{"id":259,"date":"2014-02-04T09:22:16","date_gmt":"2014-02-04T14:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robsteinerauthor.com\/?p=259"},"modified":"2014-02-04T09:22:16","modified_gmt":"2014-02-04T14:22:16","slug":"book-review-the-tattered-banner-by-duncan-m-hamilton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robsteinerauthor.com\/?p=259","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: The Tattered Banner by Duncan M. Hamilton"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Tattered Banner<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0by Duncan M. Hamilton is not your typical rags-to-riches fantasy story, but it does start out as one.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The hero, Soren, is plucked from a starving street urchin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life by a famous nobleman to attend Ostia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s prestigious Academy of Swordsmanship.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Magic is outlawed in Ostia, so the Duchy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s best and brightest become master swordsmen to move up in society.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an opportunity that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s too good to be true, and Soren recognizes this.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0He becomes the hardest working student at the Academy because he knows that one failure could throw him back on the streets; something his rich, noble classmates don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to worry about.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0It soon becomes clear that Soren has a magical \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Gift\u00e2\u20ac\u009d with a blade that enables him to defeat almost anyone he faces despite his limited training.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s where the story turns away from the typical hero\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s journey.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Tattered Banner<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0is not about undertaking quests or vanquishing dark lords, but how one young man survives from day to day with only his wits and his Gift.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Soren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s journey throughout the book is like a series of random encounters\u00e2\u20ac\u201dsomething happens to him, he makes a choice, and then he blasts off into a totally new direction.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0His adventures are certainly thrilling and had me turning the pages.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0I suppose random encounters are what real life is like.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Which leads to my one criticism. \u00c2\u00a0The Tattered Banner<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0is well told, but I felt like there was something missing: an overall goal for Soren to work towards that ties everything together.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Soren simply tries to survive from one unrelated situation to the next.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0He has an intriguing magical skill with the sword, but that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem to be at the top of his \u00e2\u20ac\u0153to do list\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to investigate.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0I was hoping the book would make\u00c2\u00a0that<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0Soren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s overall goal, and show how it conflicted with Ostia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s anti-magic laws.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0But it never happened.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Though Soren makes some poor decisions, I still rooted for him, nonetheless.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0He never forgets that he was once a starving orphan on the streets, which makes you understand his actions when he does things that are, at best, morally questionable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Tattered Banner<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0is book one of a series, so I hope future volumes will explore the mystery of Soren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s magical Gift with the sword.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0I did enjoy the book very much because of its action and interesting characters, despite my reservations about the plot structure.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Highly recommended.<\/p>\n

The Tattered Banner<\/a><\/i>\u00c2\u00a0is available on Amazon.<\/p>\n

Cross-posted on New Podler Review of Books<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Tattered Banner\u00c2\u00a0by Duncan M. Hamilton is not your typical rags-to-riches fantasy story, but it does start out as one. The hero, Soren, is plucked from a starving street urchin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life by a famous nobleman to attend Ostia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s prestigious Academy of Swordsmanship.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Magic is outlawed in Ostia, so the Duchy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s best and brightest become master swordsmen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-novels"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robsteinerauthor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robsteinerauthor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robsteinerauthor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robsteinerauthor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robsteinerauthor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/robsteinerauthor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robsteinerauthor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robsteinerauthor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robsteinerauthor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}