Book Review: “Vaetra Unveiled” by @DanielRMarvello

By root

October 27, 2014

VaetraUnveiledCover_tnI just finished Vaetra Unveiled by Daniel Marvello. It was a delightful read! I wanted to write up my reactions to it.

Vaetra Unveiled is a classic swords-and-sorcery novel. There is action, suspense, and charm amongst the characters. Daniel does a great job at world building in the sense that I could imagine everywhere the story took me without getting bogged down in it.

For the record, I have also read The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, paragons of high fantasy. Sometimes Tolkien’s world building, or rather culture/history/mythology building would overload me, causing me to sometimes skip over songs and other material.

I enjoyed seeing how magic was presented. Daniel’s take on magic is quite interesting. I promise not to give anything away. The main character, Jaylan Forester, in his various pursuits, begins to encounter magic, something he isn’t used to dealing with. He doesn’t understand it, let alone how it works. As he tries to solve the problem at hand, he discovers his own gifts in that arena. I won’t say more than that, but it was fun adventuring along with Jaylan as he tries to figure out the rules of vaetra.

Having read Doctor Strange comic books for years, I rather enjoyed seeing that vaetra isn’t just made up on a whim. Instead, vaetra appears to have a real set of rules that empower and constrain who can do what. No one has infinite power, and the various characters have to work together to free some innocent “mundanes”.

Which leads me to another good point. I enjoyed that there was real plot as well. As George Lucas stated, the point is to tell a story, not show off the set that was built. There were a couple moments along the way where I felt Jaylan was a bit dimwitted and I thought not “getting it” as fast as I thought he would. But it was only a couple. For what turns out to NOT be a 500-page tome of fantasy, it was nice that I could read it with the Kindle app on my iPhone in about five days. It certainly whets my appetite to the read the rest of the series.

The only con I can think of is that sometimes Jaylan feels a bit simplistic. Perhaps a bit too much of the good side. This may be my own bias after having read the first ten Jack Reacher novels, where when Reacher sees something wrong, he dispenses hard core justice. Jaylan is nothing of the kind. Perhaps a little more nitty gritty and some tougher decisions would strengthen Jaylan’s character. But at the end of the day, his character was believable.

About Daniel Marvello

Daniel has been of great assistance to me. I discovered his blog while working on Python Testing Cookbook. My desire to pick up and write the fictional novel i had started 20 years ago was rekindled as I helped my wife polish her trade novel. Googling about structure and tips, I found Daniel’s article on the details of a beat sheet. Suffice it to say, I wooed him to beta read Darklight. As a beta reader, I felt like he provided me top quality feedback in grammar, diction, and POV.

The side effect is that I developed a desire to read his own craft. A) I enjoy a good story. B) Could he really write fiction analogous to the critique he provided me? C) For a Kindle book, it only cost $3. D) Since my cheapskate days are behind me, I honestly like to support other people that seem to deserve it. I’m glad I did!

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