Book Review: People of the Sword

People of the Sword

By:  Neil O'Donnell

Publisher:  Argus Enterprises Publishing

Publish Date:  July 2009

Genre:  Fantasy

Format:  Paperback, 6"x9", 291 pgs

Series:  Stand alone, but not sure.

Recommendation:  Ah, nah. But Please don't let me stop you if you like the sounds of the Synopsis.

Book Synopsis:
Knights and Druids, enemies throughout the ages, find that they must put their mutual distrust and hatred aside to face a danger that could exterminate all humanity.  Crarnock finally learns the keys to unlocking magical formulas and his hatred toward the human race frees his evil mind to align itself with the Goblins, mortal enemies of all mankind.. Together they present a danger that only the combined efforts of races, enemy and friend, can hope to survive.  Even so, help from more powerful sources must be found.  A powerful, compelling saga of the classic, never-ending struggle between Good and Evil.  Yet, even in the midst of battle and despite deep-seated biases, love can be found, if the parties are willing.

First Sentence:
"Algren," Mattias said, as she rested on the cot in the large, one room infirmary.

My Review and Summary:
The Druids are attacked by their life enemies, the goblins.  The Druids and Knights are opposing cultures, living on opposite sides of the land and not like each other.  But, one Knight stumbles apon the battle of Druids and goblins, and helps the Druids win, but gets knocked out as the Druids aren't sure what side he is on.  Sir Harrison, the kind hearted knight, recovers in the Druid city becoming their friend and the link creating an alliance between the two cultures.  There is another force at work in the world as well, one that wants all the humans dead - the one wizard.  Will the Druids team up with the Knights and fight together agains the Wizard and his minions, the goblins?

This book is a hard one for me to review, as I had a hard time with the book but in the end it was an okay read.  It took me about 100 pages to start to get into the story.  The first 100 pages seemed to jump around to me and was a little boring.  It was when the background and history were relayed here that the book slowed in pacing for me.  In these pages you get current happenings, and you have sections where the entire history of the King Mage Crarnock came to be the powerful Wizard and his life story, these sections slowed the story momentum for me as well.  Then by page seventy I knew the motives and reasons for his doing, it seemed early to know all the reasons.

But, I pushed through and we came to an unknown mission, where the story starts to pick up.  In the last 120 pages I kind of liked the story because of the main character, Sir Harrison.  Sir Harrison was a likable character in the book as he is calm and open minded to all aspects of the religious beliefs and cultural ways.  There are moments of slowing, but the journey is interesting.  To me the goblins where a little bit of a surprise as well, as they aren't the completely mindless creatures. 


I requested this book from the author as I liked the sounds of it.


This book qualifies for the Speculative Fiction Challenge hosted by Book Chick City.