Review: The Tree of Life by Elita Daniels

Rating: 1.9 out of 5

The older you get, the faster life moves. Yes, that’s a cliché, but most times clichés have their roots in aspects of the truth. Days and weeks fly by, and before you know it you’re looking at the past saying, “Maybe I should’ve stopped for a minute to appreciate the passage of time.” When I find myself thinking this, and the limited time I have to do what I need to do, I abhor the things around me that waste my time, things that steal from me precious moments with which I could have been doing something different.

Not the best way to start a review, right? I know. But this is the way I started to feel while forcing myself through The Tree of Life by Elita Daniels.

I received this book as a review copy from the author. When reading the sample, it pulled me in because of the impending sense of sorrow and doom presented during the first couple chapters. I happily accepted it, thinking this melancholy suggested an impending expansion and heightening of emotion over the course of the text.

It turns out I was right. Sort of.

This is the story of Deacon, a young man with severe daddy issues. His father was a great and dangerous necromancer who wanted to use his son and wife’s “Riven” blood (According to the tale, Rivens are a people whose connection to magic exists on a level almost like breathing air for everyday folks) to bring about…something. The particulars of his plan were never really explained, other than he wished to overthrow the governing body of magic that was in place at the time. A young Deacon is kidnapped, his mother injured, and then by the end of this opening sequence the father ultimately sacrifices himself (somehow, again not explained) to save his son, and then Deacon’s mother marries an elf, among whom they live until Deacon is older and his mother passes.

From there, we reach the main gist of the plot. Deacon grows up to be a cynical, detached, and miserable young man. He’s haunted by his father’s actions and abandonment, thrown into fits of anger because of the pain the man inflicted on his beloved mother. So after his mother’s death, when he learns his father is somehow still alive, Deacon sets out, against the will of the elves who’ve helped raise him, to learn divining spells, find out where his father now exists, and kill him. He rounds up his cousins, Derek and Cedrik, and embarks on his quest.

Along the way he becomes more and more grumpy, works on refining his magical abilities, meets up with a beautiful dark priestess named Magenta, falls in love with her, and does everything he can to close himself off from everyone who’s close to him. As far as his quest goes, by the end of this much-too-long book, he doesn’t get very far, at all.

And this is perhaps the most maddening thing about the book. It’s long, it’s slow, and absolutely nothing gets resolved. I understand that this is the first book of a proposed series, but there has to be at least some resolution, doesn’t there? But there isn’t any. By the time we reach the final page, Deacon is right where he is when we start up his storyline – alone, awkward, and full of hate. He doesn’t grow as a character at all. He’s completely unlikeable, a winy brat who can’t let go of the past even though he grew up in what amounts to paradise with the elves. Perhaps this is simply a problem with myself. Maybe others will get something out of it I didn’t. Maybe.

The text in this book is dense. Page after page goes by without anything really happening. At times it seems as if the author is simply in love with her ability to turn a phrase, and she packs the text with allegory and explanation, which makes it read even slower. Not only that, but strangely enough the more exciting parts of the book are rushed through, as if the action is an obstacle to be skipped over. Towards the beginning, as Deacon’s mother is being escorted by emissaries of magical law in search of her husband, the group is attacked by an army of the undead. I got excited, especially considering I was still really into the feel of the author’s style at that point, but then…nothing happens. All of a sudden the scene is over, and we’re back to inner angst and an eventual marriage between Deacon’s mother and the elf (who she’s really just met) that helped save her. Huh?

And that’s another problem. Even with the over-abundance of words used, there are so many things that are simply not explained. The most intriguing aspect of the plot – what was Deacon’s father trying to accomplish, who is he, what’s up with the treachery going on inside the walls of their society’s beaurocracy? – are quickly forgotten about. After 10% of the book, they’re never mentioned again and we’re back to Deacon’s brooding and self-hate.

Now, it’s not as if this book was all bad. There are some interesting themes presented, such as the questioning of what makes us human, the soul-encompassing pain and doubt of love, and the duty one feels to a family member, even if said family member doesn’t seem to deserve it. But these finer points become overshadowed by the endlessly droning words. As I said at the before, the beginning is beautifully written, but it never changes. The tone never changes. It’s like being stuck in the mud and not being able to pull yourself out. In a word, irritating.

And there are writing quirks that get in the way, as well. For one, the author is in love with the word “presently”. Presently, so-and-so does this. Presently, another character does this. Presently, a campfire burns. Okay, I get it. It’s happening now. Also, to further illustrate the author simply packing words upon words, there are many instances of redundancy in the text, long passages that are repetitious or contradictory. Here are a few examples:

Unconscious of anything outside each other, they gazed on one another with an intensity that excluded all else.

Or then we have:

Within the gloom, Deacon knew a quiet grove in which he spent long hours of solitude, finding these woods to be the only place sufficiently quiet for him to escape and become entirely absorbed in his study, without fear of interruption.

And then:

She held him there, and there he remained.

See what I mean? And these are the shorter examples.

Now, I’m not one to sit here and blast a book. I know that it takes a lot of dedication to write. But it took just as much effort for me to read it. It took me three weeks to finish this book, and by the final paragraph I couldn’t help but wonder why I stayed with it that long. Perhaps I’m just stubborn. At the end of the day, the reader is not indebted to the author’s effort. If the execution isn’t there, it just isn’t, no matter how much work was put into it.

