Peter M. Last

RANTS AND RAMBLES (SPOILER WARNING)

• • I made no secret in the main review that this novel has some problems. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone considering it is Brandon’s first book. And in that context, it is very good. What he lacks in experience and finesse on the writing front, he more than makes up for in heart and soul. The messages of the writing were my favorite part, managing to communicate lessons in teamwork, courage, and self-sacrifice among many others. These types of themes are common to young adult fiction, but what sets Brandon’s work apart is how simple and concrete he makes them while also including nuance often missing from other books. For example, Altar Storm (basically this universe’s version of quidditch; we’ll get to that later) is centered around the concept of teamwork. Brandon takes this obvious and relatively generic idea and expands it. Teamwork is about each person being an individual with unique skills things to bring to each situation. It is about not only being stronger but also more creative together. It is about each member playing to their strengths and covering the weaknesses of the others. And then Brandon brings in even more nuance, discussing how though the goal is to make a team function as well as possible, sometimes certain people are simply not good fits for each other and a change of team makeup is required. The most impressive part is how concrete he makes these concepts by weaving them into the story in an integral fashion. This drives the message home with certainty and clarity and also disguises it beneath layers of story, so it feels natural and not preachy.
  • My largest criticism of the book is that it feels a lot like Harry Potter. Some people may view this statement as a simple observation, but I felt it lessened my enjoyment of the story. From the naming scheme (Example: Bergots in this book vs. Gringotts in Harry Potter), to the setting (a school for young witches and wizards, sorry, essence manipulators, housed in a gigantic castle), to the highly anticipated sport (Altar Storm vs. Quidditch), even to the naming scheme of the book (“Main Character’s Name” and the ”Something about the story”), too many things reminded me of Harry Potter. I’m all for inspiration and taking good ideas from whatever source you can find them, but this felt like a bit too much. To be clear, I am not implying that Brandon ripped off J.K. Rowling—there is plenty of difference between the book series—nor that he even realized the similarities. I have done similar things without realizing it in the past. I simply found the vast numbers of similarities to be distracting.
  • The same words are used time and time again to describe settings in the novel. An example which springs to mind were the stagmoose antler chandeliers (the stagmoose being an animal from this fantasy world). These chandeliers, and certain other descriptors, were used so often that sometimes the world felt more like a computer-generated dungeon in a video game (where each room starts to blend into the next) than a fully fleshed out setting.
  • The magic system in this novel is of the soft variety and is pretty good and consistent. It is broken down into categories of magic which is pretty typical but also introduced the concept of magic colors based on the emotions powering each spell. It is a really interesting concept as it provides insight into the mind of each magician. Though it was not used extensively in this volume, it would be very interesting to see it implemented more fully in the action and magic of the follow-up books. Additionally, the magic usage and descriptions were pretty generalized and generic which makes sense as it is seen through the eyes of adolescent characters who are learning about this world themselves, but I look forward to seeing a more complex understanding and usage of the magic system as the characters mature in their skills. The one particular rant I have about the magic involves how it can be used to interact with physical objects in a sort of conjuring. For example, magic can be used to create arrows to fire off a bow or a blade to use in conjunction with a physical sword hilt. This is all well and good until it is shown that magic can be used to create bullets in conjunction with a physical gun. I question how much sense this makes because while the magic arrows require a bow to fire them, the bullets made for the guns clearly contain the propellent (since this is how a bullet functions). Is the implication is that magic can be used to make gun powder itself? If so, why not just use it to make the whole gun and bullet? Why is the physical gun required at all? A bit of a small nitpick as this is about the only instance where the magic system is potentially inconsistent.
  • On too many occasions in the book, sentences or phrases are written out, broken up with periods between each word. This. Is. Super. Annoying. It doesn’t really add any addition context clues or emphasis to the words and, barring precious few circumstances, is not a good fit.
  • Repetition occurs in books sometimes, and it can be very annoying. “I know the dude is bald and has a scar across his face!” you may find yourself screaming at the book as it reminds you of these facts for the ninth time. It feels like the author thinks you are too stupid to remember details. This is a mistake I made a lot early in my writing career and still have to watch myself closely on. The very legitimate conversation is whether the relevant details were obvious enough previously that I can reasonably expect the reader to remember or if they should be reminded. It’s a tough call because if you don’t remind the reader, someone will not remember and fault you for not saying it again but if you do, someone is going to end up screaming at your book (see my previous dramatization). I say all this to preface my gripe that Brandon repeats detail A LOT in this book. One example of this issue is Vincent, a character who Griff meets early on. Vincent is a particularly large individual, a fact logically harped on at their first meeting since Griff is intimidated by it. Vincent’s size is reiterated half a dozen times over the course of the story, just in case you forgot why people are intimidated by him. Though it was annoying, I recognize this as a problem faced by most new writers and will absolutely give Brandon a pass. This time 😉
  • The world is pretty fun to explore with the characters. I was very confused by some of the lingo which I found to be anachronistic. Then there were chain-link fences and swing sets which felt out of place. I initially had these things marked down as a detriment to the book, but then things began to coalesce until, with the reveal of guns and junkyard cars, it became apparent that this world is a future version of our own where some catastrophic event (my prediction is a nuclear war) reshaped its geography and creatures, and introduced magic. As soon as the pieces fell into place, the already interesting world took on a whole new frame of reference, making for a great setting for this adventure.
  • I want to make it clear that despite the issues I noticed with this novel, it was still very good and I do recommend it. My job when I review books is to point out all of these things, but any particular rant (and, yes, they can be long-winded) does not necessarily have special bearing on my overall opinion. Please refer to my overall star rating for my unified opinion of the book as a whole.