Stormdancer

[Cole]

For those of you that read this book post here. Spoilers will be posted, you have been warned!

[Malaraa]

I tried the free sample and that was more than enough for me so I'll sit this one out I think. :)

[Cole]

That's too bad, what about it turned you off?

[Malaraa]

It just seemed like he started by taking every "popular" cliche related to stories set in Japan (or China) and shoved them all together. He used them as shortcuts, like a story a bunch of kids under 10 would come up with while playing pretend, because everything they know about Japan came from highly Americanized trends. So we get a Mulan clone hero, not because he wanted to write that story but because he doesn't know how to set a story in that part of the world without using that. You get an irrational request from a noble so he can say "because I said so" instead of developing a real reason for the quest's goal. (lots of European medieval fantasy is bad about doing that also) And we'll get lots of over-dramatic whining about honor and family, not based on the characters caring about these things, but because it's a cheap cop-out for people too lazy to actually look at *why* and *how* this was important to those cultures.

It might get better as it goes, but the start just felt...cheap. I could overlook the setting being weak based on it being his first book, but this is way beyond weak.

For a much better example of an Asian setting in someone's first novel, try The Drowning City. There are a few weak spots in the book, but not nearly so bad, and the setting is very well done, the similarities with real cultures worked in with a much more subtle manner. I'm sure it helps that the author actually lived in Indonesia for a short time. Granted, it doesn't have griffons.... ;)