[.ca] Beyond the Pale: Book One of The Last Rune (ISBN 0553579347)

From Amazon.com:
Travis, a bespectacled barkeep from Castle City, Colorado, and Grace, a regally beautiful ER doctor from Denver Memorial, wormhole their way through a magical billboard into... a Robert Jordan novel. Well, sort of. Sure, in Beyond the Pale, it's a chilling winter--not a sweltering summer--that's gripping the land. And the seals (little stone disks, no less) are weakening on the prison of the Pale King, not the Dark One. But, surprise--Travis finds that he's the first man in centuries to successfully wield the One Power... er, runes, that is... and is the sole hope of keeping the Pale King at bay. Beyond the Pale isn't entirely derivative of Jordan's wildly popular Wheel of Time series: if nothing else, Anthony sets himself apart by having things actually happen in his book. Travis and his fellow earthling Grace end up in Eldh after surviving run-ins with the Pale King's servants on Earth. Grace, mistaken for a fairy queen, is quickly shanghaied as a spy for King Boreas, who has just convened a council of Eldh's rulers. After a series of adventures, Travis joins Grace, and the two must tangle with the mysterious Raven's Cult and a bunch of iron-hearted bad guys who are trying to derail the Council of Kings and hasten the PK's return. --Paul Hughes

While waiting for A Feast for Crows...:
As most reviews have mentioned, this book is NOT very original. Since that's out of the way, I must say it was a lot of fun to read. There is a lot of action, the characters are charmingly flawed, if somewhat predictable. I really enjoyed the high drama, and rather silly plot twists...just as someone is about to say, do, or discover something important, they are interrupted by a completely bizarre event. (Action! Swordfights, fires, storms, attacks by evil creatures, translocations--that type of thing.)The lead characters are irritating in many ways, but for some reason, this made me like them! Travis is unbelievably passive, and really upset...about his PAST! Grace is an ice princess, who feels DEEPLY, and can't quite express herself. And, as mentioned in other reviews, Melia is a virtual clone of Polgara this sorceress, even calling people "dear" the way Polgara does. If you can get past these flaws, however, you will find an enjoyable read, with nice touches of humor. It's not a gourmet meal, it's more of a takeout pizza with everything on it. Sometimes, that's just the thing.

Still reading it but.......:
I'll start by saying I'm giving this book 3 stars because to be fair, I haven't finished it and I don't want to be too harsh since it isn't a bad book so far. I'm writing a preliminary review now because I was getting frustrated and I figured by writing this while it was fresh in my mind would give an idea of why. I have read only 79 pages of this book so far and I have already detected at least three blatent rip-offs. 1a. Strange, appocolyptic prophets from another world in modern, real world setting. (Stephen R. Donaldson's Thomas Covenent series) 1b. As an added bonus, the description of the leader of these prophets is a pale imitation of a Stephen King type character. 2.Cold and remote yet brilliant female doctor with mysterious past. (Thomas Covenent series AND Anne Rice's Mayfair Witch series) 3. Glimpse into the thoughts of a soon-to-be victim-of-a-horrible-death (very awkward aping of Stephen King's unique style) 4. Mysterious organization which studies strange phenomena. (almost of any of Anne Rice's books which feature the organization whose name has maddeningly escaped me at the moment). It was when I got to the scene introducing the erudite gentlemen of hard-to-place ethnic origins from the above mentioned organization that I decided to write this initial review. However, I plan to continue reading. The all-to-obvious influences are a bit distracting but for the moment the plot is diverting enough to capture my attention. The writing is skillful if not original. As others have pointed out, many classics have their origins in earlier works. It's too early for me to predict whether this series will be a classic (somehow I doubt it) but so far it is a decent summer read. Also, I found the name of the bar owned by the main character a bit revealing, particularly in light of the reviews of the next two books in the series. The bar is called, The Mine Shaft. HAR HAR HAR!