Maybe I’m in the minority here. Maybe others will read this book and think it brilliant. I’m certainly not the be-all-end-all when it comes to this sort of thing. And the author does show a lot of potential. She has a definite grasp of emotional weight and can craft some intriguing characters. If she only refined it, used her words at a premium, then she’d have something I’d willingly dive into again.

Until then, I can’t justify devoting any more time to it than I already have.

Plot - 5

Characters - 6

Voice - 4

Execution - 2

Personal Enjoyment – 2

Overall – 19/50 (1.9/5)

Purchase The Tree of Life in paperback or for the Amazon Kindle.

Review: The Weight of Blood by David Dalglish

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

What would you get if you turned Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser into a pair of half-orc brothers, gave them severe inferiority complexes, moral ambiguity, and massive tempers, and then threw in a powerful religious zealot who sways them closer to the dark side than any individual should ever be comfortable with?

Why, you’d have “The Weight of Blood” by David Dalglish.

“The Weight of Blood” is an extremely dark fairy tale that tells the story of those aforementioned half-orc brothers, Qurrah and Harruq Tun. As far as main characters go, I don’t think I’ve ever seen their likeness. Sold separately into slavery by their orc mother early on in life, they eventually escaped and found each other again, only to grow up without guidance on the streets of a town called Veldaren, scavenging for food and learning that sometimes in life, when you come from nothing, it’s better to kill than be killed. Qurrah is a spindly and coldly intelligent sort whose greatest passion is to become a powerful sorcerer. Harruq, on the other hand, is a large-bodied and (sometimes) kind-hearted oaf who exists seemingly only to protect his physically weaker brother. The dialogue between the two borders on hilarious in the early going, when they’re still nothing but vagrants. But there is something darker in them, mostly in regards to Qurrah, which begging to be released. They are archetypal antiheroes, existing on the periphery of a society that wants no part of them.

The story starts off with a bang, dropping us in on the brothers as an army of orcs attempts to invade Veldaren. It is here that we first meet Velixar, a necromancer and master of the dark arts, who eventually takes the brothers under his wing. Through Velixar, we also are presented with a sizeable chunk of the world Dalglish has created, which is notable if for no other reason than it gives the reader a frame of reference to draw upon further down the road.

The novel is chock full of intense and extremely graphic battle scenes. It would be easy to get lost in the action if these scenes weren’t expertly crafted, which they are. The actions the brothers take from the onset vary from miscreant to downright evil. They butcher women, children, whole families, mostly without batting an eyelash. Even when one of them seemingly finds love, through the appearance of a beautiful sorcerer elf named Aurelia, this does little to stifle the loathsome behavior. Qurrah and Harruq appear to be brutes, ostensibly without a soul, and they act as such.

That statement is not quite true, however, and herein lays the brilliance of the world author Dalglish has created. This is a story of their fall and hopefully redemption, though as a series, once we reach the end it is still in the early stages. But the hope is there that these two will find their way. We get to see inside the brothers’ heads, and what we find there, though disturbing, allows us to feel a glimmer of gallantry. They are capable of love – this much is evident by the way they feel about each other – and any being who can experience that emotion in its fullest and most vulnerable can eventually learn to harness that inner goodness. All they ever needed was guidance, something that was denied them through unfortunate circumstances beyond their control.

And this is where we come to the crux of the fable that the author is telling us. In many ways, the brothers’ situation mirrors events we see all the time in the “real world”. They have nothing, they are starving and ostracized. Everyone looks down on them. They wander through life without a purpose save staying alive. When one looks at it like this, is it any wonder that when a stranger approaches the destitute pair and offers them a life that has meaning they leap for it? They who have nothing are promised the world. They who’ve been looked at as the lowest of the low are told they will be worshiped as gods. They who have had to scrape and claw are given gifts of such power that they become death incarnate. When viewed from this vantage point, can we not understand, even sympathize, with the plight Qurrah and Harruq have been forced to deal with? If we, as civilized humans, were put in the same situation, would our morality not begin to wither and die after a while? This rings true with what happens every day in certain parts of the world. It is almost the very blueprint for terrorist recruitment. And at the end of the day, that is what the brothers become. Terrorists. They target not only the enemy but the young and innocent. They strike from the shadows, seeking to assist a greater agenda that they either don’t or can’t understand.

This is a very dark book, so take that as a warning. If you don’t like the images of flayed arms and legs, decapitation, or bodies reduced to quivering masses of blood and innards, stay far away. However, if you appreciate a well-told story that pulls you into its world and won’t let you back out, this is the novel for you. It is unrelenting and fast-paced. It makes you care about the characters, no matter what bad deeds they may perform. And, best of all, it allows you to feel hope that the characters will turn it all around, and through something as simple as an act of kindness.

In short, I loved “The Weight of Blood”. The title says it all. It’s about the inherent price of violence, the duty of family, and the pressure to do what’s right. I would definitely recommend it. As far as fantasy goes, I feel you’d be hard pressed to find one that equals its scope and passion. I, for one, can’t wait to get pulled into the next volume.

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Paperback or

Kindle format

Plot - 10

Characters - 10

Voice - 7

Execution - 8

Personal Enjoyment - 10

Overall - 45/50 (4.5/5)