Book Review: The Northronde Princess by Forrest Kyle

Genre: Sci-fi/ Fantasy (No, really. It rarely happens, but this does fall under both categories!!)


Re-cap: Princess Kaelyn Alspeare is just your average princess, with a loving father and mother, and the joy of occasionally having to play a pleasant hostess to visiting dignitaries. She is excited to meet the Emperor fro Hau' Pan, and his son, the reserved Li Yan Zhou. When she takes him into the forest for a tour of their lands, neither are expecting the events that will cause their world to change forever. 

Witnessing a strange object crashing from the sky, Kaelyn and Li Yan flee back to the castle to get help. On the way, they collapse with fever. When Kaelyn awakes days later, she finds that a massive plague has swept through her homeland. Most of the population is decimated by the plague, but of the few who survive, many come back with strange powers. Kaelyn's parents both died, and the man who is taking over was odd before, but has become a maniac who cannot die. 

Kaelyn flees her home in the hopes of finding safety with the Hau'pan emperor. Along the way she finds Li Yan and discovers that the plague has affected the entire planet. Together Li Yan and Kaelyn work to save their planet, their people and their own lives. 
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The Good:  It is so very rarely that an author can pull off writing sci-fi and fantasy, but to combine the two in one book and have that book be an absolutely awesome read? Yeah, that is what this book does. The author uses a traditional fantasy style of writing that flows so smoothly that it graciously enhances the story. His world-building is elegant and so skillfully constructed as to feel real. I loved the element of bringing an oriental feel to a genre that rarely adapts such elements. Li Yan was by far my favorite character, in a novel full of amazing characters. 
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The Bad: Sadly, about half-way through there was a drop in proper editing skills. It was not so bad as to ruin the story, but it was enough for me to notice.  I also got a little overwhelmed by all of the different and exceptionally interesting and unique characters. (Alright, that wasn't completely a bad thing, but this book could easily have been twice as long!) 
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The Ugly: This is a very subjective ugly, but it is ugly nonetheless. The author had so many opportunities in which he could have (and, I suppose, could still...) create multiple books of this world. But the ending is rather finite. Also... I really hated the end right before the end. Don't worry, when you read the book, you will totally get what I am talking about. To say any more would ruin the story. And although there is a huge gap of time between the end of the action and the end of the story, in which the author could go on to create other books about this world; we still know from this book how the story ends and that is something I hate. Now the author could go on to write books about Northronde that happen in a later period... or maybe even an earlier period, just as the dragon Lance series did. But without any indication that will occur, there is nothing to hold my appetite for another. 


Overall: 
This is a book so enjoyable that I wish that there was a paperback copy to add to my bookshelves. I really was very sad when the story ended. Not just because of the way the book ended, but because I was suffering from:
Courtesy of Someecards.comNormally I post an Amazon Associates button for the book reviewed on the right hand side, but this book apparently was not available for such a link :( But you can purchase it from Amazon. It looks like the author removed it from Smashwords :(
Until next time,
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