Book Review – Legacy

I give up! I can’t do it. I’m 30% through Legacy on my Kindle and I just cannot force myself to continue! I tried, dear reader, oh, I tried. I put forth an almighty effort reminiscent of my efforts at finishing the infamous Eragon (a Herculean effort that by comparison makes cleaning Augean stables look like a simple sweep job), but it wasn’t enough. I give up!

I am baffled as to how this book got published, much less why Amazon should choose it as the first book they published. Some people are impressed that the author is a teenager, rather like Paolini had been when he started writing Eragon. I’m impressed anyone would buy into that as a reason to publish or purchase a book.

The plot is missing, presumed dead. I’m 30% into the book and I STILL don’t know what it’s really about. We have a boring, uninteresting heroine living in a truly fantastic fantasy world. I half expected the peasants to break into a choreographed song about how much they love tending their fields in this magical land. It makes Disney fantasy look like it’s built on a solid foundation of reality and shows a real lack of knowledge in how medieval kingdoms actually functioned.

For example: there’s a part in the book where a boy is arrested as a possible traitor. He’s supposed to be about sixteen or seventeen. It’s explained that, due to his age, he won’t be tossed into the dungeon. Right. At that age in this sort of time period, he would likely already be married and certainly would be treated as an adult by whatever passes for a legal system in such a time period. True, this is a fantasy world, and not actual medieval Europe, but since it, like 99% of other fantasy worlds, is based on medieval Europe, a certain level of verisimilitude is to be expected and found lacking in this story.

Also annoying are the many cliches, including the Heroine Being Forced Into a Loveless Marriage, which was probably old during the time of the Sumerians and hasn’t gotten any fresher since. Add to this some very clumsy, forced writing that shows just how experienced the author is (like many inexperienced authors, she goes out of her way to avoid using the word “said”), and you end up with a truly unpleasant read.

For readers who want a good set of books about a young girl living in a fantasy world, check out the Tiffany Aching subseries of Discworld books by Terry Pratchett. They’re called The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky and Wintersmith, with I Shall Wear Midnight coming out in 2010. They present a girl who is strong, intelligent and interesting. But then, I guess that’s what you get when you have a truly professional author writing as opposed to a lucky amateur

Like Paolini, Kluver may get better as she gets older (though he hasn’t. From all accounts his stories are getting progressively worse). At present she has no business being a published author. Points to her for having the wherewithal to actually FINISH writing a book (as someone who has started several, but never finished one, I can appreciate that), but beyond that? Legacy proves, as did Eragon that having a good story behind the book (sixteen-year-old female author!), does not, sadly, guarantee a good story within the book.