Book Review: Shadow Prowler By Alexey Pehov

Title: Shawdow Prowler
Author: Alexey Pehov
Genre: Sci-Fi, Fantansy, Epic Fantasy
Rating: 3.75 out of 5 Stars
Why I Read Shadow Prowler: It sounded exciting.
Means of Possession: ARC received from Publisher

Blurb
After centuries of calm, the Nameless One is stirring.

Epic fantasy at its best, Shadow Prowler is the first in a trilogy that follows Shadow Harold on his quest for a magic Horn that will restore peace to the Kingdom of Siala. Harold will be accompanied on his quest by an Elfin princess, Miralissa, her elfin escort, and ten Wild Hearts, the most experienced and dangerous fighters in their world…and by the king’s court jester (who may be more than he seems…or less).

The Good

Shadow Prowler is an epic fantasy trilogy written in first person detailing a professional thief, Shadow Harold’s reluctant acceptance and beginning trek to save his Country from an evil that promises to annihilate humans existence on earth. whew! That is the book in a nutshell. Shawdow Prolwer is action packed from beginning to end. It takes place in a time and period similar to The Lord of the Rings. I got a real “Middle Earth” type of feeling. It was northern as it was cold more than it wasn’t. There is almost every type of creature in shawdow Prowler. Ogres, Orcs, demons, ghosts, etc. The only thing that’s not around are Vampires or werewolves.

You are told the story through Harold’s life, but when you need to know something that Harold couldn’t possibly know, the author makes Harold have out of body experiences so you the reader would know. These out of body experiences were an integral part of the story even if they seem a little convenient.

There were many instances where I re-read a sentence because it sounded really good. Some of the language flows really nicely. Shawdow Prowler is not a Literary book in my opinion but it flows like literature in some spots which is nice. I think there would be more, but I think some things were lost in translation.

The Bad

This book was translated to English from Russian and they made for a few quirks in the book. The names of streets or people are unusual. For example there is a person name “For” when reading it can throw you off. Other that the fact that this seemed like a standard epic fantasy, you know, middle earth, pending evil, suicide journey of a commoner to get an object to quell the evil that is imminent, it read nicely. lol. Towards the end, I was just trying to finish. I didn’t want to put the book down until I finished although I got a little bored and the book felt drawn out. I would say things felt a little predictable.

Verdict

Shawdow Prowler is a well written epic fantasy book that has heavy undertones of the Lord the The Ring Trilogy (movie, I didn’t read any of the books). If you like the Lord of the Rings, you will like Shawdow Prolwer.