Patricia Bray is the author of a dozen novels, including Devlin’s Luck, which won the 2003 Compton Crook Award for the best first novel in the field of science fiction or fantasy. A multi-genre author whose career spans both epic fantasy and Regency romance, her books have been translated into Russian, German, Portuguese and Hebrew. She’s also spent time on the editorial side of the business, as the co-editor of After Hours: Tales from the Ur-Bar (DAW, March 2011) and The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity (DAW, March 2012). Patricia lives in a New England college town, where she combines her writing with a full-time career as a Systems Analyst, ensuring that she is never more than a few feet away from a keyboard. To learn more visit her website at: www.patriciabray.com.
SWORD OF CHANGE by Patricia Bray
Devlin is a tortured soul. He wants to die, so he becomes his country's Chosen One because it pays a fortune (which he can send to his brother's widow) and it's certainly deadly.
Sounds exciting, but don't bother putting on your blood pressure cuff, because it wasn't.
Devlin's sure he's going to die during the initiation ceremony (actually, it was me who nearly died of boredom), but, unfortunately, he doesn't. And so we accompany him on his journeys which read more like a book report than an adventure. Descriptions are dull, people are dull (though a few had so much potential), fights are dull, monsters are dull.
And the language is dull. For example, Devlin doesn't see things, he beholds them. He doesn't talk to people, he has speech with them. He doesn't put on clothes, he dons garments. And he doesn't go to bed, he seeks his quarters. Here is part of the most exciting scene... Read More
