Pre-order your copy of Prince Lander and the Dragon War (Tales of Old Natalia, Book 3): https://sdsmith.com/store/
I'm writing this post for three reasons:
1. S.D. Smith has a contest for the release of the new book, and I
didn't read all the details, but you have to create your own post about
the series and you can read more details on Mr. Smith's blog.
2. So that all of my many zeros of readers will know how much I love the
Green Ember series, I'm including in this post my 3-year-old review of
the very first book, The Green Ember.
3. Finally, my nine-year-old daughter colored these pictures when she was
seven! I've been a terrible father, and never shared them with S.D. Smith on Facebook like I was supposed to. So here they are:
And here's my review of The Green Ember. Don't let the 4 stars fool you, we truly love this series. I have re-read this book at least four times after my initial review, one of those times being when I began reading the entire series to my daughter.
The Green Ember by S.D. Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
(Original review was posted 17 January 2019 on Audible. Updated some comments during my second listen in July 2019. Let a second listen within a year tell you how much I've enjoyed this series, even if I only gave it 4 stars.)
I was a little slow to get into this story, but perhaps it's just adjusting to a new narrator or getting to know the new characters in an audiobook. I can't say I was terribly fond of the reader. Sometimes his accents were far too strong and difficult to understand, other times his accents and pronunciations were inconsistent. For example a character with a gruff, raspy voice would sometimes lose the growl and occasionally have a much more normal voice. Overall, I think he did a decent job reading and he certainly has a wide range of voices and accent variations at his command to personify the different characters. There were just a few that needed to be toned down a bit. (On my second listen through, I still agree some of the accents should be toned down, but overall, I think I'm more able to appreciate the narration. He really does do a great job bringing these characters to life.)
The story starts off with a brief moment of peace before quickly throwing the characters into chase after chase. As soon as you think things are calming down, they're sprinting again. Even when the action lets up and allows you to catch your breath, the story builds a rich lore with glimpses of the histories of the world and characters. The running seemed a bit excessive early on, and started to lose my interest, but the middle smoothed the pace out and it all ended with an exhilarating dash to the finish.
There were certainly some things that didn't make much sense to me and although I tried listening to chapters over to see if I had missed something, I ended up just accepting it and moving on and usually things eventually became clear. One of these was the idea of the Mended Wood. At first mention it was given such weight by the character describing it and while the importance passes to the characters in the book, the description fell flat for me and I felt somewhat uninterested in the heroes' cause. It wasn't until a good while later when more history and lore was revealed that the idea truly started to feel important to me.
Another characterization that bugged me was Pickett's anger. Although I understand he's going through a lot and emotions are bound to run high, his constant and irrational anger seemed to be a crutch the author used to make him seem young or flawed. I still don't understand why he was angry all the time unless I'm supposed to just perceive him as an angsty teenager.
Everything seemed to come together very well at the end, and it was very exciting. Definitely ended on a high note.
One thing my imagination did while listening that I found very interesting was how I visualized the characters in my head. Although I generally visualized the characters as humanoid rabbits on two feet, as seen on the book cover, throughout the whole book, whenever characters were running, I instinctively imagined them on all fours. I continued this visualization instinctively all the way until some point near the end of the book when a description stood out to me to more clearly express a character was running on two legs rather than all fours and it almost diminished the effect of the movement for me. Just an interesting thing, I thought. I think I'd like to continue imagining the characters as running on all fours as it makes their movements seem more graceful and powerful as opposed to two large rabbit feet flapping around awkwardly like trying to run in diving flippers. (Guess I could always imagine Officer Hopps from Zootopia)
Overall an enjoyable read. I'm looking forward to continuing the journey in the Ember series.
View all my reviews
Don't forget to pre-order Prince Lander and the Dragon War!
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