Normally when I go to the book store I’m looking for two kinds of books… either one by an author I have enjoyed in the past, or one that has been recommended by a friend or other review. Last week I went looking for books of a different sort… the kind you find on a bargain bin by and author you’ve never heard of. It was here I found ‘Battle-Chasers’ by T.S. Robinson.
First, let me say it wasn’t a bad book. Its not something I would recommend to someone with great literary knowledge, someone who has read Tolkien, Martin, even Jordan. But I might push this on a younger reader to perhaps get them interested in reading. It was a short, fun read, that I finished in about five hours.
However… the book reads like a few guys sitting around a table playing D&D. As opposed to much fantasy where oft times magic is rare, here it is everywhere. Magic bracers, magic weapons, magic potions, priests, sorcerers, spellcasting, etc etc… Every character uses it, and much of its use really does feel like someone reading off the back of a character sheet. Rather than saying “When he spoke his voice seemed to be accompanied by a low growl, as if he were speaking two tongues at once, and the dragon appeared hypnotized by his words…” he goes with “The potion of dragon control he quaffed earlier magnified his command…” And that happens alot, a matter of fact explanation that paints little picture of the scene. The author also seems to like the word ‘greasy’ or perhaps his thesaurus just didn’t have another word for it, because it showed up… alot.
Anyway… in the end, it was fun and I feel like that I might just walk away from this book a better writer now that I’ve seen a few things I want to be sure not to do. It was worth the two dollars I paid for it.