The King of the Trees - William D. Burt

[goodreads]

Title: The King of the Trees
Author: William D. Burt
Genre: Christian fiction, fantasy
Rating: 2.5/5
# pages: 213
Date read: February, 2010

What do an old wooden box, a jeweled pendant and some mysterious, green-garbed strangers share in common? When Rolin, son of Gannon, sets out to solve this riddle, his adventures take him worlds beyond the walls of his little log cabin. With the help of some grumpy griffins and a long-lost prophecy, Rolin and his newfound friends battle a sorcerer and his underworld army; deadly snake-trees; batwolves, dragons and other mythical creatures. On their perilous quest for the blessed Isle of Luralin, they must trust the King with their very lives.

Christian fantasy. The first half of the book was really good - great writing and I really got to care about the characters. Unfortunately the writing lost some of its tightness in the second half, resulting in stilted conversations and awkward jumps from scene to scene. Really a shame, because I enjoyed the plot and found it very interesting.

I think the author would have benefitted from not having the King of the Trees reference the Bible quite as much though. The same effect could have been achieved without the direct quotes, as the allegory was sufficiently obvious, so they seemed unnecessary and threw me out of the story, as he started sounding like he was in fact quoting, rather than talking himself.

Had those two points been handled better in editing, I would have considered this a great book, because the story itself really drew me in, and made me want to learn more about the universe and the characters. Seeing as this is the author's debut novel, I think it's reasonable to hope that these weaknesses will disappear in later books in the series.