3 out of 4 stars
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The Demon of the Well by James B. Hendricks is a short fantasy story in the form of a poem. It is separated into two main parts and includes an introduction, a prologue, and an epilogue. The first part is about an old tradesman describing his past adventure to a young orphan boy. He explains how he joined two brothers trying to find a treasure and how it ended with him sacrificing some things he later regretted. In the second part, the old man and the young boy will do the same journey, but this time while trying to save the world from a demon.
The best part for me was the introduction. It’s not about the story. It’s about how the author got inspired to write it. It talks about how one picture of an old man that had no background or context to it, created a vision in his mind about a fantasy story. After seeing the picture, rhyming verses just started flowing in his head just like magic. His writing process was extremely exciting and I was really happy to read about it.
Forty years passed between the day the author first saw the picture and the day the book got published. Even though it is a short book, this shows just how much work was put into this as well as that the author was really interested in this project. Dedication just like this is something I really admire in an author.
Unfortunately, I found quite a lot of editing mistakes and thus can’t give the book the perfect score it otherwise deserves. For example, it was really common for quotation marks to open but not close. This might not be very important but it shows that the book needed much more proofreading and editing. I would advise the author to proofread his books more and to hire an editing team.
Other than that the book was perfect. I give it 3 out of 4. The story was really exciting and extremely well written. It is a very fun short read that anyone would like. I recommend this to anyone over the age of 12, as the book contains some violence. I also recommend that high schools teach this as part of their literature and poetry class. The poetic aspect of the book will definitely be very educational and a fun way to learn for students. I truly believe that anyone interested in fiction will find this amazing.
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The Demon of the Well
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