Thinblade: Sovereign of the Seven Isles, Book 1

This fantasy novel is so badly flawed that the overall 4.5/5-star average rating it has received here on Amazon must surely be largely the work of phony shill reviewers posting 5/5-star reviews on behalf of the author.  I'd like to give a more objective, discerning opinion of what people can expect from this book. Be forewarned that to provide specific examples of just how simplistic and lacking this book actually is, I will be divulging spoilers from this point forward, and since there are so many examples of bad writing, this review will be lengthy. However, unlike a lot of 1/5-star reviews, that simply state "I didn't like it" or "It didn't meet my standards" (without bothering to tell us what those standards are), I'm not only going to provide specific examples, but even page numbers to show that my criticisms are genuine.First, what many of the positive reviewers have stated about the book having an "unique" perspective or it is claimed to have a "refreshing" plot is flat-out false. This is one of many hundreds or thousands of fantasy novels slopped together by a person who has more desire to see his or her name on a book cover than original and creative ideas, that features that most overused and worn-out of fantasy clichés, the youth who is surprised to discover that he is the "chosen one" who must quest across the lands, accompanied by some form of crusty-but-adorable, wise old magic user on a quest to seek the great magical weapon (the Thinblade) to defeat the evil, all-powerful, god-like sorcerer king (actually, prince in this story) and save the world. The plot of this book is so unoriginal that to call it "unique" is akin to claiming that Stalin was a champion of liberty or that John Belushi was a master of self-control and forbearance.What the 4/5 and 5/5-star reviewers also fail to mention is that the novel in its first 50 pages starts to resemble Robin Hobb's Farseer Trilogy books 2 and 3 in terms of how asinine, illogical and ridiculous its plot flaws are (yes, there are a lot of Hobb fans out there who might be shocked to hear me say that, but here's my review of Assassin's Apprentice that justifies my criticisms of the Farseer Trilogy:https://www.amazon.com/gp/review/R2BDI2DPOJOK99?ref_=glimp_1rv_clAfter the older brother of Alex, our protagonist, is killed by assassins in the first few pages of the book, Alex learns that he has now become the chosen one who is "cursed" with the mark of the Reishis, the ancient line of sorcerer kings and that curse now grants to him the duty to adopt a new career that has been his family's burden for two thousand years, sorcerer-king-killers. Alex learns that the evil sorcerer Prince Phane just awoke from a 2,000 year nap and as the now-oldest son of the family, Alex must hunt down and kill the evil sorcerer Phane. Except for one tiny problem: Wells forgot to include one little fact with his clichéd plot, namely that unlike all of the other Youths-Who-Save-The-World-With-Great-Big-Magic-Sword, Alex isn't an orphan and he isn't actually the last of his line - his dad is still alive. Why doesn't his father, Duncan Valentine, have the mark, since he's really the eldest son?And, let's ask another question that might have a smidge of relevance to those who, oh, I don't know, like what they read to make sense: how exactly is it that 2,000 years after the sorcerer kings are defeated, the last one has been hidden for two full millennium in a magic obelisk, everyone on the planet thinks that the line of evil sorcerers died in their mage war thousands of years ago, and most people don't even remember those sorcerers, the Reishi kings, ever existing, they still have tremendous numbers of followers located everywhere? The general and leader of the Reishi Protectorate, the sorcerer prince's followers, can inform Prince Phane upon the latter's release from his obelisk, that he has a network on the Seven Isles of 20,000 spies and 60,000 soldiers committed to do Phane's bidding to conquer the world - how could that possibly be? (set aside the fact that we presently have several billion people on Earth who are more-or-less doing the same thing with a slightly better known wizard out of mythology - we call them "Christians").How exactly is it that the general, the most senior, trusted, and knowledgeable of the sorcerer prince's followers, knows so little about the Reishis and this particular Reishi prince to whom he's devoted his entire life that he is shocked to find the sorcerer prince cares naught for human life and, like prior Reishis, practices necromancy (i.e. he is astonished to find he has been devoting his life to someone who is broadly known, by every single person who has knowledge of these ancient magic slingers, to be a "really, really bad guy?" That's like Saruman being flabbergasted to find that Sauron is evil). And since this general knows of Alex's family and their ancient role as the bane of his evil lord, how exactly is it that neither he nor any of his dozens of predecessors gave any thought in the previous several thousand years of killing off the entire line of Alex's family and instead, wait until a few days before the sorcerer prince emerges from his obelisk to send out an assassin?Let's also discuss a little something that all of the 4/5-star and 5/5-star reviewers have neglected to do: mention what a horrible writer Wells happens to be. He starts off every single new chapter as if it is the beginning of a new volume in a multi-volume series, with a summary