Enchantress (The Evermen Saga Book 1)

TL;DR:Enchantress, by James Maxwell, is a fantasy adventure novel that is somewhat well written but filled with cliches and tropes. Maxwell does a good job creating the world his story takes place in, but his story is all too familiar. The story itself contains more generic fantasy elements than any other book I’ve read, which makes for a familiar, but somewhat bland read: Orphaned kids? Check. The kids are incredibly proficient at magical and martial combat? Check. Giant war between “dark and light” that the kids both play key roles in winning? Check. The list goes on and on. Mix in some half-baked familiar character personalities, and some (in my opinion) lazy storytelling, and you get what I would consider a very mediocre book. I will not be reading the remaining books in The Evermen Saga. I would not feel comfortable recommending this book, but I wouldn’t ward someone away from it as if it were toxic materials either.The Good:1. The writing itself is done fairly well. Outside of one large editorial mistake, a few minor ones, and a few obvious pet phrases and descriptors, there was nothing unforgivably wrong with how the story was written.2. The world building is done skillfully. The author presents you with fleshed out (but similar) cultures, religions, and a brief, but detailed historical record of the world. I believe that the world building is the major high point of the entire novel.3. His characters aren’t the most compelling or interesting characters I’ve ever encountered. They all fit neatly into one cookie cutter cliche or another. Maxwell did throw a few curve balls at me with some of his minor characters that were of note. But even with his cookie cutter characters (hurray alliteration!) they are written well enough to remain interesting.4. Aside from one stretch of the book that involves a large amount of traveling (a pitfall I’ve seen far too many authors make), the pacing of the book is done well. The characters move quickly from one situation to another, rarely giving the reader time enough time to become bored with it.The Bad:1. The system of magic in the book frequently struck me as an unfinished idea that would fluidly shift between modes of operation depending upon what was convenient for the situation. Magic in the book functions by inscribing items, surfaces, and things with runes; the user then speaks a trigger sequence to activate the runes, and a trigger sequence to turn them off. But this isn’t true all the time. An elite fighting force called Bladesingers must constantly ‘sing’ a complex string of activation words, or the magic in their swords and armor ceases to work. (Except for the one guy who doesn’t have to chant to keep his super badass magical sword active). Why do they have to sing to keep their magic working? Other characters just need to speak the rune word and the power of the rune manifests itself. I don’t know, it’s never explained and it feels like a cheap and convenient way to make the Bladesingers seem cooler. On top of this some runes run out of power and must be re-inscribed, some seem to never run out of power. These inconsistencies were a real disappointment in what, otherwise, was a cool and somewhat unique interpretation of magic.2. Quick, think of any fantasy cliche or trope you can. It’s probably in this book. Orphaned teenaged heroes, with mysterious parents who fought in a war similar to the one they now fight, are exceptionally talented in martial and magical combat. I have nothing against tropes and cliches; they end up frequently used for a good reason. They reverberate with readers, and they are things we can all relate to on some level. But when you pile them on so thick that I can’t go an hour of reading without stumbling over four or five of them, you’ve used too many.3. The story is painfully predictable. Once you come to the realization that the story is essentially constructed of a long chain of cliches and tropes, the remainder of the story becomes plain to see.The Meh:1. The book is named Enchantress and the main character is named Ella. Ella Enchanted anyone? Not really worth a major ding, but there’s enough association there that I feel the author should have picked a different name.2. The author’s understanding of military tactics must be very limited. I am no elite commander, but several of the military situations and tactics laid out before you in the book are completely ineffective, and arguably insane. (Although given some of the characters in the book this could have been on purpose).3. There’s a love scene in the book that is very descriptive--so descriptive that while reading it I suddenly began to wonder if I was reading erotica. When placed next to the rest of the book, the scene felt very inappropriate and ill-conceived.Synopsis:Ever since the day an Enchanter saved her brother, Miro, Ella has dreamt of becoming an Enchantress. Everyday she scrapes and saves, working hard to save the five thousand deen tuition fee required by the Enchanting School.While his sisters dreams lie in the magical, Miro’s desires find their roots in the martial. Miro wants to be one of the realm’s elite soldiers, Miro wants to become a bladesinger.Both the siblings relentlessly throw themselves at their studies; through diligence, desire, and dedication, both of them not only meet their goals, but they do so while displaying incredible potential and ability. But a dark force looms on the horizon, threatening to consume the siblings and all they have ever held dear. War will force a great physical distance between the them, but they never cease walking the same path.

