Ravenstone: The Complete Saga by M.S. VerishMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
One of the key questions I ask myself when summing up a book is, "Would I read a sequel?"
It's telling, then, that with the sequel actually included in the same volume - no effort or expense at all involved in getting it - my answer at the end of the first book is "no".
A bland and trite fantasy world. An unimaginative quest. Incompetent characters with not much depth to them, and three out of the four of them end up having exactly the same trauma (having killed someone). But what really puts me off is the language.
At first inconsistently, but later on most of the time, it's written in what I think of as Vancian prose: excessively ornate, and therefore distancing. People don't just say things; they "utter" and "voice". I don't enjoy that even when Jack Vance does it, and he at least does it competently. Few other people do, and these authors are not among those few. For example, they seem to think that "obviate" means "make obvious," which it certainly does not.
The prose therefore ends up as a clumsy disaster, like a clown in a crowded broom closet.
A better story, better characters, or a better setting might have tempted me to read on, but with all of those mediocre at best, the terrible prose was too much to wade through for a second volume.
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