Choice of the Mighty

by Kenyon T. Henry

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PLOT SYNOPSIS (from the back of the book)
On the brink of madness, Stephen returns home with a terrible secret – he’s a monster! With the abilities to read peoples’ minds changing him in ways he never intended, he turns to the only father-figure he ever knew.

As Stephen begins understanding his special gift, he learns that his bloodline traces back to ancient lineage more than 3,000 years old, thrusting him into the middle of an underground battle between good and evil that has raged for eternity.

He soon finds himself forced to choose a side in a battle he wants no part in, leaving him with the existential question of the ages, “Who am I?”

Book Information

Series: The Chronicles of Stephen
Book: 1
Age Range: 13+
Content Notice: Mild violence, topics of death and suicide, some scary elements, and overt religious content
Faith Based: Yes
ISBN: 978-1543010671

Ratings

THE BOTTOM LINE
Doesn’t live up to its potential

THOUGHTS
Choice of the Mighty is a book with a lot of potential. This urban fantasy set in Saint Louis is creative and exciting to start; unfortunately, story locations, factions, and politics are not described enough to get a feel for the world. Locations are minimally described, meaning nothing is specific to Saint Louis or even to the lore of the tale. Little development of the general milieu leaves the world feeling flat. Many of the characters begin strong with interesting variety to their personalities, skills, upbringing, and outlook on life; however, none of them receive significant development. The development which does exist occurs via sudden changes rather than more gradual and logical ones and thus feel unearned. Though the plot feels like it begins in the middle of a story, it is not bad when it gets up to speed. Unfortunately, that speed dissipates quickly during lulls in the action. Uneven pacing is to blame for this. Whenever the story finally gets rolling, the book takes a break as people sit around and talk for a while. The stop-and-go nature of the action combined with a lot of conveniences make the plot feel particularly thin. The writing is not bad in terms of word choice and sentence construction, but it does contain some stilted dialogue, making immersion difficult. More problematic is the repetition wherein the same concept is conveyed to the reader two or three times in as many paragraphs. The constant circling back to ideas slows the pace of the book and destroys the story’s flow. While it has an interesting premise and an okay plot, poor execution of writing and characters make this book much less than it could be. It’s not terrible, but I would pass on this one unless you have an otherwise compelling reason to read it.

 RANTS AND RAMBLES
WARNING: It should go without saying that this review is my personal opinion, an opinion which I strive to support adequately, but please do not assign it undue importance (i.e. if I hate a book and you like it, don’t feel the need to change your opinion). Please also note that while I regularly rant about mere irritants in a novel, something must be remarkably good to garner the same level of comment. This means my rants and rambles tend to skew more negative than I often intend my review to be. With that in mind, please refer to my overall star rating for my unified opinion on this book.

  • MILD SPOILERS: The book seems to begin in the middle of a story, and as I worked my way through the volume, I couldn’t help but think it would function better as the second or third installment of a series rather than the first. The first book could follow Stephen as he struggles to fit into his life. Something is different about him, but he doesn’t know what. We could see Bernard and Stephen’s friendship, so we have a deep connection to him rather than simply being told he is Stephen’s closest friend. Either the same book or a sequel could follow Stephen as he explores the world to discover his purpose. We could see Stephen discovering his powers and struggling with how to use them correctly. In this manner, we would see why he thinks of himself as a monster at the beginning of Choice of the Mighty instead of simply being told that he does. This book clearly begins the series so that the superpowered aspects can be introduced relatively quickly, but I feel like we missed some important points of introduction and development.
  • SPOILERS: An example of the repetition mentioned in the main review can be found at the end of chapter 15 when Alistar tells Stephen that his (Alistar’s) visions of the future are only recommendations but that failing to follow them does not produce good outcomes. Moments later, Stephen looks in Alistar’s memories where someone else says the same thing. This delivery slows the pace and frustrates the reader who wants to continue to read new scenes and discover new information. Instead, they must take one step backward for every two steps forward, massacring the momentum of the story.
  • MAJOR SPOILERS: There are way too many coincidences in this book. 1) Stephen meets Vincent’s mom prior to the events of the book and accidentally screws up her mind. He then meets Vincent later and becomes his friend. Later, Vincent invites Stephen to his mother’s house for Thanksgiving (without knowing anything about Stephen’s involvement in his mother’s condition) where Stephen is able to undo the damage he caused. It is quite lucky that Stephen was the one to do the damage and could subsequently undo it. 2) Waltz, Stephen’s father-figure, turns out to be his actual dad. The coincidence of Waltz, unaware that he has a child, stumbling upon a young and recently orphaned Stephen and taking him in is unbelievable. 3) When Stephen is trying to find Bernard, he runs into a man on the street and follows him home because he sees suicidal ideations in his mind. He is able to stop the man from killing himself. It turns out that this person is Bernard’s old roommate and provides a clue to Bernard’s whereabouts. What a stroke of luck, both for the roommate and Stephen. 4) In general, it seems everyone Stephen is acquainted with is related to the secret world he finds himself in. Waltz was a Mighty, Vincent’s mom was one of the members of Waltz’s triune, Bernard is a bad guy, and Pastor Buchannon is the David. Star Wars gets poked at because everyone of importance in the universe seems to be related to the Skywalkers, and this is a step beyond that.
  • MAJOR SPOILERS: There are several points in the book where events and actions have no lasting consequences. A good example is when the council of The Mighty vote on whether to admit Stephen to the order or not. They do not grant him entrance, a decision which could have led to interesting character development and future story for Stephen as he tries to find his place in the world when the one organization he seems to belong to rejects him. Any potential here is quickly crushed, however, when the ultimate leader of The Mighty overturns the decision of the council mere sentences after the verdict is delivered. What is the point of the council voting the way they did if it has no meaning or impact?
  • MAJOR SPOILERS: The beginning of Chapter 15 highlights an important weakness of the story, the problem of choice. The choice revolves around whether Stephen will accept Christ or join The Fallen. As the book frames it, his choice is to “follow the Son of God and join [The Mighty] or risk being rejected, even hunted, as one of the Fallen.” What is the dilemma here? Unless I’m missing something, there really isn’t an upside to joining The Fallen. Without Stephen perceiving pros and cons to both decisions, there isn’t really a choice. It is obvious from the book’s framing that he is going to accept Christ, and that is indeed what he does.