of what has occurred previously. We are told repeatedly that the Valentines are "minor nobles" (p. 22), because Wells does not want us to forget. No exaggeration, at least four times in the first 50 pages, the author includes a reminder paragraph that Darius, Alexander's older brother, is dead (pp. 24, 31, etc...). How kind of him to do so, just in case we did not notice what happened 30 pages earlier, and forgot the next three times he reminded us of what happened. Honestly, though, for the sort of person who would think this awful story merits a 5/5-star rating, well, maybe they need to be reminded of basic developments every 10 pages.Wells also feels compelled to tell us that Alexander "knew without doubt that there were powerful forces hunting him." (p. 41). Gee, an assassin kills your brother, your parents tell you your life is in danger because of an ancient curse that leaves a brand upon your neck, an almost unstoppable "zombie demon" kills several of your guards and maybe your parents, an evil junior sorcerer and an huge blacksmith with what sounds almost like the hammer of Thor are literally a few seconds from killing you, and you decide to stop, ruminate about your circumstances and arrive at the conclusion that "powerful sources" want to kill you? Golly, how can you be so sure?What's that Mr. Author, a mighty axe blow to the chest cuts a bad guy "nearly in half at the torso?" Really? You sure it's not at the kneecaps? Wells also will throw random facts and sentences or paragraphs at the readers that aren't properly set up or explained in any way: "Alexander couldn't make his mind settle on any one of the three. The enormity of each was just too much to bear" (p. 20) - the three what? What makes each of these three undisclosed "ones" so horrible of a choice, whatever they are? Duncan reflects philosophically, in the midst of losing his eldest son a few hours previously and while being attacked by a "zombie demon," that it "had been many years since his house had been attacked" (p. 28). Previously attacked by whom? Furthermore, while Alexander does not know what a "zombie demon" is, his father and house guard captain Anatoly are familiar with such a monster (p. 28) - how is that they know of the creation of a necromancer when there hasn't been a necromancer waltzing around for two thousand years since the last Reishi prince went into hiding? Wells gives us more inane paragraphs of his characters pondering, having Alexander pretend to debate that he hasn't yet made up his mind about taking on the evil Reishi prince when it is obvious he must do so or be killed (p. 31).Furthermore, Wells' characterization is inconsistent - he mentions how Anatoly captures "a smaller man" and two pages later tells us that this "smaller man," who turns out to be a bard, is six-feet tall!?. His dialogue is sophomoric - at one point after the group has settled in to their room at an inn (and since when did inns in medieval settings have multi-bedroom suites like the one occupied by our protagonists?) for a sufficient period of time that they have ordered dinner from the innkeeper, who has brought up a pot of stew that they have started eating, Anatoly suddenly announces that the room is safe and secure? How does the bard know of the Reishi, their followers the Reishi Protectorate, and the Valentines' role as the bane of the Reishis, since all of this is top secret? And given that Alexander can sense the aura of truthfulness about the bard, why do the protagonists sit there chit-chatting when he's just told them the local chapter of the Reishi Protectorate is just a few moments away from finding and killing them?How about how there's always some deux ex machina to save the protagonists? That's gimmicky writing in my book, not quality story-telling. Wells is almost child-like in his writing, deciding that before Alexander's mother springs forth as the next coming of the Lady Galadriel to save everyone from the "zombie demon," she should be surrounded by half a dozen archers on her balcony. Nice big balcony there, Lady Valentine, and how convenient you have those half dozen bowmen stashed in your bedroom. Not to be outdone, the Reishi Protectorate follower Wizard Rangle has a full dozen! (Wow! Neato torpedo! A whole Dozen!) crossbowman protecting him (p. 39).The Thinblade series is not quality fantasy fiction. It is the same sort of extremely amateurish garbage that we keep seeing appear time and again on Amazon that garners altogether undeserved large numbers of 5/5-star reviews when in fact it deserves less than a 2/5-star rating. This isn't an intelligently and creatively crafted story - it reads like someone dictated up yet another variation on the LOTR, Chronicles of Prydain, Shanarra tales, etc..., did preliminary spell-checking, but did little or no other editing or even thinking about the plot and just spewed it forth. Not recommended. Discerning readers are going to find this book a major disappointment.EDIT: Not unexpectedly, this review already received a Not Helpful rating. I have provided a far more detailed and accurate account of what one can expect when reading this book than any of the 4/5 or 5/5-star reviews, which do little more than gush or rely on enthusiastic cliches, so I am not sure what is not helpful about this review. If you, too, didn't like what I had to say and are tempted to tag this review with a NH rating, please do me (and other people, too) a favor and post a comment stating precisely how this review was in any way inaccurate or unfair. Thank you.