More like a great first draft than a fully realised novel:
Well I finished and I'm writing this as a follow-up to the initial review that I had written after reading the first 79 pages. I still think it is pretty derivitave but after awhile you do get sucked into the plot. The initial similarities of the female heroine, Grace, to characters in both Stephen R. Donaldson's and Anne Rice's works faded into the background once Grace leaves the world of the Denver ER and enters Eldh. However, after several chapters another influence became glaringly apparent; Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series which also features a sometimes confusing array of characters and POV. My biggest complaint with this novel is its sketchiness. I also have a few bones to pick. When Grace and Travis ride off on a spying expedition Grace, who has never ridden or horse, manages to mount a STALLION, no less, with only a 'small degree of difficulty'. She manages this dubious feat while wearing a heavy woolen gown. Anyone who has ever ridden knows that mounting a horse with ease takes practice. Especially in a non-Western saddle. If the stirrups are in proper riding position they are quite high. You mount facing the back of the horse so you have to place your foot into a stirrup which can easily be at your mid-chest level and swing yourself forward and around into the saddle. Most people need a boost or a stool the first few times and even then it isn't easy. Anthony wants us to believe that Grace, by sheer power of a noble demeanor, is able to control not just any horse, a STALLION! There is a reason geldings exist. It is because a stallion can be a very willful and difficult to control animal except under the most skillful and competent hands. When I was 13 I spent a summer working at a stable where the owner kept a stallion that was used only for stud services. The other horses in the stable were either geldings and mares this included the two race horses. The stallions stall was completely enclosed for the safety of the nearby horses and any passers-by. He was let out into a pasteure of his own, away from the other horses. I was not allowed to go anywhere near him, nor did I have any desire too. If Grace has some kind of magical power over animals Anthony should have shown that earlier. Instead he waits for this scene to make a passing comment that Grace has always had more of a rapport with animals than people. Than why didn't she become a vet? Why doesn't she have a cat or a dog in her apartment? There is absolutely no evidence given that Grace has even an ounce of feeling for animals until this scene. It's just another example of the laziness of the writing. Anthony seems to have forgotten the golden rule, "A writer shows, not tells." At times he is like child playing Cops and Robbers, making things up as he goes along. Remember when you were a kid and said stuff like, "You didn't kill me just then 'cuz I was wearing a bullet-proof vest." ? It is really bad when I writer resorts to that type of plot-convenience. I could almost excpet the idea of Travis, whose last riding experience had been a pony ride, doing all the riding he did with no mention of difficulty except a little soreness. He was riding a gentle and easygoing gelding who could easily have been just following the Falken and Melia's horses. Of course that reasoning doesn't hold up to to scrutiny when you consider that they spent a good deal of time trotting and galloping. Riding isn't just a matter of sitting in the saddle and holding on. You have to maintain a good seat or else you will be flopping around in the saddle like a sack of potatoes. You can't just saw on the reins in the direction you want to the horse to go. Most of the guidance is done with the knees and the reins should only be given the most gentle twitch with your fingers. I realize this is nitpicking but most fantasy writers seem to do at least some research about horses if riding is going to be a factor in the story. If he didn't want to spend much time in showing Travis learning to ride, he could have easily made Travis an experienced rider. Since Grace was raised in an orphanage and then went onto college and medical school it would be less plausible that she had ever had time to learn to ride but surely Travis could have spent some time pleasure riding considering he had been living in a Western town for the past seven years. I know this is nitpicking but it is details like this that can make the difference between a skillfuly written novel and one written by a talented amateur. From my understanding, Anthony is not an amateur so this type of laziness is inexusable. One of the other peeves I had with the novel was the total lameness of the names and the magic. "Beltan" sounds like a cheesy 50's robot. For that matter, so does "Kron", the rune for fire which features early on in the novel. Without going into detail about the magic, let's just say, neither did Anthony. It was as if he couldn't be bothered spending the time to create a believable system of magic and spells. The character of Grace has an annoying tendency toward inner histrionics at the least little social foible. I find very little about her I like. Anthony needs to work on crafting a more believable female character. He gives us no real evidence of Grace's 'noble' character. He just shows the other characters falling all over themselves in awe of her without much more proof other than physical beauty. And yet, about a third of the way through, there is a scene in which an outwardly beautiful character does something cruel and unkind and Grace meditates on the incongruency of this. He is a little more adept with the male characters in this novel. Or at least he seems to like them more. Travis is a far less annoying character, albeit a bit whiney. There could have been more written about his friendship with Beltan. Beltan is obviously attracted to him but we aren't given very many clues why. There aren't really enough scenes that flesh out this friendship but it's pretty obvious to any savvy reader where it's leading. My final complaint is with the big 'mysteries' of Travis' and Grace's backgrounds. Anyone with a brain can figure out, almost from the beginning, the secrets that Anthony waits until the last few chapters to reveal in very awkward inner dialogue sequences. I'm not giving anything away when I mention that dyslexia is far more complex than just having a tendency to reverse letters and numbers. All that being said, there is some real entertainment to be found in the pages of this book. It is surprisingly funny at times. There are some interesting sattelite characters. I just wish Anthony had spent more time fleshing out his ideas. The book at times reads more like an outline or first draft.

Good book that needed to trim about 100 pages:
I definitely enjoyed reading this, and once I started I was hooked. HOWEVER, this was a relatively looonnnngggg book that could have easily been trimmed by 100 or so pages. There were some very nice dark fantasy elements that gave this a bit of an edge over other fantasy I've read. And I enjoyed Travis's journey (and that of Grace), but I would have liked to read more about Travis and his "pals", not to mention a bit more action. Travis came across as too wimpy throughout the entire novel. Maybe book 2 shows him dealing a little better with his newfound powers. Grace was a very interesting character, but it wasn't very plausible why she considered herself such a loner, such a social outcast. Everyone she met was struck by her incredible beauty. Seriously, how many gorgeous women are social outcasts? All in all, a fun read, and at some point in the near future I'll have to check out the second book.

AMAZING:
If your into wizards, magic etc... this is the book for you. Marc Anthony is the best author I have ever read, since JK Rowling, of course.... This is a book you'll want to read over and over again, so don't just rent it from the library, BUY IT!!!!