-first book of the 'PhileassonSaga'
Author:
Bernhard Hennen
Published:
2016
Genre:
Fantasy, Novel
494 pages [German edition]
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I already mentioned this book in my first ‘recoSUNDAYtion’ post…
Please enjoy my review. ^^
[this is a reviewer’s copy, but I swear it by the old gods and the new *#gotreference; I am sorry, but I always feel the need to say this whenever I start saying: ‘I swear’ xDDD* that I am only going to write down my honest opinion here and that I am not changing anything just because I didn’t pay anything for this book.]
! Warning: This is a German book and it isn’t translated into any other languages [yet] !
Maybe *hopefully* you are interested in hearing something about it though.
Content
This book is about the two captains ‘Asleif Phileasson’ and ‘Beorn der Blender’.
The two of them are rivals and enemies.
One day it is purposed that there should be a competition between them to decide who of them the ‘king of the sea’ is.
They accept and soon the race begins.
The two participants have to circle ‘Aventuring’ within 80 weeks and while doing so they also have to pass different tests.
On that dangerous journey Phileasson, Beorn and their crews see themselves confronted with problems no other human being ever had to deal with before:
Dangerous animals, even more dangerous humans and on top of that the everlasting cold of the north.
Review
I actually didn’t really know what this book was about when I started reading it /
I thought that I knew what it was about but I was wrong. xD
I thought that the book’s main character would be Tylstyr, a young mage who was talked about very much within the pages I have already read in the library when first ‘discovering’ this book.
*I absolutely fell in love with this book back then and the only reason why I didn’t immediately buy it was because I didn’t have any money left. xDD*
I didn’t realize that the part I read only was the prologue and that the book isn’t about a young mage learning how to use magic properly but about two seamen fighting against each other. Fail. xDD
I have already read several books about seamen, so I don’t have any “problem” with that topic, it just was a surprise for me when I realized my mistake. :3
One of the things I enjoyed very much about this book is that elves, wizards, dwarfs and many more fantastic creatures are mentioned and some of them also join the captains’ crews, BUT they aren’t the most important characters.
The book is about seaman and in addition to that there are elves and wizards.
In many fantasy novels it is the other way around; the books are about elves and wizards and then sometimes humans are mentioned as dump, unimportant secondary characters.
↣ I don’t have a problem with that because I deal with many, many ordinary people in my every day live, so I don’t just want to read books about 'normal' humans in my free-time, but the ‘mixture’ between normal and abnormal [with the focus on the ‘normal’] actually fits this book very, very well. :D
A thing I am not sure how to feel about are the main characters.
There are the two ‘groups’ Phileasson’ and ‘Beorn’ . Normally every group has positive and negative characteristics so every reader is able to choose his favourite according to his or her own liking.
In this book however I feel like ‘Phileasson’ got all the positive characteristics and Beorn got all the negative ones. In addition to that Philleasson’s Crew consists of nice and friendly people the reader gets to know better *Tylstyr for example is one of them* and the other captain’s crew doesn’t. ^^
As I said, I am not sure whether I should like this or not; but I had to mention it though because this fact immediately caught my eye. ^^
Talking of all the members of Phileasson’s crew being nice, I want to introduce some of my favourite ones to you:
Salarin:
Salarin is an elve, but he left his ‘clan’ because he wanted to explore the gods the humans pray to.
He perceives his surroundings as a song and whenever he wants to cast magic he just adds his own melody to the song which already is there so that they add up to a new song. ^^
He is so cute and different and he annoys all the seamen because he is very week and he doesn’t know any of the human traditions but exactly that for he immediately won my heart.
Shaya:
She is a priest and the only reason why she is on Philasson’s ship is that she is the adjudicator and she has to check whether the captain obeys the rules or not.
At the beginning she would cry all the time and she just wants to be home, but later she shows that she actually is pretty cool and brave and I really like that. :D
Tylstyr:
He is the mage I already mentioned at the top.
At the beginning I really, really liked him but as soon as the prologue was over he seemed to have changed and I don’t really know whether I like that ‘new’ Tystyr or not…
I have to wait for the next book to finally decide whether he is cool or not. xDD
Another thing I didn’t really like about this book is that it is a bit vulgar and brutal from time to time.
I know, this is a book about vulgar and brutal seamen, so it would be a bit weird if the book wouldn’t be like that too, but I still want to mention it here.
I prefer a beautiful and detailed description of the acting characters, the surroundings and the plot in general to a detailed description of a fight or war.
I simply don’t want to know which bone in the fighter’s body broke and how much blood is coming out of the wound… *I feel like I am a bit too empathetic for reading such things because my own body starts hurting whenever the injuries of other people are described too detailed. xD*
There aren’t that many fights in this book and the nature and the animals also are described very well, BUT if there is a fight it always is described in very detailed and violent way.
My Recommendation
You should read this book if you like to
-read stories about salesman
-search for a new, good fantasy series
You shouldn’t read this book if you
-absolutely hate brutal scenes
-absolutely hate series and you just search for a single book to read during one day
-can’t speak German xDDDD *why am I so funny?! …not… I’m sorry… xD*
To sum up:
I am not super hyped about this series, but I definitely want to continue reading it. :3
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