The Ruacern Orb has proven a tough book for me to review. It’s not because the book is bad, the story is great, and I probably will check out the rest of the series at some point. It is the characters I have had a hard time with. I could not feel for them as much as I thought I should have and having characters with feeling a big reason I get in to many stories. Though this could be because I found myself annoyed throughout most of the reading by one of them. However, there is some character growth that made me a bit curious as to what will happen to the characters in the next book, sufficiently dragging the curious reader to the next installment.
Now on to the best part of this book. The world building. So each chapter gives you a brief insight in to the world that the author has created. Each chapter begins with an exert from a book giving various details on the world, from an explanation of the magic, history, and geography of the world, giving you a taste of things not touched in detail in the story and drawing you further in to the world. Between the tidbits of information before each chapter, and the details on races describe in the story, it is clear that there was quiet a bit of world building put in to this series. Admittedly, wanting to know more about the world made me wish to continue reading.
The story was entertaining enough, though stories of lost memories often lead to exciting climaxes when everything is brought out in to the open. The Ruacern Orb does some of this, though many questions are left unanswered and leads to the rest of the series. Some cliffhangers are fine, but this book seemed to end a bit too sudden.
All in all, it was an entertaining read and would be enjoyable to most fantasy novel fans who enjoy in depth worlds.
I got this book as a review copy from Voracious Readers Only!