Xannu - The Prophecy: A Wonderful New 4 Star Review

Yesterday I received a wonderful new 4 Star review of Xannu - The Prophecy, the first novel I published back in 2003 as a paperback, and subsequently released this year as an ebook. You can read the original review on Amazon and Goodreads. Sometimes, when the going gets tough as an Indie author, it's wonderful to read that you touched someone with something you wrote. Like I've said before, you can't please all of the people all of the time, but it don't half feel good when someone likes what you wrote! Why not try it out? It's only $0.99 on Amazon!!

Here's the review I received:

Xannu - The Prophecy is further proof that commercial publishers have no monopoly on writing talent or writing quality. This is a good read with believable and entertaining characters, and a plot that pulls you along. 

Dorset sets up a YA fantasy that follows many of the conventions of the genre: an invented world where countries have strange names, technology is at the level of the middle ages and magic works. Strange monsters plague humanity. At first, that was a turn-off for me. I am looking for something different. But I found that right at the beginning of Xannu - The Prophecy when the main character has a conversation with the Power Almighty. 

Dorset also inserts another twist on the fantasy trope with characters who travel between his invented world and a very prosaic, middle-class suburban reality. That's not really new, of course - think CS Lewis - but I really identified with Dorset's homey characterizations. He is very good at breathing life into his characters. 

All his characters are fallible and funny, even the Power Almighty and his opposite, the power of evil. There's a lot of humour, from the personality of the bumbling warrior-hero, to the frustrated ire of the Power Almighty (not so almighty, it seems), to the name of the tall quasi-humans, "Upthairs." 

Now, personally, I was a little dismayed by the appearance of the princess and other royalty in this book. Maybe that's just me, but I enjoy stories about regular people far more. Still, in this plot, the royalty makes sense. And again, they are believable characters in their roles. 

The quality of writing is very high in this e-book. There were no more typos or formatting errors than I have seen in typical print books from the biggest publishers. With books like this available on e-bookstores, there's no way that the big publishers can claim to be better than any independent author. 

There is only one drawback: to get to the end of the actual story, I have to buy the next book in the series!