I must say that the writing in this book is definitely amateurish at times, but I still loved the story, and I already bought the sequel and started reading it. It's not a great book, but it is a very enjoyable read if you can look past Thinblade's weaknesses. I would definitely recommend this book to Epic Fantasy fans, but you may not love it.The World Building is relatively strong here, but there are some oddities which are a little goofy. I really like the magic system, it has an interesting concept where anyone that undergoes a mana-fast (where they fast for a week and drink rare magic dust in a water solution) goes through a change. This change alters the witch/wizard's connection to reality, where they can access the Firmament and through visualization and a strong will they can bring fantastical things into the real world (like giant bubbles of fire as an example). There's also interesting facets were the magic manifests in the wizard/witch in a multitude of various ways, creating many different types of magic users. For the main character's magic, he really doesn't know how to do anything, and his magic manifests itself different than everyone else. His main power in the whole book is aura vision, it provides some interesting moments where he can get an idea of the quality of character of the new people he meets, but it could also be a detriment as I almost always expected him to mention the auras of people. Then when he doesn't, I always was curious about why (especially when it was almost always the servants that he didn't comment on, even when he was being very nice to them). One of the big annoyances I have with this world's history though, is that the big events in the world that lead to the drama going on in the story occurred 2000 years ago. To me, that is too long, as their civilization hasn't evolved at all, and everyone knows what happened so long ago and are ready when the Evil Wizard Phane wakes up from his self-induced slumber. It would have made much more sense if it was only 1000 years, or even shorter. The other problem I had with the world, is that I have trouble imagining the whole picture, where there are supposedly Seven Islands, but the islands sound like they're relatively large, and from some comments they might be far away from each other. It's not too important, but I just don't have a great grasp on the geography of the world.The writing is definitely one of the weakest parts of the books, especially when you're first starting to read it. Wells uses a third person narrative, but it is a little inconsistent, where at times the narrator notes parts of the mind of other characters, while most of the time it focuses solely on the main character, Alexander. I think that I would have much preferred a first person narrative, or even a third person that was always limited to the mind of the main character. In general, the writing was a little amateurish, the words used and the grammar was just a little goofy some of the time. There were a lot of little things that broke my reading flow, but I still powered through it, and it was a relatively quick read.I will note though, that I didn't really notice many misspelled words, and it's edited relatively well for a self-published novel. I'm not sure how exactly the writing could be fixed, it's not horrible, but I know that it could be improved.The story was also a little weak at times, even though in general I loved it. It's a pretty basic epic fantasy story, a young man living on a farm (though here he was a minor noble) has his normal life changed forever as a family member is killed (not the whole family which is different). He learns that he is the chosen one, but here it is actually given a reason, where 2000 years ago the Rebel Mage that was fighting the evil Grand Mage Phane cursed a family line and set up a series of trials and gifts to give the person in the future a chance to win against the evil wizard. He gathers a group of heroes, and they go adventuring. My biggest problem with the story has to be the authors overuse of repeated enemies. Over and over the heroes kept facing and defeating (or running away from) the same enemies, and when given a chance they wouldn't finish them off. There's also a big sign for when this is happening, as every time, even after the heroes killed other less important enemies with perfect shots, the bigger more important villain is shot in the shoulder. This tactic was used way too often, and every time an enemy was only wounded, I knew that they were important and would come back later to annoy the characters.Still, some of the villains, especially the short pudgy and absolutely deadly battle mage, who I could see being part of some interesting developments in the future (he doesn't seem evil, even though he's on the wrong side) are cool and varied dangerous enemies. All of the characters in the group are relatively unique, and they have a very honest feel to them. From the tom-boy sister, to the love interest (a little forced, especially their quick betrothal, but I do like her and her interactions with Alex), to the protector, the bard, and especially the alchemist (he is a great character, one of my favs in the book). I actually thought that this book would make an excellent story in a video game, it definitely has that feel. Each of the characters has a clearly defined role, and they play it very well. The video gameness could be a weakness in the story though, as their forced limited party number causes them to be constantly pursued and outnumbered. I didn't get why they wouldn't travel with a larger party, especially when 6 of them run away from a place where they had a friendly army of almost 100,000 men so they can take on a group of 100 enemies. I'd understand if they're trying to be inconspicuous, but other times it's just goofy. Also, I think that the main characters, because they are original, enjoyable, and very hard to replace, have a certain amount of plot armor. I really can't see the author killing any of them off, as it would really suck. I do see however, the characters being constantly injured and being brought back from the brink of death by the alchemist's magical potions.So overall, I did really enjoy the book, despite its faults it was a great read. When I think about the biggest fault of the book, it's also the reason I'm going to read the sequel immediately instead of later. This problem is that there isn't a beginning middle and end to this book, there's only a series of events, where the characters keep getting more powerful. In fact, the only ending this book has is the main character finding the Thinblade. This makes me want to read the next book and find out what happens, I just hope that the next book has an end, and isn't just another, "To Be Continued Until you Buy and Read the Next Book."

