Thinblade

Sovereign of the Seven Isles, Book 1

De: David A. Wells

Narrado por: Derek Perkins

When second son Alexander Valentine loses his brother to an assassin's arrow, he discovers that his family protects an ancient secret and reluctantly finds himself at the center of the final battle of a war that was supposed to have ended 2,000 years ago.

Pursued by the dark minions of an ancient enemy, Alexander flees to the mountain city of Glen Morillian where he discovers that he is the heir to the throne of Ruatha, one of the Seven Isles, but before he can claim the throne he must recover the ancient Thinblade. Seven were forged by the first Sovereign of the Seven Isles and bound to the bloodline of each of the seven Island Kings in exchange for their loyalty to the Old Law. Each sword is as long as a man's arm, as wide as a man’s thumb and so thin it can’t be seen when viewed from the edge.

Thinblade is the story of Alexander's quest to find the ancient sword, claim the throne of Ruatha, and raise an army to stand against the enemy that has awoken to claim dominion over all of the Seven Isles.

©2011 David A. Wells (P)2014 Podium Publishing

This is how you do adventure

This is exactly what I was looking for. Five main characters, with a male protagonist who is relatable, and actually a nice person. Fantasy, heroics, tragedy, adversity, magic, mystery, love, family, etc all of this while being entertaining and providing plot with progression. It’s builds the world in a fun way and we learn with the main protagonist how life in the seven islands works. So fun I’ll be reading all of them.

Nice story!

a little slow at times. Lovely characters even funny at times. Overal I enjoyed it.

ecellent story

loved it. the story kept you wondering what is going to happen next. will read the next book.

interesting plot. rich in fantasy elements.

worth a listen for sure. very fine attention to details. lots of fantasy elements. author paints every scene and thought very thoroughly. plenty of twists and surprises although some are partly predictable. my interest is piqued for the next in series

Excellent Story

I enjoyed this book and look forward to reading the next book
I would recommend this book and the series to anyone.

Mostly entertaining.

Upon the unexpected death of his brother, Alexander becomes the heir to an unlooked for birthright. He is heir to a throne, but before he can claim that right, he must first recover one of the ancient Thinblades. Friends and allies assist Alexander upon his quest even as a myriad of evil doers work to thwart him.

The story started off strong with Alexander and his siblings seeing to protecting livestock from local predators. When an assassin’s arrow takes his brother, Alexander then gets told the family secret: they are the line of succession to an ancient throne. It’s a pretty heady thing to dump on a person who is just coming into adulthood. The action starts up early on in the story as Alexander, his sister Abigail, and their tutor and healer Luki flee the family estate.

The action weaves in and out of quieter moments. There’s weapons training, battle planning, a bit of romance, and some magic learning. At first, it was a pretty good mix, holding my attention without giving me battle fatigue. However, once Alexander dives into learning magic, there are chunks of the story that slow way down and get a bit tedious. I wanted to fast forward through most of these sections. Having one or two to show the reader how much effort the main character is putting into it is cool; having several, nearly back to back, was over kill.

At first, there’s only one female character (Abigail) but she’s right there with her brother riding and fighting. She’s good with a bow. She’s well written. Later, we get a few more female characters. Isabel is the daughter of a lord whose lands neighbor Alexander’s family. She’s also good with a bow and has a magical connection with a small hawk, which she uses as a kind of scout. Sometimes she is well written, and sometimes she falls into cliches. Alexander treats her with a kind of respect even as he very quickly falls in love with her. I felt the romance was forced, like the author felt he had to check that box off in order to have a complete epic fantasy. One of the cliches involves a kidnapped female who ends up weeping on her savior’s shoulder once she is rescued. Sigh…. I would have kidnapped Alexander and forced him to carry the firewood and water skins.

The world building is pretty standard for epic fantasy. I liked it and it worked for the story, but nothing special stood out about it. I enjoyed the quest in general, even if things got bogged down here and there. The Thinblade is a near myth even among the learned and wise. Indeed, it will take someone special to find one of these remarkable blades, and even more special to wield it with results.

Luki was one of my favorite characters. He had more than one role in the story and I liked this multi-dimensionality. Throughout the tale, he plays the cook, the teacher, the healer, or the alchemist. He’s a wealth of knowledge and also the confident to Alexander and Abigail. He also has a sense of humor.

Where this book shines is with the antagonists. Oddly, I found them more interesting than Alexander. Prince Faine of the Rishi has arisen and he means to conquer all of the seven isles. He’s been in this kind of suspended animation for hundreds or thousands of years and he’s not fully sane. This makes him unpredictable not just to the good guys, but also to his own baddie team. Then there is Patel. This dude scares me for several reasons. He’s dedicated, a true believer in where he has chosen to put his loyalty. He’s very, very skilled at what he does. Because he has such a sense of dedication and loyalty, he may turn out to be one of those characters that will sacrifice all to accomplish their commander’s goal even if he knows it is wrong. Yeah. He’s that kind of baddie. The sections with this characters were some of my favorites.

