Hello Fellow Journeyers,
We have another short tale in The Beast Hunters, the first of The Beast Hunter of Ashburn trilogy. Since this shares an easy similarity to The Witcher series, I was intrigued and excited. It sounded lighter and fun and monster hunting isn't done in books as much as you'd expect. Here we go!
What's the story about: The Beast Hunters follows the protagonist, Ara, who is the story's only POV, and two experienced beast hunters as they solve a mystery plaguing a small town. Ara is swept up into their adventure across the land, becomes an apprentice beast hunter herself, and must contend with monsters and vile humans alike.
The first and most important thing I noticed during the first segment of this book was how fast and easy the plot got going. The prologue does a lot to move the story immediately and while it feels very contrived and forced, at least it gets the main story moving so as to establish the main plot, which is always a good sign in a shorter book. The second biggest strength this book boasts is the world it's set in, or rather, the monsters and creatures inhabiting the world. It definitely felt like Lende had taken time to flesh out the bestiary in this book and the detail to which the main characters discuss and go about learning, solving mysteries and assessing monsters, whilst training Ara, is a lot of fun and very well done.
My main problems with this story are the characters and dialogue. To put it bluntly, they rarely felt real or natural. Ara goes through a rough situation early on but her character growth is shown as moving on really easily half the time and completely crippled with doubt the rest. Topper is also incredibly one-dimensional, at least at first, but is somewhat redeemed by a spoiler that was refreshing and unexpected. The best character is Khendric, who is "older" and experienced, which comes across more mild and real most of the time. We don't learn very much about Khendric for most of this tale but the things we do learn are interesting and provide good intrigue for future reading. It was just hard when Ara and Topper took away from anything substantial to allow Khendric some space to fill out the weaker aspects of the story.
All in all, this was a competent story of three people who do a job that is not respected and risk their lives for the greater good. While a lot of aspects are interesting to read and compelling when they're taking place, every time characters would talk it took the enjoyment out of it for me. The writing itself is well-executed, sufficient, and admirable, but I couldn't get past the difficulty of the people who inhabited the world. There is a lot to like about this short book but less to actually appreciate. I listened to the audiobook on this one and if the rest of the trilogy is eventually released, I may check it out.
★★★ 2.5 Stars - The Beast Hunters is a fun and straightforward adventure tale of a young woman out to find a purpose for herself after tragedy ends what life she thought she was destined for. The best aspects of the story are the worldbuilding, the interestingly unique beasts, the missions that the characters embark on, and the action and tension that keep it all together are executed effectively. Also, all of the threads that are opened are generally resolved by the end of the story, which was pleasantly surprising and satisfying since this was the first book in the series. On the flip side, the dialogue is often rough, forced, and ill-fitting, the characters don't feel fleshed out (with a few exceptions), and combining these two aspects makes for a lot of melodramatic situations that stunted the progression. While I didn't love the character work, I enjoyed what they were doing as surrogates to hear about their exploits and travels. I think if the dialogue and character development improved, this would be a great story and would be admirably close to The Witcher in terms of quality storytelling.
Let me hear from you! If you like what you read, want to hear more thoughts on this book, other reviews, or talk book recommendations and Essential Reading, leave a comment below.
Rating system:
★★★★★ 5 Stars: It was amazing; I loved it. Read this book and found nothing wrong with it; it is Essential Reading at its very best!
★★★★★* 4.5 Stars: It was nearly perfect. I really loved almost every aspect of it, but a few things kept it from being amazing. This is definitely Essential Reading!
★★★★ 4 Stars: It was great; very worth reading and satisfying for the most part; highly recommend.
★★★★* 3.5 Stars: I thoroughly enjoyed this story, but it was lacking in certain areas.
★★★ 3 Stars: It was good, but could've been better or improved upon significantly.
★★★* 2.5 Stars: I loosely enjoyed it. Certain aspects were good, it was worth finishing, but had many issues.
★★ 2 Stars: It was okay, I didn't feel strongly about it.
★★* 1.5 Stars: I finished it, but it was a chore to get through.
★ 1 Star: I did not like it. It was not worth finishing or I did not finish it.
*I round up based on the system on Goodreads.