Having seen so many positive reviews over - 1000 on Amazon - i though for 99p i could hardly go wrong.Well it was utter rubbish and after 2 hours I just couldn’t put up with the banal writing style. The “man that was not a man” repeated so many times in one passage that if I had bought the paper back rather than the kindle version I would have chucked it onto the fire.Stick with “name of the wind” or the blade itself” or misborn series and other works which enrich you life.As a wider point it is really disappointing that the integrity of reviews is gradually being undermined which makes picking new books more difficult on Amazon and impacts on the customer experience. Hopefully amazon can use some AI to weed out false praise which is becoming increasing common for books which should not have made the cut.

WHOLE REVIEW IS A SPOILER.If YOU WANT TO READ THE BOOK, DON'T READ THIS REVIEW!This story travels a very well trodden route. Apart from names of people and things there is nothing new, that I haven't read many times before and that have been written by better authors. (If that offends anyone, that's their problem, as I have read some of the best fantasy books that have ever been written).I intend to try the 2nd book in case it gets more creative. There's always a chance and it is hard to find good,new fantasy series' and authors nowadays. George R R Martin was doing well until he stopped and got sidetracked by fame.Brief summary of book:Young man loses brother, sets out on a journey for revenge with his mentor and a wizard, meets a gang of merry men and women, they have a load of adventures and he gets everything he ever wanted and things he never knew he wanted, fights lots of enemies and always wins or gets magic healing, gets the girl, gets magic castle, the end!Trite, well trodden path. Nothing really new or exciting. On those terms it's an OK book. Will read next book, just in case it gets better.... Fingers Crossed.

Alexander Valentine, second son of a minor noble is out hunting wolves with his elder brother and younger sister, when his whole future life changes in one very sudden and horrific moment.This is more or less the opening to Thinblade. It grabs your attention and never lets go for the rest of the book. It may allow you to relax a little every now and then, like a fish on a line, but then it draws you back in.The style and manner of the writing makes this an easy book to read, the characters are all well written and likeable, intriguing or just relatable too, depending on their role in the story.There are aspects of this story which I have come across in other books, but that’s not to say they don’t work or seem contrived, quite the contrary. Everything seems to flow naturally from previous events or explanations.One aspect I did enjoy in this book was the depiction of Archery. Most authors don’t seem to be aware of the shear force imparted to an arrow shot from a bow, so it was refreshing to read a more accurate description of the effect an arrow would have if it struck someone.

The plot of the book is a good one but it is sadly spoiled by a repetitive writing style. I got that Isabel had green eyes the 1st time it was said but mentioning it virtually every time she appeared was tedious. The descriptions of places were quite clunky often without much depth.I found it a struggle to read but did get to the end.

This is a very well written and entertaining tale, the first in a series. Alexander is a minor noble just coming of age and is content with his world until his elder brother is killed. At the same time a two thousand year old prophecy comes into play. Secrets come out. His family isn't the minor nobility that he believes it to be. His bloodline has been chosen by a long dead mage to defeat a dormant and evil Prince that has just awoken. Because of his brother's death the mantle now falls on his shoulders. I liked the characters, both the villains and the heroes. Great action sequences. Plenty of magic and well described. A great action-adventure story. I would recommend this to any sword and sorcery fan.