Review of Rise of the Savior
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revathy sw
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- Latest Review: Rise of the Savior by Antoine Bonner
Review of Rise of the Savior
[Following is a volunteer review of "Rise of the Savior" by Antoine Bonner.]
A horrific car accident shatters the normalcy of 18-year-old Amanda’s life, as she is rudely thrust into a world of deities, acolytes, and kundalinis. Faced with the prospect of having to save the world and with time to prepare herself running out, Amanda must make a choice—stubbornly cling on to a chance at normalcy or embrace her destiny as the savior of the world and face the overwhelming evil that threatens to destroy all that is good and innocent.
Skipping rapidly from one scene to the next and clearly influenced by shonen anime as touted, Antoine Bonner's Rise of the Savior: Acolyte of Truth is imaginative and bold in the vastness of its vision. Bonner has fashioned some really cool powers for his deities and acolytes. Words like "kundalini" and "prana" make it clear that the book takes inspiration from Hinduism, while the deities are reminiscent of the gods of Egyptian mythology. However, despite these religious and mythological references, I found that the terms and concepts weren't so obscure that a little research couldn't clarify them. Some of the fight scenes are really impressive, and the characters use their powers in inventive ways, which is a delight to read. The book, even while dealing with the intimidating acolyte of death, sets the scene quite nicely for a fascinating and extremely powerful villain in the sequel. My favorite character is definitely Boop. It is criminal that it doesn’t have more appearances. I would love to read a book with Boop as the main character!
However, the very thing that makes this book so appealing—the breadth of Bonner's vision—proves to be the cause of its imperfections. I felt like the pacing, dialogue, and characterization couldn't keep up with the scale of the world in Rise of the Savior. Publishing this book as a graphic novel would have done more justice to Bonner's vision. As I was reading the story, which often suffers from clunky, inelegant pacing and stilted dialogue, imagining the scenes in the form of panels of drawings made it more digestible to me.
As a long-time lover of anime, what attracted me to the book is the fact that it is advertised as being enjoyable to fans of shonen anime. While it certainly does deliver on this claim in some aspects—its fight scenes, for example—in many other aspects, it is a letdown. Shonen anime, and, in fact, anime in general, does focus a lot (sometimes to an excessive degree) on the emotions and motivations of its characters. However, this is something that Bonner's novel lacks. In spite of the omniscient third-person narration, we rarely glimpse any strong sentiments from the characters. On the contrary, despite having a huge cast of characters, the only ones who show any noticeably strong emotions, like grief and anger, are Amanda and Jamie. Even in their case, the emotions never feel heart-wrenching. (I am not counting instances where characters show fear because this emotion would be, I assume, the bare minimum in such a dangerous world).
Fundamentally, the book suffers from a lack of well-developed characters: even at the end, I didn't feel like I truly understood Amanda. Also, ironically, as much as the story stresses upon how Amanda needs to use her powers to save all of humanity, it seems to treat its human characters as expendable. As important as he is to the plot, I thought it was a strange decision on the author's part not to give us more details about what Lucas, Jamie's son, is really like. Similarly, even though the book starts with a peep into the dynamics of Amanda's relationship with her parents, the two later become mere props to advance the plot. They feel more like robots than human parents, and Amanda (to say nothing of her sister, Saira) often seems to forget her parents even exist—especially her mother—unless they are on the verge of death. However, even with all my frustration at the lack of attention given to characterization, it's really nice to see the progression in the relationship between Amanda and Saira.
Amanda's acceptance of her daunting fate also comes across as somewhat abrupt. And this is what the book ultimately suffers from the most—abruptness. From the characters to the dialogue delivery, everything feels rushed. The reader is never given a chance to breathe and let the story sink in.
There are also plot inconsistencies. Amanda’s interest in karate is a major plot point at the beginning of the story and even finds mention in the blurb of the novel. However, it is never acknowledged after a certain point in the book, even when she is preparing for the battles that she will inevitably have to face. I feel like infusing in her fighting style the skills (even if amateur) that she had picked up while practicing karate would have been a great addition.
In short, abruptness and inconsistency are the two major flaws that this book suffers from.
While it does have some appreciable elements, the shortcomings that I stated above, as well as the fact that it has quite a few editing mistakes, lead me to give this book a rating of 3 out of 5 stars.
There are many strong swear words as well as scenes of violence, sickness, and murder in the novel, which, in my opinion, makes it suitable for readers above the age of sixteen. If you are a fan of books that are full of action and are really imaginative in terms of the characters' powers and gifts, then Rise of the Savior is definitely for you.
