Dawn of Wonder (The Wakening Book 1)

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In the next paragraph, it’s hard to tell if “the first gusts of a storm” is literal or metaphorical. I really thought that was why the unnamed soldiers were there – to give a sense of mortal danger without actually killing anyone important.

He was about to try the angle of “If you don’t do this now you’ll hate yourself forever” when he was distracted by a sound that drifted over from the main farm buildings. There’s enough character between them that I don’t get confused on who’s who, and if I were to describe them on paper they ought to be more interesting than they come across, but, they don’t? Thormar gives Aedan his pipe and tells Aedan to aim for peace with all his actions – paraphrased, but, general idea.

Its biggest problem is that it’s too linked to the “creepy outdoor silence” cliché – the one Sword of Shannara opened with in 1977. Sure, I would never suggest that sales alone indicate quality, and yes there are a myriad of factors that go into how well a book performs, including market timing. I know it’s hard to tell by just my summary, but this chapter did have a lot of tension, and Renshaw did a great job in describing the wetness of the rain and everything else. Besides, the prince was pretty rude to Aedan, making him go on this one-way death mission and everything.

Kalry’s wrinkled nose told him what she thought of it, but he shrugged off the uncomfortable feeling. But instead of curbing his need to wander and discover, his misery drove him to recklessness and to something he would never otherwise have considered, or dared. The walkway was narrow, the stones doubtful, the wall slippery, and there was a lot of air underneath. It isn’t anything too preachy but Aedan’s encounter plays a significant role in his moving past his feelings of anger and his need for vengeance against his father.If there is another, even more climax-like climax of this book, I’ll eat everything I’m saying right now, but it feels like Renshaw just introduced a whole bunch of characters for the climax of the book (Tyne, Thormar, Merter, Rork, Fergal (debatably)) and expected us to care about them as if they were as established as Nessa or Peashot. Surely if he does “change his mind” and come back, if he doesn’t see you surely he’d be able to figure out that you’d be with Harriet and Borr? I wasn’t abused as a child, and I feel like because of that it’s not something I’m able to relate to in any meaningful way. These educational/military institutions are where the lead character meets good friends and good teachers, enemies and bad teachers, they get into scrapes, always risking expulsion, and all the while… coming of age.

That super hairy dude that was with Culver way back when Aedan was first initiated into the academy. Aedan doubted the threat was sincere – no one would believe them even if they did speak of it – but decided, nevertheless, to heed the warning. Some books were scarily similar to books which came later, but the later books sold a lot better (often despite less good writing), simply because the time was right then. Also, hopefully, it would be part of a scene that advances the plot and Lorrimer’s messiness would be affecting Aedan in a personal way. It held tumbling meadows working their way upwards in the early sun, sheep and cattle working away at the meadows, and an assortment of labourers who were engaged in something that did not resemble work at all.A traditional “farm boy” coming-of-age fantasy Dawn of Wonder by Jonathan Renshaw was exactly the type of book I was looking for at the time. Aedan goes to Osric and Osric says that he’ll meet up with Aedan a few days out on their journey to help protect him and the other people. He looked just in time to glimpse something pale and green flashing across the gaps between dairy, stables and feed barns.

Maybe we can get away from this prolonged depiction of bullying and onto tense and interesting things. I didn’t think it was the Capital – Aedan once said it was the second largest city he knew of – but places like this seems to almost make Castath out to be its own country. I always feel weird reading about these parts where Aedan is obviously getting triggered by things that remind him of his abusive father. Prince Burkhart plans to kill everyone after their report is done, but Osric had sent a courier to the king telling him all about the adventure they were about go on and the whole public already knows that their party made it safely back to the city so if everyone was killed now it would look reflect really badly on the prince.Made it feel like Thomas is more active, and it’s therefore more plausible that he is telling on them. There’s a lot of descriptions in this chapter, and Renshaw is good at writing descriptions, but summarizing descriptions isn’t very fun so I’m not doing it.