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Title: The Whitefire Crossing
Author: Courtney Schafer
Genre: High fantasy
Thingummies: 4
Synopsis: A young mage hires a smuggler to help him over the mountains and across a magical border, but both are hiding secrets that could cost lives.
Thoughts: The first in what is promised to be a trilogy, this fast-moving fantasy is a nice gateway to a new world--there is clearly a lot of world-building going on in the background, but Schafer effectively keeps the action grounded in the here and now.
While some of the secrets are easy enough to piece together before their big reveals, there are enough twists and upsets to keep things entertaining. The tense mountaineering scenes are some of the best, where the author's love of climbing shines through. As the pair makes their way through the passes with a crazed mage on their heels, their decisions of whether to trust each other keep up the tension on multiple fronts.
Oddly, the author chose to write one character in first person and one in third. I'm still not sure why. Readers usually identify more closely with first person, but this is equally Dev and Kiran's story. It's an awkward device, as is beginning each section with the viewpoint name in parentheses instead of trusting the reader to figure it out. (It's not hard.) It's a strangely graceless note in an otherwise well-written tale.
Author: Courtney Schafer
Genre: High fantasy
Thingummies: 4
Synopsis: A young mage hires a smuggler to help him over the mountains and across a magical border, but both are hiding secrets that could cost lives.
Thoughts: The first in what is promised to be a trilogy, this fast-moving fantasy is a nice gateway to a new world--there is clearly a lot of world-building going on in the background, but Schafer effectively keeps the action grounded in the here and now.
While some of the secrets are easy enough to piece together before their big reveals, there are enough twists and upsets to keep things entertaining. The tense mountaineering scenes are some of the best, where the author's love of climbing shines through. As the pair makes their way through the passes with a crazed mage on their heels, their decisions of whether to trust each other keep up the tension on multiple fronts.
Oddly, the author chose to write one character in first person and one in third. I'm still not sure why. Readers usually identify more closely with first person, but this is equally Dev and Kiran's story. It's an awkward device, as is beginning each section with the viewpoint name in parentheses instead of trusting the reader to figure it out. (It's not hard.) It's a strangely graceless note in an otherwise well-written tale.
