"Despite being 131k words long this story doesn’t really have all that much happen in it."
Path to Vengeance
Written by W. H. Cann
Genre: Science Fiction
Book Synopsis
When his brother, father and fiancée are killed by Krelathan raiders, Grogaan’s life is ripped apart, causing grief, anger and rage. He vows his revenge and sets about on his ‘path to vengeance’ by purchasing four starfighters for him and his friends, which they extensively modify to give them the advantage in battle. As a result of his intense emotional trauma brought on by his losses, he experiences troubling and disturbing dreams, leading to bouts of severe depression.Feeling guilty over the loss of his loved ones, especially his fiancée, Grogaan avoids romantic involvement until Joeen, his brother’s former fiancée re-enters his life, causing him more emotional turmoil. This is further compounded when he meets Ellarna and falls head over heals for her.
When their ships are finished, Grogaan and his friends prove their piloting skills and spearhead the counter offensive against the Krelathan raiders, but Grogaan continues to struggle over his dilemma about the two women.
A chance meeting with members of a long forgotten sect, ‘The Brotherhood of the Teragon Eagle’, on a nearby planet, together with information revealed to him by his mother, prove Grogaan’s unique abilities are due to his family heritage; an ancestor having been a well respected wizard and a member of the Guardian Order.
It’s his abilities enhanced by his gift of magic that take him and his friends on a path that impacts on the future of the galaxy as foretold by a two hundred year old prophecy, a path he begins to tread while developing a powerful relationship with one of the two women.
Bec's Rating
Bec's Review
Despite being 131k words long this story doesn’t really have all that much happen in it. Sure there are quite a few action scenes but these make up very little of the story, with most of the words being devoted to telling us every single thing the characters are thinking and providing unnecessary information that often does not advance the plot or is even relevant to the story. There are even times when the information is repeated or told in a different way. While it may seem to some that a detailed story is a good story, in this case there is far too much detail, making this a story that could probably have been told in about half as many words as it took. Sometimes cutting out words and details has to be done, and that is why editors exist, to read and help remove the extra details that, while important when writing the story, may not actually help the plot along. In fact I found myself tuning out of the story several times.
Combined with this overly detailed nature of the story is the fact that this is one of those stories that tells and not shows us the action. As we get to hear the inner thoughts of every character involved the story there is little room left for showing us what happens. This results in a rather dry read that is not helped by being overly long and detailed. There are a few other instances in the story where it seems it needs a slight edit, such as times when the wrong pronoun is used to refer to a person (he instead of she and so on) but overall all these problems, the telling and the unnecessary details, can be fixed with an edit.
It is important to remember in the sci fi field that while long books are the norm, length of book does not always relate to the quality of the book. In fact this book might actually prove to be a good read if it was so much shorter than it was. Were the author to show us the action and cut a lot of the unnecessary information and words that slow down the story and make the book difficult to stay interested in then this might end up being an interesting story. However due to having to wade through the irrelevant information to find the story relevant to the plot it is hard to tell in its current format just how good a book this one may one day end up being.
Disclaimer: May not be appropriate for children due to violence.
