The Revenant And The Tomb Review- Cave To The Cross

The Revenant And The Tomb By Herman P. Hunter

The Revenant And The Tomb By Herman P. Hunter

Synopsis:

Four adventurers, the main human character, the warrior with a magical sword, the elfish archer, and the short muscle dwarfish fighter journey to the fabled mountain of the Horn of Torgiv to defeat some old evil.

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Review

Two Types Of Fantasy Stories
With fantasy, novels tend to fall into one of two camps – world-building or quests. Fantasy trends since about Robert Jordan have been an attempt to get beyond the 1,000-page mark and build a world where it seems like every family line and even every forest has its history and story. The quest adventures seems to try and establish cool characters quickly and get into the action. World-building tends to loose focus on the quest and quest stories tend to forget that the reader might not know the world that the story exists in.

The Ones Who Return
Where Hunter succeeds well in his quest storytelling is hinting at a world that is bigger than the story and makes the characters interesting enough to want the reader to imagine more if another book isn’t available. With just four characters to focus on, the world-building can be narrowed down to just their stories, and really there’s only one of the characters that is brought into the most focus. On the other hand, the quest story, which is to a cave and back again, flows the story well and in a reasonable time in story. The story’s action and drama builds, rises, climaxes, and falls in a well-paced way. At 140 pages, this can be a difficult thing to do.

The three main adventures Halsedric, Herodiani, and Tulvgir are different than the race of man, elf, and dwarf/giant; but they are not so different for you to need to know everything about their make out. The curmudgeon guide, Drahm, is a good foil for the audience learning new information about the world and the bigger story at large.

The Tomb & The Forrest
The prose of the story is well-written and it’s not too heavy in the “ye ol'” story. There are some really great lines and metaphors. One of my favorites was *no spoiler* in the midst of battle one of the characters praying for a wind to come to have one moment of coolness. At that part of the story, that line was palpable. There were a few misses like the quickness of a light-catching fire like fire to gasoline. This world could have gasoline but it was a line that took me out of the story for a moment.

Halsedric, the main character, has an interesting story told within this story. While not specifically a “Christian” fantasy outright, Halsedric has a very interesting backstory of being resurrected from the dead and attributing the deed, salvation, and creation to a One True God. The world Hunter writes of has all the elements where the author believes the world to exist in which adds elements of authorial magic. One of the biggest gripes with George R.R. Martin is the world he writes in has clear indications that God/gods/etc. exist and the smart characters do not believe this and neither does the author. This book does not suffer from this deficiency.

The action, quest, and characters move along and the read is quite quick because of the action. The biggest complaint is the ending. I’m ok with a story that might not be part of a 12-part series and this will be the only book – the background given makes it more than enough in ideas of the world created. The very quick glance over one of the character’s change and end result is very glossed over for the sake of the limit on pages – even if the ending is “good”.

Christian Art In Fantasy
If you’re looking for a quick story with a good quest, good combat, and a 3-part story arc that believes in the world it creates – this one does what a good book does – leaves you wanting another story and a little bit more reveal of the world. I also listened to the audiobook and the narrator, Steve Fortune (Audible Page), does a phenomenal job and more narration for him should be sought after. There is only one God and He saves The Revenant to go to the Tomb.

Final Grade

B+