Narration: Derek Perkins did a nice job. Most of the book is told through Alexander’s eyes and Perkins had a nice young man’s voice for him. I liked his rougher voice for Patel and his somewhat mischievous voice for Luki. His crazy Faine voice was a little chilling! His lady voices were OK, perhaps needing a little more femininity.

Exciting and very entertaining. Can't wait for the

wait for the next book. Please convert the complete works. Was hard to stop listening

a great classical adventure epic fantasy, not GRRM

Where does Thinblade rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Silly question, I do not rate book linearly at the time of writing this review I have completed the first 5 books. Or all that are currently out on audible. The full series is coming out rather quickly. One complaint is that in several of the books,the stopping points are very abrupt. It is clear that this series is one big huge story. It is great fun and while in many ways it adheres to. The classical dungeons and Dragons universe, it does so only in the same way that hobbit seems very much like it. Also unlike many wizards,of the coast books, this story in no way is serving the actual game of dungeons and dragons it is simply in the vein of those kind of world and beastie tropes. For all that there is much that is very original and much that has some thought to it, I found the book and all the other books only get progressively better and the plot and character had more depth. For cynics or young amature shrinks, it is true that many of these character are very vanilla in that they are idealized and really are committed to do the right thing. but as an older reader who has been on a battlefield. While there broken or odd ball characters there are more straight forward heroes just ready to do their best that one might think. So I might not see this collection of loyal and moral folk as far fetched as others. That said this is not George R R Martin, not that there are no villains or heart breaking character kills, the flavor of this book is definitely more, for those who want a fun intricate large world that is full of very clearly a good side and a dark side. There is just enough subterfuge between our protagonists to keep the characters from seeming one dimensional. For the person who wants a fun escapist fantasy that is intelligent and issue filled,to be engaging but also clean and clear enough on plot that it serves as am escape for those who do not find the focus on grit and grime by say an Abercrombie all that great. I am a former marine. I know all about bush wounds and bush grit but the truth is if you do it for a living you get thick enough callouses that in my case, I Was able to step on a tack and not know it is was in the center of my heal till I heard the tile make noise when I walked. In other words, you do not focus on that stuff, And if you are constantly it's miserable, things I do not need in my adventure prose. But for a young buck who is really trying to I imagine there stories as real I can see how it might be alluring. This is for those who want a fun intelligent, coherent complex but straightforward fantasy story with a lot of cool fighting and cool Magic and it all works. I highly. Reccomend this book. If I could I would have giving this book a 4 and a half stars I would because for what it is. A great fantasy escape with depths to explore without any pretense of trying to be gritty "speculative fiction". It's just a da,n entertaining book that is part of a damn entertaining series. Book one The thin blade is all about setting up the social and metaphysical aspects of the world and obtaining the thin blade which is quite the cool weapon. If you want innovative fantasy that avoids the usual tropes of magic and fighters and wizards a and Dragons, This is not for you but if you can,enjoy such tropes if they are part of an intricately built and yet gigantic world then you might give it a try. I really enjoyed it but I was looking for a long epic escapist story while I healed and I found this series superb for an alternate place to put my mind for a while

Which character – as performed by Derek Perkins – was your favorite?

The dragons in general were credible

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Yes a fairly intelligent discourse between Alexander and Lucky on human nature and power. Fairly insightful reasoning,

Any additional comments?

The narrator. Was good but not astonishing. It is worth noting all of these books are long audio books and I never got sick of the narrators voice so that cannot be overlooked.

Overwrought Adulation Over The Prince King

David Wells is an able, and in many instances, gifted writer. Also, Derek Perkins is a very good narrator. With that said, the over-the-top continued fawning over Alexander as a beloved and great king and his over use of passages where he praised the princess unnerved me after the 3rd passage but still he persisted. Regrettably, halfway through it I reached the point to where I simply wanted to finish the novel, not for the enjoyment of it, by my time and investment in it.

A Great Start

I am between many novels (Stormlight Archive, Green Rider, Sorcery Ascendant) waiting for their next book to be release and was looking for something similar that had swords and magic, strong moral characters, set in the time of kings and queens and that would hold me for a while. I am glad to say that I was not dissappointed. This book has been a great start to the many books to follow and I can't wait to jump into the next.

Side note: I love that healing salve and potion. Its a great part of the story that has allowed our characters to be in the middle of the fray, sustain injuries they learn lessons from, but not end up dead and us as readers bitter.