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Liked It “Redick has created a wonderful world with enough twists and turns to keep you hooked from page one.” see full review » see other reviews » |
Didn’t Like It “OK - I thought it would be much better. I'm not sure if I would read the next book in the series or not.” see full review » see other reviews » |
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“Redick has created a wonderful world with enough twists and turns to keep you hooked from page one.”
MaskedPenguin A wrote this review Wednesday, August 5 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“I am almost done and can't put it down- not usually the kind of fantasy that I enjoy. I really don't go in for the talking animal stuff but this is good clean fun!
Gretchen T wrote this review Saturday, July 25 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
Update- defintly a cliff hanger book- no conclusion at all just wait until the next one comes out. Still loved it though!”“OK - I thought it would be much better. I'm not sure if I would read the next book in the series or not.”
Czarina wrote this review Friday, June 5 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“The Red Wolf Conspiracy is the first book in a planned trilogy. Overall there are enough good elements to the story that it outweighs the unevenness in the third act. Mr. Redick attempts to introduce new and distinctive components into his story to make it stand out from other fantasy novels and for the most part he succeeds.
Matt wrote this review Monday, May 4 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
For about the first 100 pages the reader is introduced to numerous interesting characters that constitute a story of intrigue that eventually develops into wide ranging plot that will lead the world into a horrific war. At first, it is hard to keep all the characters and plots straight but Mr. Redick solves this problem by basically narrowing the story down to one main character, Pazel Pathkendle. Unfortunately, in my opinion, this was the big misstep of the novel.
The Red Wolf Conspiracy takes a different tact that your standard fantasy novel. The reader is aware of a conspiracy that is being put together by nefarious means and it is all acted out on a grand ship named HMS Chathrand. The grand ship used to be one of many but over thousands of years they have been destroyed leaving only the Chathrand. The ship is extremely large as it is described as a city on water. This element of the story was fascinating and I really liked Mr. Redick’s treatment of sea life regarding the sailors and the tar boys.
I also really enjoyed the introduction of different type of species that you normally do not see in fantasy novels, like woken animals, the murths and my favorite the ixchel. The Ixchel are also known as the Crawlies. They are eight inch tall humans that live in the shadows. The reason being is that normal sized humans fear the Ixchel and will kill them upon sight. In retaliation the Ixchel’s will kill any human that learns of their existence. So the Ixchel have found interesting ways to survive and travel on ships.
The ending is less than it should have been. Up to about page 300 the story was building nicely but Mr. Redick goes left by moving away from the action and the reader learns what happens from others. Mr. Redick should have taken the middle road by allowing the characters to be part of the action so the reader did not feel that they missed the significant events of the novel. Which is a shame because I totally bought into the ending of the story and the Lord of the Ringsesqe aspect of it.
What I liked:
I really enjoyed the tone of this novel. The main character, Pazel Pathkendle, is a tar boy which is a necessary function of any sailing ship but they are on the lowest rung. The atmosphere that Mr. Redick creates surrounding life aboard the ship is highly believable and one of the strengths of the story. It reminds you of movies like Mutiny on The Bounty or Pirates of the Caribbean.
What I didn’t like:
The weakness of the novel is its unevenness. Mr. Redick starts off by introducing several characters that all have a part to play in the conspiracy surrounding the Red Wolf. As the story continues it eventually narrows down to only one character and his adventures. Unfortunately that character is tossed off the ship at about page 300 and is not involved with any of the major events. In essence, Mr. Redick does an excellent job of building intrigue for the first 2/3rds of the story only to toss it aside for what amounts to be basically a side quest.
Last word:
The Red Wolf Conspiracy by Robert V.S. Redick is an ambitious, unique but ultimately flawed fantasy adventure. But the there is enough of foundation to build a tremendous series out of it but only if the plotting weakness’ can fixed in future volumes. While not the strongest debut novel I have read, Mr. Redick does have great talent as a writer and you need to look out for him in the future.”
“It did not work for me. Straight away, I was annoyed by the amount of telling and the slow start. I tend to really enjoy books where I can live in the story. It is not the characters experiencing events; it is me experiencing things through them. I never got that degree of immersion from this tale. Now telling can work, I have seen it done, but this time it kept me on the outside of things instead of pulling me in. I felt that the novel could have been so much more then it was. However, there are aspects that are interesting and I was never tempted to just put it back down
Mulluane wrote this review Saturday, April 25 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
Conclusion. While it did not blow me away, I cannot say that it turned me off either. Likely any perceived faults lie solely in my tastes and not due to any lack of quality in either the writing or the story. Fun read with plenty of promise offered by a debut author who will be worth watching for years to come.
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