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Death's Heretic (2011)

by James L. Sutter(Favorite Author)

3.9 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1601253699 (ISBN13: 9781601253699)

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

Paizo Publishing, LLC

review 1: I really liked this one. it's full of theoretical questions and non answers phrased carefully as an adventure fantasy. the biggest questions it touches on, in addition to honor, fidelity, and faith, is death. as suggested in the title. we as humans fear death, and in this pathfinder novel one race has discovered a way to stave off death. with the sun flower elixir, a magical potion that reverts a person to youth giving them an opportunity for immortality. the elixir is up for grabs to the highest bidder, and in this case is won by a merchant who is immediately murdered for his prize and his soul held for ransom. salim, an unwilling servant of the goddess of death is sent to discover who is behind the abomination and deliver justice.
review 2: I've read plen... morety of game-based fiction, from D&D to Battletech to the Shadowrun universe. This is my first foray into the Pathfinder spin-off books, and I gotta say: they read like precisely what they are; to whit, generic Tolkienesque quest-fantasy with all the serial-numbers filed off. There's nothing original here.But then again, nobody expected there to be. In this volume we have our standard quest-fantasy tropes (a missing mcguffin, a lone-wolf protagonist who's quick with a blade, an attractive sidekick, nefarious magic). The real moral questions or even the diagesic elements of the tale are never realized nor even much explored (why does the death-defying elixer get auctioned off instead of used by the priests? Why are there woodland nymphs and dryads in a desert setting?). Two interesting characters, the initial suspects in the crime, are forgotten by the author and never resurface. Meanwhile, a middle section in which we explore the outer plaes of existence is drawn out much too long. At the climactic moment of the book, there is another inter-planar journey which interrupts the action for no purpose whatsoever.It's workmanlike, readable, with some basic structural errors, and ultimately forgettable. McFantasy. less

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