Book 7: Once a Hero by Michael Stackpole
I finished Once a Hero by Michael Stackpole last week, but haven't gotten a chance to post about it until now. I'm a big fan of Mike and his Star Wars novels, but this is only the second of his fantasy novels that I've read. (The other was Talion: Revenant).
Once a Hero was really very good, and I highly recommend it. Unfortunately, it is out of print. I got my copy from Mike Stackpole himself. It seems he acquired quite a few copies of his hard to find books himself, and will gladly sign and send them to fans by way of his website.
It did take me a little bit of effort to get into the novel at first, because it's very complicated to begin with. He starts with one character, jumps back and forth through recent history a few times in that first chapter, and then jumps 500 years in the future to two characters who appear to have absolutely no connection to the previous storyline at all. Every chapter continues to switch off, and eventually, however, the modern storyline sort of works backwards, and the two sort of meet in the middle, and then finish out the book together. It was full of elves, humans, and other elder races (all in conflict, of course); romance, mystery, war, angst, and friendship; it was a little cliche, a little heart wrenching, a little predictable (at least if you're familiar with Stackpole's writing), but I really enjoyed it and found that once I got a few chapters in I had a very hard time putting it down.
Once a Hero was really very good, and I highly recommend it. Unfortunately, it is out of print. I got my copy from Mike Stackpole himself. It seems he acquired quite a few copies of his hard to find books himself, and will gladly sign and send them to fans by way of his website.
It did take me a little bit of effort to get into the novel at first, because it's very complicated to begin with. He starts with one character, jumps back and forth through recent history a few times in that first chapter, and then jumps 500 years in the future to two characters who appear to have absolutely no connection to the previous storyline at all. Every chapter continues to switch off, and eventually, however, the modern storyline sort of works backwards, and the two sort of meet in the middle, and then finish out the book together. It was full of elves, humans, and other elder races (all in conflict, of course); romance, mystery, war, angst, and friendship; it was a little cliche, a little heart wrenching, a little predictable (at least if you're familiar with Stackpole's writing), but I really enjoyed it and found that once I got a few chapters in I had a very hard time putting it down.