CSFF blog tour April 2007 (day 1)

Filed under Blog Tours, Reviews on April 16, 2007
Keywords: books, christianity, fantasy, Karen Hancock, The Return of the Guardian-King

Welcome to another edition of the Christian Science Fiction & Fantasy blog tour. This month features The Return of the Guardian-King, the fourth and final book in Karen Hancock’s Legends of the Guardian King series. This was the first “Christian” fantasy (i.e., published by the Christian Booksellers Association) I’ve read.

I’m going to break my review into two parts. Today, I’ll discuss the literary aspects of the series: character development, dialogue, voice/POV, and worldbuilding. Tomorrow, I’m going to examine the theology presented. For Day 3 of the tour, I’ll summarize some of the other stops in the tour that were of interest to me.

Character Development
Providing an overview of the plot for this series would be a post all its own, so I will leave it to those interested to read the books for themselves. Legends boasts a cast of engaging characters that kept me wanting to see how they overcame trial after trail. In fact, I would say that Hancock’s ability to create multifaceted characters whose growth is realistic and important to the reader carries this series. While I was a little put off by some of the book covers (I felt they cried “romance novel”, especially Light of Eidon and Shadow Over Kiriath), the relationships between the characters were very satisfying. I was also pleasantly surprised by the execution of the internal struggles of faith each character went through.

Dialogue
For the most part, the dialogue was realistic and smooth–no preaching or moralizing through soliloquies. Hancock did attempt to use a brogue-like dialect for some of the citizens of Kiriath, but the execution was inconsistent. Characters would alternate between heavy “accents” and none at all. I couldn’t tell if this was supposed to be a tool to distinguish social class or cultural differences between regions within the nation. In the end, it was just a distraction.

Voice/POV
The narrative voice was consistent through each book, and the series itself, and felt appropriate for the story being told. The point of view shifted to focus on the character central to the action at the time. In the third book, Hancock introduced a POV using one of the antagonists. This POV was used during “Interludes” every few chapters. I didn’t like this device. I believe it was meant to heighten suspense. The antagonist was a traitor within Abramm’s administration, but we aren’t shown who it is. However, there are other ways to create suspense, and the change in format from past books was glaring enough to overshadow any benefit.

Worldbuilding
Karen Hancock has built a world of depth with obvious Christian symbolism that makes the publisher’s label of allegory accurate. Kiriath and Chesedh mirror medieval Europe, while Esurh is Arab-influenced. Return introduces an oriental nation. The nature of the conflict reminded me of a reverse Crusade.

For all the potential and obvious creative work that went into creating the setting, I felt there were some large gaps in the relaying of information that prevented me from becoming thoroughly immersed. I think Hancock relied too heavily on the reader identifying with her nations’ real world counterparts instead of showing the uniqueness of their cultures.

I was also disappointed by the handling of the supernatural elements of the world and its religion. Faithful Terstans can tap into Eidon’s Light, granting them certain powers. They have a written word, and, at least in the case of Abramm, direct communication with their god. Yet, there didn’t seem to be any records on how to master the power of the Light, and no correlation between one’s spiritual growth, their control of the Light and what they can do with it.

Finally, there were times when it felt like Hancock just threw out the name of some angelic or demonic race without providing a solid foundation the reader could rely upon to understand what that name represented. I struggled with remembering if there was a difference between ells and rhu’ema, and when luima were mentioned in Return, I couldn’t recall even “hearing” of them before.

Conclusion
I had high expectations from this series based on the awards it’s garnered and the recommendations I read. It did not meet those expectations, based on a combination of what I’ve mentioned so far and what I will discuss tomorrow. However, I still enjoyed the adventures of Abramm Kalladorne and would recommend the series to any fan of fantasy looking for a family-friendly story.

Be sure to check out the other stops on the tour and I hope you come back tomorrow.

• Nissa Annakindt
• Wayne Thomas Batson
• Jim Black
• Jackie Castle
• Valerie Comer
• Karri Compton
• Frank Creed
• CSFF Blog Tour
• Gene Curtis
• D. G. D. Davidson
• Chris Deanne
• Janey DeMeo
• April Erwin
• Linda Gilmore
• Beth Goddard
• Marcus Goodyear
• Rebecca Grabill
• Andrea Graham
• Jill Hart
• Katie Hart
• Sherrie Hibbs
• Sharon Hinck
• Christopher Hopper
• Heather R. Hunt
• Becca Johnson
• Jason Joyner
• Karen
• Dawn King
• Tina Kulesa
• Lost Genre Guild
• Kevin Lucia and The Bookshelf Reviews 2.0 - The Compendium
• Rachel Marks
• Rebecca LuElla Miller
• Shannon McNear
• Caleb Newell
• Nicole
• Eve Nielsen
• John W. Otte
• Robin Parrish
• Rachelle
• Cheryl Russel
• Hanna Sandvig
• Chawna Schroeder
• Mirtika Schultz
• James Somers
• Tsaba House Authors
• Steve Trower
• Speculative Faith
• Daniel I. Weaver

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• CSFF July 2006 blog tour day 3
• CSFF July 2006 blog tour day 2