I'm truly shocked Maxwell's work hasn't gotten more attention. There's a solid old-school science fiction/fantasy quality to his writing with respect to world-building and character interaction that I think is missing from more recent writers, even the well-published ones. Compared with some of the other amateur writers I've read, this one truly is head and shoulders better. I should have given it 5-stars, but just a major flaw which I note below almost killed it for me.So what is this work not like? I think the publisher made some comment relating this to Martin's work. Come on - comparing this to Martin is like comparing a filet with a hamburger. The depth of plot, intrigue, and the moral ambiguity are simply no where along the same playing field. But I think this is a good thing, just a bit simpler than what you would think based on that description. But sometimes simpler is better.So what's so good? Good, interesting characters that, for the most part, continue to develop throughout the novel. Reasonable character interaction. The brother in particular was done well. Great, relatively original integration of different magic / sorcery with traditional type of fantasy setting. Very neat, simple, yet effective. War and fighting scenes, while particularly gory and gritty, were written really well, totally involving to the reader. Several surprising plot twists, although the main idea was perhaps a bit too obvious after about 1/3 into the novel. Maxwell also weaves in some grittiness and some over-the-top sex scenes which in some cases, I think worked really well, particularly in the first half of the novel.What's not so good? For one, while I really liked the sister's character, she just seemed completely schizophrenic as far as her development. I'm not sure if the author intended it, but it's almost like she comes off as completely book-smart without a shred of common sense. To avoid spoilers, I'll leave it at that. Second, it seemed Maxwell tried a bit too hard to add more grittiness and sex to the book, particularly in the middle sections. I just felt it was too obvious (I'm thinking of the prelude to a certain battle scene here), and really didn't blend in with the writing style, except to serve as a shock to the reader.But these were minor things. What almost killed this book for me was the violation of the number one rule about writing: 'show don't tell'. Gosh - this was great until about 1/2 way through the book when suddenly the author would just summarize in 2 or 3 pages events leading up to each major battle scene. He must have done this 5 or 6 times. Absolutely a horrible way to completely disconnect the reader from the book. It was absolutely galling, especially because of how well the rest of the book was written up to this point. If it hadn't been on my kindle, I was so betrayed by this I would have thrown the book across the room. Maxwell would have been much better off trimming the fight scenes and developing the parts in between. In one particular case, main characters are killed off, and we're told about this in one of the three page information dumps in between battles! There are ways the author could have brought the reader into the action, for example, such as creating a temporary character and letting the reader see what happens through his/her eyes, instead of the information dump.Setting that aside, this was the start of an excellent series and hopefully an improving author. This is the first time I actually plan on paying for the next book in the a series for which I read the first one as a free-download. That's how good I think this was.

Love it . Next one ready. Hope it will be as good as this one . What will happen next 🤩

Really enjoyed this going for the series nowCan’t really find a fault very good all I can say try the first as I did

Have to say I had my doubts at the start. But the pace n excitement picked up speed n I actually finished the first book In a day. Thank you Mr Maxwell for a great read.

Despite reading a lot of Fantasy I've managed to miss most of the real rubbish out there due to engaging in a little bit of research before purchasing, and normally that works, normally. Not in this case though, and for that I blame the reviews on here; how anyone can compare this book to any of the great works of the Fantasy genre is beyond me. I'll not say the series as I've no intention of buying any more.Not only does Enchantress read like a book written for children suffering from ADD, but if you were to produce a tick list of all the Fantasy genre cliches then you would have probably pretty much have rewritten this book - except for dragons, somehow they were missed out. I wouldn't be surprised though to see them turn up later. I actually considered giving up about 40% of the way in then had another look at the Amazon reviews just to check I'd not hallucinated the first time, nope there they were, brimming over with praise. Odd. One review though did say that the first third of the book was pretty dire but the rest was worth the pain, so I decided to soldier on. Well that review was partly right, yes the first third is dire, but so are the other two, to the point where I cannot genuinely think of one redeeming quality that Encantress has, not one.As mentioned its a trip to Cliche World where we have the orphans of the great hero of yesteryear raised in a shack in the woods, and of course totally unaware of their noble birth. Naturally she is beautiful and he is handsome, and naturally both excel so beyond expectations as to leave them way behind with their mouths hanging open. She is a enchantress of unique talent, while he is a great gardner and odd job man about the village, just kidding he's a warrior of course, and what a warrior. Did I mention they were both stunningly attractive and popular, good and wise? I did? Don't you just hate their guts already?I could live with the above though if the characters had some flesh on their bones, but they are literary skeletons bereft of substance. They fly from one event to the next, barely pausing for breath as they scale their career ladders at a blistering pace, and the trials and tribulations that could've provided some filling out are simply completely skipped over. Ella graduates from Hogwarts after something like 2 pages after entering, while Miro lucks into the role of a guard one chapter and by the next he's Grand Marshall OverLord of the Combined Armies of Everyone by the beginning of the next. Every time he walks out his bedroom he returns to find a new uniform and a massive promotion, which of course he greets with a shug and few hours in front of the mirror.I guess there was some effort to make the Bad Guy a bit less of a cliche but not much of one. The Primate is about as bad as you get, I mean a complete stereotype swine with nary a redeeming feature, and of course his involvement with the ill fortune that befell Ella and Miro's parents is about as unexpected as rain in March. Oh and this is another fault of this book, predictability. Everything is sign posted long before it actually happens, and you can then pretty much just skip the pages and get to the event as everything in between are space fillers. When Killian wanders around the palace with a breathless Ella on his arm he could have waved a large flag with "I'm going to rob this place" written on it. Similarly when Ella sets out to track the fleeing perp down there's an inevitability about the outcome that still manages to kill a little bit of the soul.Everything else in this book is just as cliched as the aforementioned, and then there's the battle scenes which quite frankly are the worst I have ever encountered in any Fantasy novel. Ok its Fantasy, but come on, even a nod in the direction of the reality of warfare would have been welcome. In Enchantress armies run all over the place, consider tactics are for jessies and just charge each other head on, and you really have to wonder just why a lot of the soldiers even turn up. Considering the carnage inflicted by animated rune-covered monstrosities, dirgibles, mortars, and all those smug types in enchanted armour waving enchanted swords, signing up to volunteer is pretty much just a way of signing a suicide note. Sometimes the desire of Fantasy authors to top all previous authors when it comes to battlefield invention leaves the whole concept so overblown as to lack any credibility, and this book attempts to go much further than others.I'd really like to say something positive about Enchantress but I can't. Its two dimensional, cliched, bereft of substance and the characters so unlikely as to defy any attempt at empathy. I gave it two stars as I don't hate it, I just wish I'd never wasted the time it took to read it.

This story caught me straight from the beginning, enjoyed the twists and turns, the reveal broke my heart. Can't wait to start book two.