The Tale of Gurion Thricebound by Angela Holder – Spfbo Review

Gurion is a long book. I need to get that out at that place right now. Definitely one of the longest I have ever read for the SPFBO, and I've been at this for three years. That'due south…erm…90 books or and so. I probably too need to say that the writing, the sentence structure, is shine and easy to read. Unlike quite a few of this year's books, I didn't have to go back and re-read a sentence a few times just to get a handle on what was supposed to exist going on. This is a huge plus for me and the author, Angela Holder, needs some deserved praise for this.

Gurion Thricebound is a sorcerer/mage/priest – the terms are interchangeable in this earth. Raised in a higher place the common folk, the wizards alive a life of luxury and health. Able to heal every wound with a modicum of power, never falling prey to affliction and waited on manus and foot, life is skillful. At this bespeak, if it weren't for the first person and the prologue that sets upwardly an event you await a long time for, you would exist hating the titular character. Hither is a society based on the abuse of power, position and built around slavery. Not slavery in the Trade Triangle sense, simply of servitude with no gamble to rising to prominence. The more yous read, the more the world begins to experience uncomfortable.

And that is the point. I don't recall information technology is an blow that the volume is written this mode. The writer has a point to make most power and its abuse. She wants usa to realise how incorrect this all is. Gurion begins to see the world for what it is, and to fight against it. Non in any really active sense, and for me this is where the story starts to lose my interest. It takes so long for there to be much in the way of tension, of disharmonize and for annihilation to actually happen that my involvement waned. There is and so much potential, but I constitute myself wishing the graphic symbol to actually exercise something, to go to the events mentioned in the prologue. The percent on my Kindle hardly shifted equally I read and read and read…

Now I'1000 getting negative and I don't want to. This is a book total of charm and careful, considered, worldbuilding. The society is stratified and realistic. There is an economy and sense of history that rests on the shoulders of all the characters.

Then the "event" happens and Gurion's world changes, merely for me, and this was the reason I stopped reading, it is done without the urgency I expected, the modify of step I needed to really start to enthuse me. If yous're a lover of tedious builds, of graphic symbol and world over pace, of careful prose, of an almost literary fiction approach to the development of a story so yous'll really savor information technology. The fact that it kept me reading for and so long is a testament to all those things.
And at present I must handover to Julia as she read on.

– – –

So here we become…

I did really, really bask Gurion! Yes, it was a long and deadening book – and commonly I am one for fast paced action. But somehow this story kept me hooked all the mode through! Information technology's by far the longest of our SPFBO batch, and even so I read it faster than some of the 300-page books.

I tin't even put a finger on what exactly information technology was that fabricated information technology piece of work for me, when most of our other judges didn't brand it to the end. The characters only somehow clicked with me – and even though the changes in how they meet the world seem glacial at times, it also was what made them seem realistic to me. They didn't wake up 1 day and merely realize everything they'd done so far was wrong and needed to be changed, just their eyes got opened puzzle piece by puzzle slice. Also, the prose was a big plus for me. Very smooth, no editing bug I noticed, and merely similar Geoff already said it is piece of cake to read.

I simply loved how the story progressed and what happened within the world and story. Certain, the book isn't perfect – but no book is.

My gripes are few:

– Some of the "skilful guys" were a bit likewise skillful for my personal taste, simply overall, I did bask my time spent with Gurion and his family.

– Some scenes could have been a bit tighter and the plot therefore progress faster.

– The prologue already tells y'all where the story volition terminate – you just don't know the way to become there yet. That took away even more of the suspense in a book that already full of introspection.

– Also, besides knowing the endpoint of the story, the last bit of the "way to the end" was too anticipated.

But overall, if you like to meet characters grow and acquire, if y'all want to follow a civilization from a two-caste system through a rebellion into a new way of living, if you enjoy discovering a new world and lifestyle flake by bit, this is definitely worth checking out!

I for one will definitely pick up other books past the same author.

The Tale of Gurion Thricebound has now been eliminated from the Self-Published Fantasy Web log-Off.

About the Author

K. R. Matthews began reading in the cot. His mother, at her wits end with the constant noise and unceasing activity, would plop him down on the soft mattress with an encyclopaedia full of pictures and so quietly slip from the room. Growing upwards, he spent Dominicus afternoons on the sofa watching westerns and Bond movies after suffering the dual horror of the sounds of ABBA and the hoover (Vacuum cleaner) globe-trotting up the stairs to wake him in the morning. When not watching the six-gun heroes or spies existence out-acted past their own eyebrows he devoured books like a hungry wolf in the dead of winter. Beginning with Patrick Moore and Arthur C Clarke he soon moved on to Isaac Asimov. Withal, one moisture afternoon in a book shop in his hometown, not far from the continuing stones of Avebury, he picked up the Pawn of Prophecy and started to read - and at present he writes fantasy! Seven Deaths of an Empire coming from Solaris Books, June 2021. Agent: Jamie Cowen, Ampersand Agency. You can follow him on twitter @G_R_Matthews or visit his website at www.grmatthews.com.

hamiltonviscruend.blogspot.com

Source: http://fantasy-faction.com/2017/spfbo-review-the-tale-of-gurion-thricebound-by-angela-holder