The Light of Eidon by Karen Hancock is the book in the Legends of the Guardian-King. The author is known for Christian fantasy, so there is likely some effort to forward a religious perspective. I got this book for free for the Kindle.
Started: 9/18/2013
Completed: 10/22/2013
Recommendation: Easy read, don't look for a lot
Recommended By: Nobody
Review:
I was expecting a pretty heavy handed attempt at Fantasy from a religious perspective, but that is not what this is. The book stands on its own as a fantasy novel. Sure, there are some pervasive religious concepts that rather clearly map to current religions ("The Dead God" and the concept of at least a 2-in-1 deity). These religious concepts, however, help strengthen the book and definitely don't take away. A Christian reader is not going to be greatly offended by any of the religious concepts put forward and may find themselves at home. Having addressed religion so thoroughly, this book does not read as a religious text.
The characters, for the most part, are a bit flat and real character development is largely limited to the protagonist. Even there, and in most of the other characters, character traits are rather static. The adventure part of the story is fairly good and internally consistent. There are some real implausibilities (sickly boy becomes gladiator pretty much over night and a woman in what is a match for Arabic society has too much sway) but those are explained away in terms of the uniqueness of the characters and there is no need to suspend disbelief. There are a few that are internally inconsistent implausibilities (queen who is forced into prostitution and the cascading dependencies therefrom) that do take away from the story and that frustrated me mildly.
This book isn't going to convert you into some religion. It may be mildly supportive of your existing religious view. There are no raunchy sex scenes. This is a beach book and while I have a mild interest in the characters, I doubt I will read the next book in the series.
I was expecting a pretty heavy handed attempt at Fantasy from a religious perspective, but that is not what this is. The book stands on its own as a fantasy novel. Sure, there are some pervasive religious concepts that rather clearly map to current religions ("The Dead God" and the concept of at least a 2-in-1 deity). These religious concepts, however, help strengthen the book and definitely don't take away. A Christian reader is not going to be greatly offended by any of the religious concepts put forward and may find themselves at home. Having addressed religion so thoroughly, this book does not read as a religious text.
The characters, for the most part, are a bit flat and real character development is largely limited to the protagonist. Even there, and in most of the other characters, character traits are rather static. The adventure part of the story is fairly good and internally consistent. There are some real implausibilities (sickly boy becomes gladiator pretty much over night and a woman in what is a match for Arabic society has too much sway) but those are explained away in terms of the uniqueness of the characters and there is no need to suspend disbelief. There are a few that are internally inconsistent implausibilities (queen who is forced into prostitution and the cascading dependencies therefrom) that do take away from the story and that frustrated me mildly.
This book isn't going to convert you into some religion. It may be mildly supportive of your existing religious view. There are no raunchy sex scenes. This is a beach book and while I have a mild interest in the characters, I doubt I will read the next book in the series.