******
Rise of the Savior
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
A horrific car accident shatters the normalcy of 18-year-old Amanda’s life, as she is rudely thrust into a world of deities, acolytes, and kundalinis. Faced with the prospect of having to save the world and with time to prepare herself running out, Amanda must make a choice—stubbornly cling on to a chance at normalcy or embrace her destiny as the savior of the world and face the overwhelming evil that threatens to destroy all that is good and innocent.
Skipping rapidly from one scene to the next and clearly influenced by shonen anime as touted, Antoine Bonner's Rise of the Savior: Acolyte of Truth is imaginative and bold in the vastness of its vision. Bonner has fashioned some really cool powers for his deities and acolytes. Words like "kundalini" and "prana" make it clear that the book takes inspiration from Hinduism, while the deities are reminiscent of the gods of Egyptian mythology. However, despite these religious and mythological references, I found that the terms and concepts weren't so obscure that a little research couldn't clarify them. Some of the fight scenes are really impressive, and the characters use their powers in inventive ways, which is a delight to read. The book, even while dealing with the intimidating acolyte of death, sets the scene quite nicely for a fascinating and extremely powerful villain in the sequel. My favorite character is definitely Boop. It is criminal that it doesn’t have more appearances. I would love to read a book with Boop as the main character!
However, the very thing that makes this book so appealing—the breadth of Bonner's vision—proves to be the cause of its imperfections. I felt like the pacing, dialogue, and characterization couldn't keep up with the scale of the world in Rise of the Savior. Publishing this book as a graphic novel would have done more justice to Bonner's vision. As I was reading the story, which often suffers from clunky, inelegant pacing and stilted dialogue, imagining the scenes in the form of panels of drawings made it more digestible to me.
As a long-time lover of anime, what attracted me to the book is the fact that it is advertised as being enjoyable to fans of shonen anime. While it certainly does deliver on this claim in some aspects—its fight scenes, for example—in many other aspects, it is a letdown. Shonen anime, and, in fact, anime in general, does focus a lot (sometimes to an excessive degree) on the emotions and motivations of its characters. However, this is something that Bonner's novel lacks. In spite of the omniscient third-person narration, we rarely glimpse any strong sentiments from the characters. On the contrary, despite having a huge cast of characters, the only ones who show any noticeably strong emotions, like grief and anger, are Amanda and Jamie. Even in their case, the emotions never feel heart-wrenching. (I am not counting instances where characters show fear because this emotion would be, I assume, the bare minimum in such a dangerous world).
Fundamentally, the book suffers from a lack of well-developed characters: even at the end, I didn't feel like I truly understood Amanda. Also, ironically, as much as the story stresses upon how Amanda needs to use her powers to save all of humanity, it seems to treat its human characters as expendable. As important as he is to the plot, I thought it was a strange decision on the author's part not to give us more details about what Lucas, Jamie's son, is really like. Similarly, even though the book starts with a peep into the dynamics of Amanda's relationship with her parents, the two later become mere props to advance the plot. They feel more like robots than human parents, and Amanda (to say nothing of her sister, Saira) often seems to forget her parents even exist—especially her mother—unless they are on the verge of death. However, even with all my frustration at the lack of attention given to characterization, it's really nice to see the progression in the relationship between Amanda and Saira.
Amanda's acceptance of her daunting fate also comes across as somewhat abrupt. And this is what the book ultimately suffers from the most—abruptness. From the characters to the dialogue delivery, everything feels rushed. The reader is never given a chance to breathe and let the story sink in.
There are also plot inconsistencies. Amanda’s interest in karate is a major plot point at the beginning of the story and even finds mention in the blurb of the novel. However, it is never acknowledged after a certain point in the book, even when she is preparing for the battles that she will inevitably have to face. I feel like infusing in her fighting style the skills (even if amateur) that she had picked up while practicing karate would have been a great addition.
In short, abruptness and inconsistency are the two major flaws that this book suffers from.
While it does have some appreciable elements, the shortcomings that I stated above, as well as the fact that it has quite a few editing mistakes, lead me to give this book a rating of 3 out of 5 stars.
There are many strong swear words as well as scenes of violence, sickness, and murder in the novel, which, in my opinion, makes it suitable for readers above the age of sixteen. If you are a fan of books that are full of action and are really imaginative in terms of the characters' powers and gifts, then Rise of the Savior is definitely for you.
******
Rise of the Savior
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
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Latest Review: Rise of the Savior by Antoine Bonner
