Of Heroes and Villains

Of Heroes And Villains by Julius St. Clair
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

5 years after the events of Hail to the Queen, The Age of Peace has arrived and with it the unity of all the kingdoms.

Along with the discovery of Quietus survivors, a new threat to the peace comes to Allay's attention. Rogue Sages have threatened the survivors of Quietus and shockingly they are far more powerful than James who was believed to be the strongest living Sage.

Meanwhile Bastion, a young Sage with amazing power has come to the world's attention. He fears his already immense power and seeks a way to control it so he doesn't harm anyone.

Of Heroes and Villains is an interesting start to a new Sage Saga trilogy. The book started slowly and I wasn't sure for a moment if it still had the interesting aspects the first trilogy did, but it definitely found what makes it uniquely interesting before the end. I think the reason it started slowly is because despite the fact that we all want to live in peace, peace makes for a boring fantasy story. Of course a new major conflict had to occur and this conflict comes from quite an unexpected place. This new conflict alone has me intrigued to read the rest of the series.

All the main characters that survived Hail to the Queen appear. Queen Catherine is still the leader of the land despite her naïveté. Arimus is mostly in retirement making up for lost time with his wife Ashalynn. James is now considered The Master Sage and is days away from opening a Sage Academy in the place of the old Sentinel Academy. All the characters seem practically the same as they were at the end of Hail to the Queen except that Arimus is a bit more laid back.

Bastion is an interesting addition. An extremely powerful youth who is about to join the sage academy. Bastion is an incredibly serious character who seems to never had an opportunity to live like a child because of his traumatizing past and since his family lives on the outskirts of the village. It's clear even without the note from the author that this Sage Saga trilogy will revolve more around Bastion than anyone.

Unfortunately like its predecessors Of Heroes and Villains suffers from poor editing. The book is riddled with grammatical errors along with using the wrong words from time to time. Most disturbing to me is the fact that repeatedly the one armed warrior Arimus is referred to as crossing his arms, placing his hands to his sides, and so forth. The amount of times it occurs is a bit disheartening. Despite these errors Julius St. Clair has written a good book.

Of Heroes and Villains has peaked my interest enough to keep reading this new Sage Saga trilogy. St. Clair has a marvelous imagination and I thoroughly enjoy what he brings to life with it.

3 out of 5 stars



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