The Haunting Duet
The Haunting Duet is an epic fantasy novel written by James Stills.
By Cape Rust
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The Haunting Duet (The Storm Giants Trilogy): Welcome to the Storm Giants, a vast forest covering the northern latitudes of the world of Eldrivaos. On its eastern coast, the seaside town of Reaping Tides – the northern-most port in the region – has recently been cut off from its allies to the south by the desert empire of Gobralon, led by the mysterious and unquestionably vile Blood Clerics; the Gobras.
A tenuous pact between two rival organizations – a guild of powerful and ambitious wizards called the Prismatic Brotherhood and a reclusive dragon-worshipping cult of clerics known as the Order of the Silver Talon – is all that stands in the way of the Gobra’s conquest of Reaping Tides. However, the discovery of a powerful tome trapped within a library full of ancient magic and hidden beneath the Silver Talon’s giant cathedral for one-thousand years threatens to destroy that fragile alliance, weakening the security of the entire region.
But will this tome grant its finder, Magdev Thandriss – guild master of the Prismatic Brotherhood – the level of power he so desperately desires, or will it release the greatest enemy Eldrivaos has ever known? Can a charismatic elven bard – too old to still be alive – convince the evil Aztiglomizzia, Terror of the Northern Wood, to once again assist the goodly races of Eldrivaos in defeating this epic Fiend? And will Tekumze, the leader of an unlikely band of rugged misfits calling themselves The Leper Kings, become the key to the world’s salvation?
Or will he become the catalyst of its doom?
I don’t normally post the entire book description with a review but in the case of The Haunting Duet (The Storm Giants Trilogy) it is necessary. As you can tell this book is far from a simple story involving a single protagonist fighting one bad guy. This is one of those books that I have to start my review by saying that I did in fact enjoy the book, however I will be critical in my review, because as a faux critic / reviewer the only way an author can improve is to get honest reviews of their work and this will be one of those reviews.
The cover art, while showing some skill, was way to cartoon-like and really sells this book short. This is possibly a world changing story and yet we have a cover that looks more like a young adult novel. The concept of the art isn’t bad, but….. as a new author this could really hurt Sales for Mr. Stills. The publication quality looks great and all of the page settings and fonts are fine, but the demon on the back looks comical rather than menacing. I understand stylistic art but in this case it just didn’t work for me.
Stills admits that this book was inspired by some of his D&D campaigns, characters and avatars, and it shows. Being a gamer myself I could almost picture the way some of the encounters went down and was even thinking of some of the roles being made at that gaming table. There are good and bad things about novels like this. The bad first: game stories normally fall short because trying to recreate the magic that is created during a game session while telling a story to people who were not there ends up feeling like a letdown. The nuances of the moment get lost, the lead up to the action filled encounter are hard to explain – the outsider hearing the story doesn’t know everything about the characters involved. All of these factors and several others put James Stills and The Haunting Duet on shaky ground from the get-go. Many authors start their characters as fledgling adventurers and then let the reader follow the growth of those characters through their trials and tribulations. Stills starts most of his characters out at a point where they have already been there and done that, which gives the reader very little time to get to know them. This was a great let down because I really enjoyed the concepts of most of the characters, but their execution got confusing at times.
The good thing about novels like this is that the author has experienced some of the activities and encounters the characters are involved with and can normally explain broad concepts and action in a much more believable way. Books like this are wellsprings of good ideas for your own fantasy campaign. Not only are the plot hooks abundant, the behavior patterns and goals of some of the organizations in the story are easy to adapt to most fantasy settings. I would love to see some of the characters from this story in games I’m running or am a part of.
Stills did a good, albeit brief, job of getting readers up to speed on how things worked in his world, but this felt like fast food rather than a fine dining experience. I was full at the end but….. I know this will be a trilogy, but if you read the book description you can see that Stills really put a lot into 183 pages, almost too much. The frenetic pace this book maintained combined with its wide world-altering scope made me feel left behind at times, there was just so much going on.
By now you can see that all of the improvements I’ve suggested are not deal breakers. Stills is a good writer who hasn’t fallen in that trap of trying to prove how many big words he knows as quickly as possible. His descriptions are full of life without being too lengthy. I felt like I knew the characters in the way one feels they know a radio personality. You hear their voices and know what they like and don’t like, but to call that personality one of your friends is an over-estimation of that relationship. Stills has the skills to take things to the next level and I hope that he does in the next two books in this series. When it comes to a fight scene Stills knows his stuff and I would love to have him run combat at the gaming table. The combat in this book is fast, brutal and feels lethal. As a reader, what more can you ask for?
James Stills has the potential to make The Storm Giants series a real winner if he can just tweak a few things here and there. He is a skilled writer who is writing about a subject that he loves. When I say this I don’t mean it like when someone sets you up on a blind date and says he/she has a great personality. Stills knows his stuff and has the chops to express it. The perfect time to read this book is right after you’ve read a bunch of Tolkien or any of the Wheel of Time books, this is the polar opposite as far as pacing goes. This is a fast paced, fast read that is a great way to kill an evening with. I would recommend this book to players and GMs alike as it is chalk full of plot hooks and interesting characters.
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