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Title | A Story of River
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Author | Lana Axe
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Cover Art | Lana Axe
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Publisher | AxeLord Publications - 2013
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First Printing | AxeLord Publications - 2013
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Title | War of the Wildlands
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Author | Lana Axe
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Cover Art | ---
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Publisher | 2013
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First Printing | 2013
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Category | Fantasy
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Warnings | ---
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Main Characters | River, Aelryk, Ulda, Mel
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Main Elements | Elves
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Website | lana-axe.com
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A Story of River
To save his people from a fate worse than death, a king must join forces with a powerful elemental.
Aelryk's kingdom is under attack by monsters conjured by a dark sorcerer. His only hope lies far to the west, where a powerful water elemetal is rumored to dwell. Along the way, he joins forces with the Wild Elves, who were once his enemy. They alone can lead him through the dangers of the Wildlands. Together, they must journey to a mysterious land of eternal spring and return before the kingdom is overrun by evil.
This was a simple tale of magic and elves, elementals and sorcerers. We follow Wild Elf Mel and human King Aelryk as they see the answer of how to bring a "river" to defend their homes from the dark creatures at the command of the evil elven wizard Ulda.
This story had a lot of promise but I would have liked to see more dimension in the characters and more details in the world building. Axe has created a fascinating world, but there were times when something would be mentioned in an offhand way about the way the magic there worked and the reader is left wanting more. For example the brief, but nearly pointless, meeting with the fire elemental.
Also, and this is not a fault I've found only in Axe's story but I've seen even in professionally published books, if you are going to write about a purely evil villain, NEVER, EVER write from his point of view. I ended up picturing Ulda rubbing his hands together, cackling evily, as he devised more and horrible ways to torture children and drown kittens. One really doesn't want to be inside their head when they have no thoughts other than how to do bad things (which they will enjoy) and to gain more power (which is the only thing they care about). At this point you are not given an opportunity to find any redeeming feature about them, something I find necessary in a villain so that they avoid becoming a caricature.
On the other hand I'm very fond of River. The scenes where he would communicate with the river spirit were beautiful, and the relationships of the elves with their lifemates was very sweet and touching.
The story itself moved at a swift pace, sometimes perhaps a bit too swift as it sounded like they traversed the world and back in a matter of paragraphs, but the reader never gets bored. And on the whole there is a feeling of high fantasy, enchantment, and of the gentle, but powerfule magics that come along with tales of elven-kin. Where the trees and the rivers are alive. Not sure I would go out to buy the next book in the series, but if I found it at the right price, I would certainly like to come back to this world for a visit.
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