From a quick browse through Amazon reviews, I can see that the books hasn't been as well received as I’d imagined
One reviewer called it ‘disappointing..’, another said ’I hated it...’, and one, rather amusingly, said ‘Most definitely would not recommend....Appallingly bad book that went in the bin’.
I don't think I've read a book yet that was so bad that it ended up in the bin.
However, it wasn't all bad, there was plenty of positive reviews as well. I guess its one of those books (trilogy included) you come across in which you either love it or hate it.
I'm not writing this post with the aim of getting you to buy it, no, instead I thought I'd just share one of my all time favourite books with you and let you know why I've re-read them more times than I can count.
The first book, as I mentioned, is called Knights Dawn, followed by Wizards Funeral and finally concludes with Scabbard's Song.
The book follows the storyline of an amnesiac warrior who is thrust into a world he doesn't understand. It follows his adventures and the adversity he faces along the way. The trilogy is rather linear in the sense that its a typical fantasy book. It’s not groundbreaking in originality. There's a hero, a princess, some evil guys and wizards.
For my young, impressionable self, it was everything I wanted to read in fantasy (and still do). It had action, romance, an unbeatable hero and did I mention wizards. What more could a young boy want?
One of the main reasons why I got hooked into fantasy was so that I could escape to another world during the bad times or dream during the good, and that’s exactly what these books did for me. Whilst reading them, I eagerly went to bed every night imagining myself as the hero in the book who fought against evil monsters and eventually got the girl in the end.
To this very day I still continue to dream about different worlds and imagine myself in them, and while my passion for fantasy started with LOTR, it was still at its infant stage and it was only until I had finished reading 'The Red Pavilions', that it had nurtured into a raging inferno, a fire so bright and hungry that it has led me to read hundreds (if not into the thousand) of fantasy books since - for that reason, these books will stay with me forever.
I could carry on and write a long-winded post about why these books are so fantastic and why you should buy them but its important to realise that books are subjective to each individual person. We all have our own favourite books that may not be liked by others, but that shouldn't be a reason to dampen our own enjoyment of them or try and convince others to see the error of their ways. Seeing those negative reviews for a book that I cherish so much only brought a smile to my face and further reinforced my belief that books are meant to be instinctive.
Writing this post has just reminded me its about time I read those books again, and I hope after reading this your thinking about re-reading your favourite book(s).
Before I finish I'd like to leave you with this quote-
No two persons ever read the same book.
– Edmund Wilson
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