Happy fantasy anyone?
With the deluge of grim dark fantasy tales today [ Joe Abercrombie perhaps claims to rule the roost here and I love this guy to bits, Others like Mark Lawrence, Luke Scull, R Scott Bakker all pitching in their huge tents this side of the camp ] I am hard pressed to read a simple old fashioned fantasy tale. That talks brotherhood, friendship [not the back-stabbing variety] action adventure and a story that is uncomplicated but still retains its epic flavour. And that is when I chanced upon the Ryria Revelations. A hugely successful self-published franchise – six books long - that has now been snapped up by Orbit, Michael J Sullivan’s journey is the dream that a lot of struggling authors today aspire for. Anyways, much has been said about the phenomenal success of Michael and Robin’s ventures. I will stick to the opening chapter of this action/adventure romp- The Crown Tide; which introduces us to the protagonists, a duo of thief/assassin and thief/soldier: Royce and Hadria...