This is a review of “The Knight” which is the first book in the High Kingdom series by Pierre Pevel.
This is the tale of Lorn Askarian. Some say he brought the kingdom to the brink of destruction, taking advantage of a dying king and an unpopular queen to strike against his enemies, heedless of the danger posed by a growing rebellion. Others claim he saved the kingdom, following the orders of a king who had him falsely imprisoned, loyal to the last – fighting against desperate odds on the political and physical battlefields alike. Whatever the truth, whatever you choose to believe, this is his story.
It is written in a simple style, and very easy to read. Despite the book’s size, it is a quick and easy thing to get through. There are enough characters to be interesting, but not so many that things get confusing. And it is obvious that the entire world is vast and with lots of lands and peoples. There are strong signs about the various cultures being influenced by French and Italian culture.
The legend and lore of the dragons was fascinating. The Dragon of Destruction and the Dragon of Destiny and the Dragon of Darkness, they were all pulling the strings behind the scenes. There ought to have been more of them. The few characters of the growing Onyx Guard were interesting to meet, the Queen was ambitious and Alan was a good friend and an excellent prince despite his faults. Lorn himself is a fresh breath of air with coldly sacrificing other people to further his goals – a trait usually given to the bad guys.
The battle scenes were very well written. They were full of action and of surprises, and probably the best thing in the entire book.
Unfortunately there are a lot of problems with this story.
It is written in an omniscient style that removes much of the intrigue. Everything that happens gets an instant explanation, and that reads more like a re-telling of a story rather than the main story itself. Small segments at the beginning of most chapters explain what happens and where people go, removing the need to describe a lot of the characters’ surroundings which made things less real. And there is a lot of telling rather than showing what happens, further weakening the writing.
The omniscient style also hurts the characters. When each of their sentences or actions or thoughts get explained right afterwards, the mystery of the book is gone. With it goes any and all desire to get to know the characters, because they are already explained to minute detail. Thanks to that most of the characters seem quite shallow and not worth investment. Lorn is the only character that isn’t over-explained, but in return some of his decisions seem a bit too out of the left field because there were absolutely no hints about them.
When it comes to the mystery surrounding Lorn’s initial accusation that landed him in jail, and even the enmity between the High Kingdom and Yrgaard, they were mentioned so much that they lost their significance. When the revelations came it was difficult to care about them, especially about Lorn’s big secret. They talked about it, but there were few hints at what it could have been, and these hints were far too vague to be considered interesting or very valuable.
The writing is solid, the story is solid, but the way it was executed? Not as much.
It was an okay book all around, but nothing special.
If the second book had been translated from French, then I think I would have liked to read it sometime in the future.
Librarian's Ledger 