Friday, July 27, 2007

Shadow (The Trilogy, Book 1) by K. Parker (3/5 stars)

I read this book last year but was upset by the inaccuracy of the other reviews posted so here is the review that I posted on it.

I ordered this book based on the other reviews I was seeing on Amazon. I have to admit the book is a very interesting concept and really keeps you guessing. Neat concept, very thought provoking. Definitely not what I would call a "candy" book (all good action, entertaining, but you never think twice about it after reading it).

Unfortunately I feel that it could have had more depth and more action. As you follow the character through the book you end up looking at everything very dispassionately. Which may be the way you would see things if you had lost your memory I suppose...but I feel you would still have very strong opinions and views. This approach to writing made it so I didn't really care what happened to any of the characters, I didn't like them, I didn't care about them. I believe these are very important things to make a book engrossing.

The other thing that was lacking was good pacing. The middle of the book plods along...vvveerrryy sslloowwly. I really didn't care what type of buttons the lead character, Poldarn, ended up selling, I mean who really cares. It had no benefit to the story except to show that Poldarn was lost and confused and I picked that up in the first half. If you had cut out about 100 pages and given the characters some passionate opinions then I would rate this book 4-5 stars.

All that being said I will probably read the 2nd book. If you had asked me if I was going to continue the series 3 chapters before the ending of this book I would have told you I am selling this book and shame on me for purchasing the next two in the series. But, the last few chapters were enough to re-spike the curiosity that the first part of the book generated. I am hoping the pace and depth of the characters picks up in the second book.

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