Book 1 by the same author of Advent 9 comes a Fantasy for 8+
My review
5 Stars
This is a new, creative, and refreshing fantasy read. If you want your kids to read Brandon Sanderson soon, start here.
It's a good example of a sci-fi fantasy because it has medieval technology, but is also a sci-fi with a starship in the dream world.
M words are forbidden, such as magic or miracle. Haha. The narrator is not from that parallel Earth or time, so it can make a lot of comparisons using pop culture or contemporary references to make the reader at ease or relate more to this strange world.
It's a great new spin on farm-boy-chosen-one-goes-on-a-quest but with a lot of vibes from our favorite reads. At the same time, it's not close enough to be distractive. You'll get nuances that will speak to your experience as a reader, and to some it will feel like X to others like Y, depending on what left a mark on your memory. It's also a mystery and the quest is far from completed in book one. A great hero journeys classic vibe.
I appreciate that this book has a 10-year-old as a main character but is also the type of fantasy that is not just for kids but for sci-fi-fantasy lovers of all ages.
Has a great pacing with humor to balance the darkness. The narrator breaks the 4th wall, which helps with the narrator's characterization.
Continues in the next volume.
High fantasy, and action, and always feels like moving forward, a lot happens (including befriending squirrels and fast horses, eh eh) but the main story is slow-paced at the same time.
(According to my internal library:) For fans of Brandon Sanderson, Mercedes Lackey with a hint of Neil Gaiman.
Get the book here.
Author
From the publisher:
The stars speak in a language of secrets, yet their stories cannot remain hidden forever.
Billions of years ago, on one of the first-ever Earths, a boy named Skylar will walk away from his home for the last time. Beset by dreams where he flies through the early universe as a sentient starship, he will never be safe if his secret gets out. His only chance to stay alive is to fall in with the same knights who destroyed his peasant village and live under the shadow of the king who sent them to exterminate Skylar’s people.
But powerful dreams have a way of shaping reality, and with each midnight flight across the cosmos, Skylar finds his world—and himself—changing. Magic is another thing which should only exist in dreams, yet Skylar has it—one more secret that needs keeping.
Against a waking life full of monsters, warriors, swords, sorcery, treasure, and ancient mysteries, Skylar has only one key for putting all the pieces together: the Secret Sky that haunts his sleeping mind.
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