Ravensoul: Legends of the Raven Book 4 | ||||||||
James Barclay | ||||||||
Pyr, 432 pages | ||||||||
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A review by Dominic Cilli
I found the strongest entry in the entire series was the previous novel, Demonstorm. When I finished
that book I was fairly impressed by what I had read and felt the series, while having its ups and downs,
had closed on a strong note. Ravensoul, from its very start felt tacked on. The story of Balaia
had come to a strong close in Demonstorm and this fourth novel is simply one more adventure for
the Raven. Basically, the story in Ravensoul resembles a couple of the previous books in the series. We
have a seemingly undefeatable enemy who invades Balaia from another dimension. This time they are called
the Garonin and, instead of using the traditional dragons or demons, Barclay gives us a more modernized
race. They invade with giant machines that harvest mana and they do not care if they destroy everything in
their path and only the Raven can save Balaia. If it sounds familiar, that's because it is. Since the
threat posed by the Garonin will affect many dimensions, the souls of the former dead of Balaia, most notable
all the old Raven characters and most of the key players from past novels start to come back in different bodies.
Quite frankly, the thought of bringing all the old characters back to life in different bodies reeks of
desperation or a publisher goading an author into just one more entry because I didn't miss most of these
characters all that much to begin with. Even if you're a big Barclay fan, this novel seems like it should
have been put on the backburner for several years to at least give readers some time to miss
them. After all, Demonstorm and Ravensoul were both published in 2011. As it stands, I
can't recommend Ravensoul to any but the most devoted Barclay fans. James Barclay isn't a bad author
at all, but The Raven is a bit played out and simplistic and best suited for younger gamer-fiction
fans. For grizzled veterans of fantasy who have read the best this genre has to offer, you won't find
much in these books that you haven's seen done better elsewhere. It is time for Mr. Barclay to move on and
only then will we know if he can ascend to that next level. He has the potential, but only time will tell
if it becomes fully realized.
When asked to write a third-person tag line for his reviews, Dominic Cilli farmed the work out to an actual 3rd person, his friend Neal, who in turn turned it over to a second person who then asked his third cousin to help out and this person whom Dom doesn't even know then wrote in 8th person Omniscient mode "Dom's breadth of knowledge in literature runs the gamut and is certainly not bounded by the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre. One thing I can say with certainty is that of all the people I don't know who've ever recommended books to read, Dom's recommendations are the best." |
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