Review: The Reborn King

The Reborn King by Michael R. Miller
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This is a 1-star review. I made it to chapter 3 before the ghost of Dorothy Parker rose from the pages. I rarely ever give 1-star reviews. Usually, the grammar and spelling have to be atrocious to warrant that sort of review. The grammar and spelling in this book are fine.

The characters and setting exuded an air of cardboard. Fortunately for the reader, this book does not feature any fire-breathing dragons. The resulting conflagration would have required the Herculean efforts of the entire firefighting staff of a minor metropolitan area to contain.

The characters were one dimensional and uninspiring. We start off with a villain being given some greater evil power. Why? Did they ask for the power? Were they on some sort of evil short list? Who knows. What does the greater evil power want? Again, who knows.

Then we get to the protagonists. The king of dragons is morose, defeatist, focused on his belief in an old religion. The king of humans is the only character to raise a modest amount of interest. He has lost one heir and seeks to protect his only surviving heir; a baby girl. The king of humans is in turns insufferably arrogant and incredibly spineless. The queen of the faeries is just.....there....barely.

The setting is sketched out in the barest of terms. The one feature this citadel has is that it includes a large number of objects made from a stone that looks like gold...or that has gold veins running through it. There are vague references to armor, arms, and other trophies of past wars. We have no idea what those wars are about or who the armor, arms and other trophies might be worth having. We really aren't given any idea what they look like, such is the generic description that is in play.

What drove me out of this book was the poor storytelling. Examples:

"I call this council of war to order. Scant as our numbers may be, we here are the leaders of the Three Races (humans, fairies, and dragons), and so our decisions cannot be contested"

This dialog is the king of the dragons speaking to the king of the humans, the queen of the fairies, and his son; the prince of dragons. There are a few servants, but this is essentially a private meeting. They all know that they are human, fairy, and dragon. So why the parenthetic clarification?

Later on, the dragon prince is running to save the baby princess. The forces of evil are battering down the gates and seizing the citadel. The princess' guard promptly begins to carry her down to the ship that awaits her at the port. It is so urgent that they get her out of there that they carry her in a crib that is so large that it requires 6 full grown men. If it is so urgent that she get to the ship, then why not just carry her without the crib?

The dragon prince eventually carries the princess in his arms in an attempt to get her to safety.

From the book - "As the door caved in, he fell with it, and saw a flash of black ripple past his face. His right cheek flared in pain as the arrow sliced through the top layers of his skin."

Wouldn't it be more direct to just say that an arrow grazed his cheek?

Moments later the dragon prince is attempting to bodily ram through a door while carrying the princess in his arms. The door, being magically sealed, rebuffs his attempt and he lands on the floor. His armor is dented badly enough that it now pierces his skin. Despite the obvious violence of the impact, the princess is unharmed.

Children playing with GI Joe action figures have more believable adventures.

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