This month on the Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour we are featuring Curse of the Spider King by Wayne Batson and Christopher Hopper.  Wow, that’s a lot of links in the first sentence!   This is a mid-grade Christian fantasy published by Thomas Nelson publishers.

It’s been awhile since I’ve done a blog tour for the CSFF.  The reasons fell somewhere between lack of time and lack of interest in the books being featured.  I’ve found that I’ve become pretty particular about what I’ll spend my time reading and this was the first book that caught my eye in quite some time.

The subject matter was interesting – seven 13-year old children, of Elven blood, living as humans on Earth.  The authors are two men that I greatly respect and who have written other works of fiction that kept me interested and engaged.  The idea of these two men writing together was exciting.  Alone they are both wonderful authors.  Together what could they do?  So what did they do?

They created an engaging and entertain story which left me looking forward to the next installment.  From the back of the book:

The Seven succeeding Elven Lords of Allyra were dead, lost in the Siege of Berinfell as babes.  At least that’s what everyone thought until tremors from a distant world known as Earth, revealed strange signs that Elven blood lived among its peoples. With a glimmer of hope in their hearts, sentinels are sent to see if the signs are true. But theirs is not a lone errand. The ruling warlord of Allyra, the Spider King, has sent his own scouts to hunt down the Seven and finish the job they failed to complete many ages ago.

Now 13-year-olds on the brink of the Age of Reckoning when their Elven gifts will be manifest, discover the unthinkable truth that their adoptive families are not their only kin. With mysterious Sentinels revealing breathtaking secrets of the past, and dark strangers haunting their every move, will the young Elf Lords find the way back to the home of their birth? Worlds and races collide as the forces of good and evil battle.  Will anyone escape the Curse of the Spider King?

There were strengths and weaknesses in this book, as there is in any novel.  The question is are the strengths strong enough to keep you reading and looking forward to more? I’ll start with the weaknesses because I like to end on a positive note!

Weaknesses:  As soon as I opened the book and saw the extensive list of names and places I knew it was going to be tough to keep track of things.  Generally, if I’ve got to refer to an index, there is too much going on for me to stay interested. Yet in keeping with my previous experience with both of these authors by hanging in there I became more and more engaged. Yes, it was very difficult to keep all of the characters straight.  And because of the large cast and the frequent point of view changes it was hard to become overly invested in any one character.  Though the characters were pretty well developed I felt like I could have gotten to know them more if I’d been able to spend more time with them.  Hard to do in a book of about 370 pages with around 30 characters.

Overall I am not a fan of prologues or chapters that read like info dumps.  The first chapter of this book – Eight-Hundred Year Echos – was not quite either of those but sort of felt like both.  It set a stage that, in my opinion, really didn’t need to be set.  As I read more of the book it seemed to me that the information shared in that chapter could have been handled the same way as the rest of the history in the book was, as a sort of ‘flashback’ that was very “Neverending Story“.

Now it has admittedly been a few years since I was a 13-year old but some of the reactions didn’t seem quite age appropriate.  Batson has been a middle school teacher for eighteen years though, so I’ll take his ‘word’ for it and call him the expert.  Having two teens of my own doesn’t really count.  LOL

Strengths: The story is fantastic!  A race nearly destroyed by war is hanging their hope on the children of their murdered leaders.  Exiled Elves who’s only mission is to protect the children until their heritage is revealed as they reach the Age of Reckoning.  Wicked villains and imperfect heroes!  Overwhelming odds.  Untrained kids having to be leaders, learning their strengths and learning how to interact with each other.  Wicked cool ’super’ powers.  Faith that doesn’t slap you in the face.  Consequences for poor choices.   Very neat technique for providing back story.  An ending that leaves you wanting more.  Not every adult is going to find the book enjoyable because it really does focus on the kids.  But it is certainly an entertaining read.

Batson and Hopper have created something wonderful together.  I found myself trying to figure out their writing technique.  Did they alternate chapters? If so, who wrote what?  Their writing method, described on the ultra cool web site for the series; The Berinfell Prophecies, is fascinating.  They have also shown marketing genius with this web site and the ability for fans to interact through a forum called The Underground.  It’s so exciting to see people get involved.

Thomas Nelson has once again done an amazing job on the cover art and the production of this book.  Hardcover without the dust jacket, pages with shading and different fonts.  It is beautiful to behold and the kind of thing that publishers need to look at doing more of if they want to continue publishing in paper and not loose out to ereader formats.  In fact, this is the type of book that makes me second guess myself when I say I want an ereader!

I’m so glad I was able to read this book and share my opinion!  Thank you to Thomas Nelson for the review copy and please take the time to visit the other bloggers on the tour:

Brandon Barr
Justin Boyer
Amy Browning
Valerie Comer
Amy Cruson
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Shane Deal
Jeff Draper
Emmalyn Edwards
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Todd Michael Greene
Ryan Heart
Timothy Hicks
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Jason Joyner
Julie
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Tina Kulesa
Melissa Lockcuff
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Mirtika
Nissa
John W. Otte
Cara Powers
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Speculative Faith
Robert Treskillard
Fred Warren
Jason Waguespac
Phyllis Wheeler
Jill Williamson
KM Wilsher

Filed under: CSFF Blog Tour, I read too!