Review: The Battle Sylph

Title: The Battle Sylph (Sylph #1)
Author: L. J. McDonald
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Heat Index: 4 out of 5
Release Date: March 28th, 2010
Word/Page Count: 323 pages
Format: NetGalley

He is one of many: a creature of magic, unrelentingly male. He is lured through the portal by pure female beauty, a virgin sacrifice. She is killed, and he is silenced and enslaved.

Such a dark ritual is necessary. Unlike their elemental cousins—those gentler sylphs of wind and fire—battlers find no joy in everyday labor. Their magic can destroy an army or demolish a castle, and each has but one goal: find his queen, then protect and pleasure her at any cost. What would a maiden do if she were given such a servant? What would befall that kingdom foolish enough to allow a battler to escape? Young Solie and the people of Eferem are about to find out.

Action, fantasy and sex. Lord of the Rings meets 91210.

Solie never imagined that running away from home (and an unpalatable arranged marriage to an odious grocer) would land her in an adventure of a lifetime filled with romance, danger, and intrigue.

I think one of the most important things is to start reading this book in the right frame of mind. If you want a fantasy book, this isn't it. There are fantasy elements but so many things get left unexplained that it is ultimately frustrating for a fantasy reader. If you are looking for a romantic fantasy book, this isn't it either. There are hookups in this story but no real romance. If you are looking for lots of sex in a fantasy world...Nope, not it.

So what is this book? I call it a pseudo-YA fantasy with romantic elements. YA because the lead characters (the hero is considered a 'hatchling') are not only young in age, but in actions as well. Pseudo because this book has sex in it and, as we all know, teenagers don't have sex and certainly don't read about it (Gory violence? Not a problem. Sex? Oh noes! THINK OF THE CHILDREN!). Fantasy because it is set is set in an alternate, medievalish world where portals are opened and Sylphs (I guess they are supposed to be fairyish but I saw them more as demonesque) come through only to be enslaved. And romantic because 'love' is mentioned. Or we are told that characters love each other in a romantic instead of familial sense.

So if you go into this book prepared, you will likely avoid many of the frustrations I experienced. There are some really great fantasy world building ideas in this story but ultimately it is marred by way too much 'telling'. Establishing a fantasy world is incredibly difficult. There is a lot that needs to be explained but what sets the great fantasy writers apart from the rest of the herd is the ability to explain without falling back to bricks of endless expository text.

That's one of the problems in The Battle Sylph. Several different POVs were introduced only to squeeze in information about the universe and it was 'told' to the reader as blocks of text. The prologue is a perfect example. I immediately thought that the character introduced would be a significant player in the story. He's not. He's a secondary character that does something important, eventually, but his early POV is just a tool to 'tell' about the universe.

I know I'm harping on the show vs. tell, but spoon-feeding information to readers is the biggest crime in storytelling. (Note to authors: Most readers aren't stupid and those that are won't like your stories anyway. Don't cater to the stupid.)

Which leads me to the second crime of storytelling and, quite often, a story killer: stupid protagonists. Now, I'm not talking about unintelligent characters. I'm talking about die, MarySue the Destroyer of all that is entertaining and readable, die! Solie is the worst kind of MarySue: the Stupid Sue. Her age/inexperience is not an excuse for her stupidity. She's a farm-girl not a pampered aristocrat (which if she had been would have gone a long way to explain her sense of entitlement and lack of common sense). It got to a point where every time she showed up, I groaned and every time she spoke I wanted someone to just kill her. Solie nearly ruined this story and she is solely (haha) responsible for it taking seven days for me to finish this story. I could only read this character in small doses.

Ultimately, it was the secondary characters that saved this interesting world for me. I could care less what happened with Solie and Heyou (it is Hey You, in case you are wondering and instead of being funny it just goes to illustrate the stupidity of MarySue), but I absolutely wanted to know what would happen with the secondary characters.

Five stars for the fantasy elements (even though so much is left unexplained), the great supporting cast, the world building, and the well placed infusion of sex into a fantasy universe. One star for the annoying, die Stupid Sue, die! Three stars overall. I will pick up the second book but only because the main characters (hopefully) are Ril and Lizzie.