I'm actually a pretty nice fellow. I do not spend my evenings coming up with new ways to make children cry, beating up kittens, or stealing from the elderly. I'm not so bad, really. Which is why I'm hesitant to post something negative on the tails of my rather vitriolic response to Mr. Itzkoff's article. I don't want to give you, Dear Reader, the impression that I am a cranky old man on the internet, shriveled black heart pumping lemon juice and battery acid through my withered veins. My veins and actually quite un-withered and I hate lemon juice. Still, I think my intentions here are good: to warn you to avoid Grimpow: The Invisible Road by Rafael Abalos at all costs. This is for your own good. Trust me.
I will occasionally write reviews for a literary magazine that focuses on the YA market. Sometimes, these books are a pleasant surprise and a real delight. Other times, they are a nightmarish shock that lessen my faith in humanity and make me question the existence of a higher power. Grimpow wasn't quite that bad, but it was still a stinker. It may not make me question God's existence, but it does make me wonder just what the hell he was up to the day this book was given the green light.
You'll notice in the title of this post that it says "First Impressions," and you're probably wondering what that means. It means the book was such a dull, frustrating chore that I couldn't finish the bloody thing. So let's get into the dirty, unpleasent specifics.
By about the third page of the book, one of the characters has already made mention of destiny. Ugh. Barely half a chapter in and already I'm getting hit with that old standby. I hate destiny. What I hate more is when authors wield it with all the finesse of a blind man with a sledgehammer. Especially when it's delivered in a truly clumsy and ham-handed manner by one of the other characters. Example:
"'Keep [the stone],' Durlib instructed mysteriously, eyes wide as full moons. 'From now on, this stone will be tied to your destiny.'" (Abalos, 5)
When I read this, I see Durlib, Grimpow's morally questionable older buddy, waving his hands around and making "WHHHOOOOO" noises, with the narration delivered by Mr. Vincent Price. This may be partly due to my innate dislike of adverbs in fiction, but really, the lines just smack of cheese and B-Movies. Especially since we get the "It's tied to your DESTINY" bit just a short while later.
The Destiny in question is between Grimpow, a somewhat forgettable young protagonist, and a stone he finds clutched in the cold, dead hand of a man lying in the snow. The stone is (I believe) the Philosopher's Stone. Double ugh.
In the world of fantasy or pseudo-fantasy writing, there are some things that have been beaten to death and should be avoided. Most notably, these are: Any sort of magical sword, Atlantis, any kind of magic ring, and the Philosopher's Stone. There's lots more and some day in the future I might make a post about it, but let's move on for now. The aforementioned things are pretty well overused to the point of them becoming absurd. There are exceptions of course, though not many. In Grimpow's case, it just doesn't work, mate.
The dialogue doesn't really work either. It's clunky and awkward, and pulled me out of the narrative many times. Characters either sound too stilted, too dramatic, or too philosophical. I don't mind books that wax philosophical, but a good author can get complicated ideas and big questions into the story in a very smooth, natural way. Abalos does not. He chucks them into the story like a child throwing cinder blocks into a pond.
There's lots of historical elements, like the Knights Templar and stuff about ancient castles and inquisitorial guys and so on, but it gets very dull very fast and just makes the book seem like it's a Johnny-Come-Lately to the whole DaVinci Code craze.
I gave Grimpow a fair shot. I didn't read the opening chapter and throw it aside in disgust (though I was tempted). I got 100 pages in before finally giving up. You have defeated me Sr. Abalos. Well-played I suppose. So Grimpow kind of stinks, and while it isn't the worst book ever written by any means, you and any young readers you may know would be better served seeking literary entertainment elsewhere.
It's your destiny.
WHHHHOOOOOO
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