2 out of 4 stars
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Horn of the Kraken by Stephen Pearl is a work of Fantasy about a group of five heroes who embark on a journey together. When I read the description of the book I got excited. It seemed like a book that would be full of action and would keep the reader wanting to read more. While it was full of constant movement, fighting, and the reader stayed engaged I found that the book wasn't a book I could read in one sitting.
This story takes place in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world where shape-shifters exist, people can see and talk to the dead and people fight for their beliefs. Five people are brought together for a common cause: vengeance. The main antagonist Hakon affects all of them, with the result being a well thought out plan to bring him down. Through the use of a horn he can control the seas with mighty beasts called Kraken, sinking ships and demanding people commit to his way of thinking. During this story, Fjorn one of the main characters is sent to ship for impossibly difficult tasks and with him the other four follow. There is plenty of fighting and very near death experiences for all the main characters and in that the story became predictable. As the story concludes, love is found, and good conquers evil.
The plot was good although simply written. The story started out strong and maintained it for most of the story which kept me as the reader engaged. I thought the characters were also well developed, each one unique and different from the rest. From being able to talk to the dead to being able to shape shift, it was interesting to see the characters form an unlikely friendship. I think aside from an interesting plot and well developed characters that was all I liked about the story. It started out strong, and I genuinely thought the story would be a great read. But, it was only an okay read from beginning to end. But that brings me to the issues I had with the story.
Grammatical errors on almost every page, from misplaced quotation marks to incorrect word spellings. Not only did the errors detract from the story, they made it difficult to read at times. In the beginning there is one character which I thought we'd see more of, but she wasn't mentioned again. After the five people came together, I would have thought she would appear one last time as the story concluded. Given her reasoning for doing what she did though, I thought we would have seen her at least at the end. That was disappointing for me. Most important, the ending. I was expecting an “Oh my gosh!” feeling from an action packed ending but all I felt was that it was rushed. Over all I was disappointed.
I rate Horn of the Kraken 2 out of 4 stars because I just couldn't get past the grammatical errors and the ending. The errors were excessive and the ending was rushed. For me the ending completely disengaged the reader for a quick and rather boring ending. If you can look past that to the good plot and the well developed characters then I would recommend this book. Otherwise I would not recommend it.
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Horn of the Kraken
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