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Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Book Review: Farworld, Book 1: Water Keep by J. Scott Savage

Farworld, Book 1: Water Keepis the story of Marcus, a crippled orphan who has been having strange dreams, and Kyja an orphan who grew up in a place called Farworld. The two find themselves inexplicably connected when a strange and dangerous man comes to take Marcus away, and Kyja pulls Marcus through to her world. Will they be able to find a way for him to stay there before it is too late?



Things I Liked:
I picked this one up because Savage is a local author for me. I really enjoyed the fantasy elements of the story. He's created an interesting new world that runs right alongside our world. It is a fun story with a fairly unique premise and lots of adventure. I particularly enjoyed some of the crazy creatures he created.

Things I Didn't Like:
I got a bit distracted by the numerous characters, new creatures, and other fantasy things that I had to keep track of. At times it seemed like too much new stuff. Also, some of these fantasy elements I had a hard time visualizing with his descriptions. I wanted to see them, but they weren't clear enough for me. Maybe it's because I haven't read enough fantasy recently. I imagine things will be clearer and easier to understand in the next books.

Read-alikes:
Definitely had a Lord of the Rings feel
It also reminded me of the Harry Potterbooks

BOOK CONTENT RATINGS:
s-factor: none

mrg-factor: none

v-factor: ->
some fighting

Overall rating: ***

What are some of your favorite classic fantasy books?

If you buy through my Amazon linkage,
I will get a very small percentage

4 comments :

  1. Sticking with Kids/YA and classic Fantasy, ie have stood the test of time, I have always loved:

    CS Lewis's "The Horse & His Boy", from the Narnia series (but the whole series, really.)

    Patricia McKillip's "The Riddlemaster of Hed" trilogy (it's a continuing story, so I count it as one.)

    Ursula Le Guin's "A Wizard of Earthsea".

    Diana Wynne Jones's "Eight Days of Luke" (She has written so many great books, but this was her first, I think, and one of the first I read.)

    Robin McKinley's "Beauty".

    Elizabeth Ann Scarborough's "The Godmother".

    In terms of more recent books, ie perhaps not around long enough to be classic yet, I love Neil Gaiman's "The Graveyard Book", Helen Lowe's "Thornspell" and Suzanne Collin's "The Hunger Games".

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  2. Andie, good suggestions! I too loved Narnia and the Earthsea books. I look forward to reading some of these ones too.

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  3. I,too, sometimes have a problem visualizing his very imaginative creatures.

    Our library is doing The Wizard of Earthsea for Big Read next year! I'd never heard of it and am so excited to read it.

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  4. Suey, I LOVED the Earthsea series! I hope you love it as much as I did.

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