two kinds of buyers in the world: the ones who check out the first chapter and the ones who skip straight to the end and check out the last.
But after the first chapter it's downhill all the way.
Kajn is a knight assigned by an old and powerful magician to protect Vanor, a girl who might be 'the one'.
After the first hundred pages, the use of the title 'the old man' to describe the magician really started to grate. I think it was the three-sentence paragraph in which 'the old man' was used five times that finally did me in. A major character who never acquires a proper name is not mysterious, just irritating. Even Cynthia Voight in Flight of the Falcon eventually realised this about her nameless boy.
Point-of-view in Vanor was so lacking that occasionally a single paragraph contained details of an incident in one city along with another incident in another city. Which might not have been so bad except that the geography wasn't clear for several more paragraphs. Times and scenes were as hopelessly tangled as the geography.
I'm not sure why I persisted to the end of the novel. But I did - and was duly rewarded. The epilogue is by far the best part of the entire book - it is absolutely intriguing and had obviously been written with the same skill and care as the first chapter. It's a pity that no one seems to have given Vanor more than a cursory edit - or maybe they figured there are two kinds of buyers in the world: the ones who check out the first chapter and the ones who skip straight to the end and check out the last.
Displaying 1 of 1 review