The hunt for the Eye of Ogin

The Hunt for the Eye of Ogin is Patrick Doud's first novel. From a purely technical standpoint, the novel is solid: the language is descriptive and there are no egregious grammatical errors. On the plot side of things the story is...generic. It feels as though someone gave Doud two checklists: things to make a good juvenile/YA novel and things every epic fantasy novel should strive to include (this second list cribbed heavily from the works of Tolkien). And Doud seems to dutifully follow these lists.

The unfortunate end result is that the story, pretty descriptions and turns of phrase notwithstanding, is not really very engaging. It begins by throwing as many “look, I'm a fantasy novel!!” things out as possible, but without giving a coherent structure. Many of the names of characters and places are very similar to one another, which adds a level of confusion and frustration. And the level of “coincidence” is far higher than I really care to have in my fantasy stories.

(I received this book as an ARC through an Early Reviewer program)