Would you believe that I’ve gone and misplaced my copy of The Light of Eidon?  Please shoot me now.

But I’ll go ahead and begin this discussion from memory until I can pick up a replacement copy.

Now if you haven’t read the book yet, you may want to read these discussions with caution.  I’ll try and skip any specific spoilers, but some things are just going to naturally arise that may spoil the read for you if you want to go in totally blind.  So if you wish, go read the book and then come back and read this series later after you are done.

I know I have most likely come across sounding harsh towards CBA fantasy, and like I haven’t liked a bit of it.  But honestly most of my comments spawn from a desire to see the market expand and grow in the types stories told, not from a total disdain from what has come before.

When I first picked up The Light of Eidon (LoE) a few years ago it sparked my first return to CBA fantasy in years.  I had avoided the book for a long time due to the cover. It spoke of shiny romance and all about a woman audience to me, which isn’t surprising since that’s the main audience that CBA caters to, which is another reason I hadn’t read anything from them in years.

Eventually though I got past the cover and jumped into the actual content. And what do you know, I actually enjoyed myself.

Wipe away those shocked and smirky faces!

LoE isn’t an overly surprising tale (I think only two events in the whole story caught me off guard, one because I didn’t think CBA would let it through, the other because it was truly surprising), but it is well written. I have no issues with the general writing craft of this book. The journey that Abramm goes on, changing from a pacifist monk to a gladiator to a general, is a familiar tale, but I’ve never been put off by familiarity.

Karen Hancock made me care about the characters, and handled the action scenes well. And by the time I got to the end of the book, I never felt betrayed. I felt like I had gotten everything she had promised me from the book’s start.  And no the romance element in this book didn’t phase me either, it grew naturally and wasn’t a stand-alone plot, but was merged fully with Abramm’s character arc as well as the main plot.

Yes there were things that irked me about LoE though most of those didn’t come into full effect until the sequel, I believe.  But taken as a whole this book is a wonderful tale of one man’s struggle to overcome evil.

Next week, we’ll begin looking at the world that The Light of Eidon introduced us to.