"Caldera has so much potential to be a great fantasy read…" #Kindle #BookReview

Caldera: The Book of Ixkin

by Matthew Cousineau

Genre: Fantasy

Book Synopsis

The Americas, history's greatest secret, hidden for thousands of years by the mystical race known as the Delar. Now as their last mother draws her final breath, the secret they have fought and died for has been discovered. The fate of these lands filled with magic and wonder rests in the hands of her twin sons.

Here in the vast untamed wild filled with supernatural forces and fantastic creatures, each child must survive, separated from his mother and hidden from an ancient evil that waits to be freed from the shadows of the great Caldera. As the twins endeavor to survive through war, love, betrayal, life and death in these magical lands, the fate of their friends—and the world—hangs by a thread.

Bec's Rating

Bec's Review

I know I use the word potential a lot, but in the case of this book the word potential is true. Caldera has so much potential to be a great fantasy read and despites its shortcomings (which I will go into below) I did find myself several times being sucked into the story and really enjoying what was written. The plot carries this book along and yet this plot is not enough to make up for the problems found within the pages, though perhaps with a good edit it may be.

So what are those problems I found? Well namely the book is told in the present tense. This isn’t always a problem for books, and I’ve read a number of books where this technique works quite well. Sadly this is not one of those books, with the present tense leading itself to the writing telling us the story rather than showing us the events and making us feel in the moment. The language is bland and it really does feel like listening to a story be told rather than be able to visualise the story happening. There were so many times when the story had the potential to make me feel emotions and yet it didn’t.

The present tense is also an issue in that there are two storylines present in the book, jumping between the two perspectives. Sometimes the perspective change involves going back a few days in order to tell the events for the same time as the other perspective. To me it does not make sense to write a story in present tense when occasionally the story must jump back to the past in order to catch up with the other side of events.

Ultimately I did enjoy reading this book in the end, and it has an interesting plot that drew me in. However overall I was disappointed that the shortcomings, such as the use of present tense and the telling of the story as opposed to showing led to a rather bland reading, causing the writing of the book to fall short of the potential of the plot. Perhaps one day this book will be a great read, but for now it will have to settle for being classed as just making good.

Disclaimer: May not be appropriate for children due to violence.