This
tale follows a Tribal known as Maledream, a troubled and quiet young man fed up
with his existence on the outskirts of a city that had long ago fallen into
ruin. One morning, after a row with his foster father, he decides to leave the
safety of the Tribal camp and ventures deeper into the ruins of the city.
Stopping in his tread, Maledream is alerted to the screams of a woman nearby.
Watching scared beggars run in the opposite direction, and unable to turn a
blind eye like he normally does, Maledream takes it upon himself to investigate
the distress. What he finds goes against all perceived nature. It is from this
moment that he finds himself spurred on a journey, soon filled with danger from
supernatural forces only heard of in legends from his people. Can Maledream
hope to survive?
Well
I'm not sure we're to begin. The book has some very good points, but as you
might expect for a first time novelist some that are so so, thankfully nothing
that won't improve as the author progresses, & especially as he has already
overcome difficulties in writing as you would be able to see from his website.
These difficulties do affect the writing style slightly, in was a little hard
to initially get into the story because of this, but some patience helped &
I believe the author is constantly working on updates. A good proof reader
would solve this in the long term, though by the end of the novel things were a
lot better.
Post apocalypse stories have been done before,
well most things have these days, but this one brings some new ideas into the
mix based on resonance, and has technology, spirituality, magic in the form of
resonance, as well as mythological stories blended together ( too much ). I did
find it quite refreshing in that resonance which for us has an obviously
scientific basis, but also here a spiritual side and he makes that work well,
the potential in expanding this is great.
The characters in the story were fairly well
described, though I did not fully take to any of them. At times for me they
were quite staid; interaction came across as though they were reading a script,
actions were also at times the same. As well as this I couldn't take to the
fact that they met up with people so readily no matter the situation, always at
the right time and they just seemed to gel straight away, so trusting. I did
enjoy though the part played & will be played by the Anunaki, an inspired
choice, it was unexpected, but one that opens up endless possibilities for
future books.
As a storyline and concept it is good, it has
a lot of mileage though the downside for me was the fact that the story had too
many strands, too many conspiracy theories coming together to answer one main
question or quest. It came across for me a little muddled; it tried to cram as
many ideas into one book as possible, where less would have been better for me.
I might find that this is realized in the rest of the series, which I will be
reading to see if the storyline becomes for me a bit more coherent, less
cluttered and more natural, plus I have to know what becomes of Elric (not a
main character). Elric is a character that was introduced late on, and he took
me back to some of my early reading, mainly 'Michael Moorcocks creation Elric
of Melnibone'. Tenuous connection I know, but the name just jumped out, and
even though he doesn't have the characteristics of that 'Elric', there are
other items in the story that remind me.
With that in mind & saying that this story
has faults, I feel that they will be overcome, so I will award it 4 stars in
hope, the concept alone deserves that. A definite worthwhile read.
Reviewed by Cardmon
You may purchase "Approaching the Dark Age - Resonance" here :DarkissReads Bookstore
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