Book Review
Title: The Seventh Blessing
Author: R. L. Baxter
Genre: YA/Fantasy
Rating: DNF
Review: The opening to The Seventh Blessing was interesting, the first thing I noticed is the novel is told in a 1st person narrative which seemed strange and I have read many novels written in this narrative style and read even fewer that I enjoyed but I enjoy a challenge. We meet our protagonist Luna as he faces off with the God, Gaudium as he seeks entrance into the Land of the Gods to find his sister who was claimed by a disease created by the Gods known as the Seventh Blessing. At his side he carries a living sword called Adamas who can talk as well as act independent of his wielder. Luna’s associate Trista: a witch, gives him some information that leads him Brightin, the home of the God; Praecipio but not everything is as it seems.
The brief battle that takes place tells us a little about Luna, he is a morally gray character that is very clear, but he also uses miracle arts, a form of “magic” that allows him to create miracles such as being able to walk on water and stop time for a brief moment. While neither Luna nor the God is killed, Praecipio tells him to come to the centre of the island for the next battle. I was getting used to the writing/narrative style at the point, but one thing did bug me and that was the written sighs, literally sigh is written where Luna sighs and it is more than a little off putting especially when the dialogue is pretty well written. Luna learns from Praecipio that the calamity known as Ten can get him to the Land of the Gods, but for Luna it isn’t that simple. When the synopsis mentions an all-powerful demon I automatically pictured someone male but Ten is a hyper active person who seems almost like an annoying teenager and it seems like a weak attempt to diversify the cast of characters which so far has been limited to Luna, Adamas and Trista.
While Ten knows a lot about Adamas and the Land of the Gods, it seems that the world has changed a lot in the 5000 years she has been captive, so it is going to be harder than she thought to get to their destination. We also get plenty of flashbacks and dreams regarding Luna’s past and the most interesting thing I have learned from these is that his real name is Cassius. As we approach the halfway mark in the novel, we get our first proper action scene between our trio and Vast, one of the dragoon soldier who serve the King of Gin; the capital city. The dragoons also serve under Gigas, the dragon god who now has his sights set on Adamas as well as Ten and Luna. While Ten and Luna have been shown to be incredibly strong, they aren’t much of a match for Vast although they do find a strategy in the end they both take a lot of damage in the process. Knowing that the Dragon god won’t stop until he has what he wants the trio are left with no choice but to head straight to him. We also learn that Trista definitely knows more than she is letting on about the trio and she even manages to rile up Ten before she disappears and I have a feeling she might be the key they need to get to the Land of the Gods, however, we also learn that Luna’s old friend Orion was the Messiah of Babylon City and was taken to the Land of the Gods which might be another way for the trio to get there.
I had to DNF The Seventh Blessing at only 35% because I so had many issues with The Seventh Blessing including but not limited to the writing style, issues within the writing such as the audible sighs, the written onomatopoeia during fights scene and the overall telling not showing. There are also a lot of inaccuracies in the novel, for example, Luna says that human without medical treatment only take about a week to recover from a broken arm which is frankly a little stupid. Before you even get halfway through the story becomes so silly when a robot appears, I can understand Gods and Demons and talking swords in the world Baxter has created and I put up with all the issues I had but as soon as Malcos appeared I was done. The major problem I had was the writing style, it reads like a really rough draft of a novel rather than a finished novel, if the author went back and rewrote the novel to read better then I’d probably give it another go because the story was fairly interesting but the plot seemed like the author wasn’t really sure where he was going with it so he just kept throwing stuff in that didn’t need to be there.
Comments