The Written by Ben Galley
Published 1st January 2011 by BenGalley.com (first published 25th October 2010)
Star Rating - ***
Goodreads Challenge - 32/50
I was gifted an e-copy of this book from The Write Reads Tours in exchange for an honest review.
Synopsis (from Goodreads)
His name is Farden.
They whisper that he’s dangerous.
Dangerous is only the half of it.
They whisper that he’s dangerous.
Dangerous is only the half of it.
A spellbook has gone missing from the libraries of Arfell – a very old and extremely powerful spellbook from the time of dark elves and demons. Five scholars are dead, the magick council is running out of time and options, and the Arka is once again on the brink of war with the Siren dragon-riders.
It falls to Farden the Written mage to keep the world from falling into chaos. Entangled in a web of lies and politics, Farden must recover the spellbook before an ancient enemy rises, even if it takes journeying halfway across icy Emaneska and back.
In his fight for answers, Farden will unearth a secret that not only shakes the foundations of his world, but threaten the entire future of Emaneska. Sorcery, death, drugs and the deepest of betrayals await.
Welcome to Emaneska.
It falls to Farden the Written mage to keep the world from falling into chaos. Entangled in a web of lies and politics, Farden must recover the spellbook before an ancient enemy rises, even if it takes journeying halfway across icy Emaneska and back.
In his fight for answers, Farden will unearth a secret that not only shakes the foundations of his world, but threaten the entire future of Emaneska. Sorcery, death, drugs and the deepest of betrayals await.
Welcome to Emaneska.
My Thoughts
I read this book as part of the Ben Galley ultimate blog tour organised by The Read Writes gang. As part of this tour I was able to choose any one of the authors backlist titles to read and review and I chose The Written as it was the one that appealed to me the most. I was kindly sent a e-copy of the book however, I prefer to read in paperback and I was able to get a copy from my library so that is the edition I read. But, as far as I'm aware there are no differences between the two copies.
I'm really starting to dive into the adult fantasy genre as opposed to YA and the synopsis of this one really intrigued me. I loved the sound of magic, journeys and dragons and, as the authors debut novel, I was excited to dive in and give him a go. As a result I can say I did really enjoy the story however, you could tell this was a debut. As I just said I was really drawn in by the synopsis and this did live up to my expectations. The author has really packed a lot into this novel but even though there's a lot going on you can see he's thought about the plot and the complexities of the story. However, I do feel like this could continue to be refined and I'm sure it is in the rest of the series.
The writing was good, I didn't find myself getting lost or confused and I was able to follow the plot fine. This book did take me a long time to read though but I don't think that was anything to do with the book itself, I tend to find adult fantasy does take me a little longer. If you didn't already know this book is self published by the author himself and I think it has been published very well, especially for a debut, however, there were a few oddly composed sentences, repeated words and spelling mistakes that did affect my flow of reading at times.
I liked the characters too. Farden was really interesting, I enjoyed his character development where he went from being reclusive and self centred to determined to save the world. I do feel we could of dived a little bit more into his personality at times though as I would of liked to have learned a little bit more about his past in the hope that this would of explained why he was so angry. Maybe this will come in the next books. My favourite characters overall though were definitely the dragons. I found them really interesting and I loved learning about their world. There was also a couple of twists throughout the plot involving some of the characters which were a little surprising too.
Overall I think this was a really good debut novel. There's definitely some flaws however, to me these were overshadowed by my enjoyment and I had fun reading this story. I'm excited to continue on with this series and I really hope to do so very soon.
I'm really starting to dive into the adult fantasy genre as opposed to YA and the synopsis of this one really intrigued me. I loved the sound of magic, journeys and dragons and, as the authors debut novel, I was excited to dive in and give him a go. As a result I can say I did really enjoy the story however, you could tell this was a debut. As I just said I was really drawn in by the synopsis and this did live up to my expectations. The author has really packed a lot into this novel but even though there's a lot going on you can see he's thought about the plot and the complexities of the story. However, I do feel like this could continue to be refined and I'm sure it is in the rest of the series.
The writing was good, I didn't find myself getting lost or confused and I was able to follow the plot fine. This book did take me a long time to read though but I don't think that was anything to do with the book itself, I tend to find adult fantasy does take me a little longer. If you didn't already know this book is self published by the author himself and I think it has been published very well, especially for a debut, however, there were a few oddly composed sentences, repeated words and spelling mistakes that did affect my flow of reading at times.
I liked the characters too. Farden was really interesting, I enjoyed his character development where he went from being reclusive and self centred to determined to save the world. I do feel we could of dived a little bit more into his personality at times though as I would of liked to have learned a little bit more about his past in the hope that this would of explained why he was so angry. Maybe this will come in the next books. My favourite characters overall though were definitely the dragons. I found them really interesting and I loved learning about their world. There was also a couple of twists throughout the plot involving some of the characters which were a little surprising too.
Overall I think this was a really good debut novel. There's definitely some flaws however, to me these were overshadowed by my enjoyment and I had fun reading this story. I'm excited to continue on with this series and I really hope to do so very soon.
This book is available from the following link:
Author Bio
Ben Galley is an author of dark and epic fantasy books
who currently hails from Victoria, Canada. Since publishing his debut The
Written in 2010, Ben has released a range of award-winning fantasy novels,
including the weird western Bloodrush and the epic standalone The Heart of
Stone. He is also the author of the brand new Chasing Graves Trilogy.
Twitter: @BenGalley
Thank you to The Write Reads for the opportunity to take part in this tour. It's been great. There's still a lot more coming up on this tour so if your interested check out some of the other stops below.
Great review! I also ended up really enjoying this series, even though I wasn't sure I was in the mood to read fantasy. I also really ended up liking Farden �� But the dragons were the best! Looking forward to reading the rest of the series to find out what happens.
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