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I joined Waterbrook’s (a division of Random House) book reviewer list to get free books a few months ago. I recently was offered a chance to review Andrew Peterson’s North! Or Be Eaten, book 2 of the Wingfeather Saga. I mentioned to the the lovely Staci Carmichael (person in charge of these books, and my new bff) that I hadn’t read book one, and she offered to send me book one along with book 2. Yay me! So, while I’m not going to do an in depth review of book one, I thought I’d write a little bit about it as a thank you to Staci for sending it to me.

In Andrew Peterson’s On The Edge of The Dark Sea of Darkness, Janner, Tink, and Leeli Igiby live under the oppression of the horrible Fangs of Dang- lizard-like creatures who delight in torturing humans, and in eating maggotloaf and other such culinary treats. These bad boys work for Gnag the Nameless, who (whom?) the book refers to as a nameless evil… Yeah, you can see why I liked it from the start.

Unfortunately, the Igiby children manage to draw an undue amount of attention to themselves, and in order to avoid death or enslavement, they, along with their one legged ex-pirate grandfather, and sensible mother, have to escape.

The book is interesting from the start, but mainly because of the humor, which is a cross between middle school boy humor (aka: booger jokes), and Terry Pratchett. It’s an odd mix, but I love it. The majority of the book is almost like back story, however, and doesn’t really pick up the pace until the final third of the book. It’s well worth the read, but is absolutely essential if you plan to read the much more active book 2. At the very least, the secondary characters and the humorous footnotes should keep you entertained until you reach the exciting bits.

This is a middle grade fantasy, so if you’re expecting Robert Jordan, give this a miss. If you like both Narnia and Terry Pratchett, this may be worth your while.

The Vanishing Sculptor is Donita K Paul’s newest novel. It’s set in the same world as her DragonKeeper Chronicles, but takes place during a much earlier time and in a country that is far removed from the Amara we got to know in her earlier books.

The Vanishing Sculptor is a story about Tipper, a young emerlindian girl (an interesting take on elves) who is forced to sell her father’s masterful works of art in order to pay the house bills for years after her father disappeared. Unfortunately for her, and the world, it turns out that 3 of the sculptures she’s sold were carved out of one of the foundation stones of the earth! She must now set out on a quest (those pesky things, awfully uncomfortable these quests are- according to Wizard Fenworth) to retrieve these statues to prevent the total disolution of the world… and her father.

Even though I really miss Sir Dar, who, in this book, has not even been born yet, I love that Wizard Fenworth is back. Yes! There is nothing better than a wizard who drops off to sleep in mid sentence and who grows bark and leaves during his snoozes, not to mention the bizarre logic he follows that would make a sidewinder jealous with all the zigs and zags it takes.

Donita K Paul writes YA fantasy, and does it very well. The quality of her writing has improved with each book, and, surprisingly, each plot is remarkably fresh. Not all stories are particularly gripping, some are naturally better than others. But they’re all unique.

Happily, she’s gotten over her habit of over-naming things. In the first book of the DragonKeeper Chronicles, EVERYTHING had a weird name. It made it extremely difficult to follow the story, or even a train of thought. Particularly when the things being named didn’t actually have anything to do with the story at all.

This began to taper off until the last few books in the series were a good standard of fantasy naming. No more than is necessary.

In The Vanishing Sculptor, Paul continues to only name what’s necessary. There are only two things that I can really find fault with (aside from the lack of Sir Dar, which was necessary), and that’s that sometimes the quest seems a little too normal. As in, they go here, and then this happens, and then they go here.  So, in my opinion, a couple of scenes could have been removed with a mention of “they continued on to such and such, obtained such and such, and then proceeded to reach the such and such”. That would have left more room for what I consider to be the good stuff to be fleshed out a bit more.

The other thing that I take issue with is that they eat daggarts in Chiril. Which, as we know, is a common treat in Amara a few centuries later. I’m willing to forgive this point by telling myself that Wizard Fenworth and Librettowit brought daggarts back to Amara from Chiril and that’s how they became popular in Amara. Remember, Chiril and Amara are across the world from each other, and so travel is prohibitive. The odds of the same cookie-type treat being popular across the world when people didn’t travel across the world is pretty slim. It’s a minor point, I know, but it irritated me while I was reading.

If you’re interested in ordering The Vanishing Sculptor, it can be ordered directly from Random House, or from your favorite large bookstore.

Addendum: Donita K Paul answered the question “If you could say one thing to aspiring novelists, what would you say?” on Christian author C.J. Darlington’s blog.

Also, I forgot to mention my other The Vanishing Sculptor review at TitleTrakk.com