Belated Book Review for 7.2.24: Guardian of the North

Status update (#1): I was able to type this into Blogger and hit "post" on 7.22.24, as a test of how badly the Internet connection was working...then. Shortly afterward the Internet connection gave up all pretense of trying to work. The rest of the status update will be in another post.

Title: Guardian of the North (Descendants of Robin Hood Series)

Author: Maggie K. West

Date: 2023

Publisher: Jasmine Codex

ISBN: 978-1-7349447-4-8

Quote: "I know where he is...Fort Calmier."

Fort Calmier. That's the clue. There's nothing about Robin Hood in this novel. It's "Swords & Sorcery" all the way. The main characters are teenagers. They spend all their time practicing control of their super-powers by fighting and hiding from each other. Their powers are a rather obvious metaphor for the emotional energy of teen hormone surges. They're sent to the fort to learn to remain calm.

Robin Hood, in contrast, was cast as the hero of many human adventures, in which he and other adults fought to reclaim some of what was being stolen from them by an oppressive government. The Merry Men embarrassed the crooked Sheriff and his goons by toughness, woodcraft, marksmanship, good will, and intelligence. Identifying a "Swords & Sorcery" adventure with the Robin Hood story is bound to disappoint anyone who remembers the Robin Hood story.

In this novel Jackson, or Jack, may have days when he's not fighting a battle, but he doesn't say much about them. His story is one battle after another. People get hurt. Walls and trees get knocked down. The characters have to move form one forest retreat to another because this is supposed to be taking place in our real world, where the natural disasters the Descendants of Robin Hood constantly cause would attract too much attention.  

What are they fighting about? Mostly, it seems, they just enjoy fighting. The teenagers are there to practice, so of course they pick fights whenever they're not in bed with injuries. But the adults' differences don't seem much more momentous than that. 

I was not blown away...but this is a story with live interactive game potential, so online gamers might like it. Cheers.