I am probably just too hard on books, I'll admit. But as I grow older, I just keep thinking about how I have only a limited amount of time left to enjoy books that thoroughly hook me from page one, and the amount of books out there is only growing (and growing at a more rapid pace) daily. From the 15 or so pages I read of this book, it's not POORLY written. It might be leading somewhere. But it just seemed another somewhat dismal entry in a pantheon of ever-growing fantasy books with little to no spark to interest me. The back cover sounded promising. Half an hour later, I'm reading about courtesans and going through the motions with a character I wish I were meeting 100 pages down the road. Sigh. So it goes ... Someone left this on the donation pile at work and I thought I'd give it a go. I will admit to being bored by parts of it and just skimming through the pages. But otherwise it's what's known as 'an enjoyable romp'. It's not brilliant by any stretch of the imagination and every single character fits a standard fantasy trope (poor boy with huge destiny, pretty girl running from past but she doesn't know who she is, also quite likely to have a huge destiny). The women are pretty standard - smart and ugly, or pretty and manipulative. *rolls eyes*. However, the story set in a world without water (echoes of Dune here) is interesting and ways in which people conserve and control their resources was interesting to read. The politics of the rainlords and stormlords was something I would have liked to read more of. But I've noticed that some fantasy does political manoeuvring well (GRRM and Feist and Wurts) and others skirt around the edges of it - the latter is what this book does. It's interesting and there are elements of originality - Ziggers especially. Weird bug-type killing machines (like something out of the Hunger Games). Most of the characters are one-dimensional so there's not much depth which is probably why I skipped through some page with lots of description (it's not a good thing though that I've done that and still have the measure of the story). For all of my griping, it's been perfect for my quiet evenings and morning bus journeys as it's not a hard read. :) I will be reading the second and probably the third because I'd like to know what happens. But I'm not holding my breath for anything breathtakingly original.
What do You think about The Last Stormlord (2010)?
Fantastic...best book I've read in awhile!
—lmarshall405
