The Last Stormlord [Mass Market Paperback]

Shale and Mica are brothers who are close to outcasts in their small desert village till one day raiders, seemingly at random, attack their village and kill most of them except for the brothers whom they kidnap.

The four quarters of the Scarpen are a desert land where a small portion of the population have the ability to sense or manipulate water and create storms that bring life to the land and allow people to live there. However, the last of the people with full ability to actually create a full storm is dying, which means Shale's potential as a rainlord is worth more than gold to those who can hold on to him. However, Shale isn't alone in having skills that will will shape the future of Quarten.

I found this book to be well written and full of interesting characters and the central characters are ones likeable enough to keep the story one you want to follow though. The world of the Scarpen and how it's water dependancies have shaped everything there deepens with every chapter. I have been fortunate enough to read book 2 in this series Stormlord Rising, which is already released in Australia and I am hanging out for book 3 - which at this point I can't see how it will wrap up, which is a good sign in fantasy writing.

This is one author who I think has improved noticeably with each book she has written and this book and the next in the series are both great fantasy reads.

I had never heard of Glenda Larke before this book. When I finished with the book, I honestly feared she might be more-talented version of Christopher Paolini. Much to my surprise, she's an experienced author working on her third trilogy.

But before I get too far in to the book, let me first lambaste the idiot who attempted to summarize the story on the back cover of the paperback edition: This person identified three major characters in an order totally unrelated to the way they are introduced. Worse, the third section of the summary instantly gives away things that take us several chapters to learn about the first.

As for the story itself, the characters are predictably clichéd, the villain more so than the heroes, and the supporting cast worst of all. The villain barely establishes a connection with the third dimension. Then there's the guy who's just truly evil and barely makes it in to the second dimension. The supporting cast are firmly one- dimensional and act totally in the roles the establish themselves in.

By far the greatest flaw of this book is that it is only a book by the technical definition: paper bound together as a cohesive element. None of the major story elements are resolved in this book. There is no resolution to anything. It feels more like one is reading The Fellowship of The Ring, but without even the minimal closure brought about by Boromir's death. J. R. R. Tolkien's book was The Lord of The Rings; his publisher decided there should be three books. I can only hope Ms. Larke has such an excuse.

The book fails to tell a story, settling instead to set one up. Don't get me wrong, despite its flaws, the story is intriguing. However, the book ends without finishing any part of the story. The book covers six years of time and the characters do not seem to age at all.

When the book ends, it feels more like one is going to commercial break at the end of SyFy's eternally frustrating mid-season finales; right up to the moderately annoying character dropping a sinister cliffhanger in response to a death that should have stirred the reader's heartstrings and failed to do so.

Ms. Larke appears to be writing an epic miniseries for SyFy - something they generally do well, Tales of Earthsea notwithstanding. However, she's trying to present it as a trilogy of books when by the end of book one, you feel like you're only a third of the way through the novel.

THE LAST STORMLORD by Glenda Larke reminds me of the epic fantasies of 20-odd years ago because the pacing is similar in its devotion to world-building without a visible purpose. There's the standard young boy being trained. A girl on the verge of womanhood, trapped in a life not of her choosing. I probably wouldn't have minded STORMLORD if I haven't already read it, like, one thousand times before in its various incarnations.

There's enough action that STORMLORD shouldn't have been boring, but the pacing, flow, and expositional dialogue negated the spurts of excitement--the 670 pages could have been pared down by another 100 to make the novel a smoother read. The book covers six years as Slate and Terelle grow up, glossing over big periods of time. Larke also glosses over important interactions between our characters, and lacks realistic insight when describing her characters and their interactions. For example, when Slate and Terelle finally cross paths three-quarters into the novel, they develop a relationship, but we never actually see this happen, we just have to take the narrator's word for it. And when the PoV characters do think about their relationship with the other, it's cheesy, which makes me sad because I'm a girl who likes some mushy romance, but this was just lame.

The most fascinating character is Highlord Taquar, one of the city rainlords, whose motivations are twisted and yet just. You aren't really sure if he's doing what he must for power, or a real desire to save the people of the Quatern from a horrible fate. Too bad the protagonists aren't as interesting, and instead the other rainlords are cliche in their dialogue, actions, and personality.

STORMLORD has a clever setting and a culture that revolves around a lack of water: it affects what is planted, how people live, what kind of animals exist among them. The magic is a large part of the culture, affecting who rules the Quatern, which could be anyone as long as their water sensitivity is strong enough. There's a lot of potential for the magic with the way it's set up, and I sincerely hope there are big plans for future installments. Unfortunately, Larke tries so very hard to create a gritty and dark setting, but her writing lacks the subtly necessary to pull it off without sounding corny. In the last hundred pages we're treated with revelations using melodramatic dialogue so cliche I laughed out loud.

Larke doesn't really have a story to tell here--not one with an end, anyway. Nothing resolves, and instead we're left with cliffhangers and are forced to continue the next book if we want to see any satisfaction. It remains to be seen whether an entire book dedicated to world building and plot set-up is worth the time it has taken to read it.

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