Michael Lackey

The Light shines the brightest when the world is at its darkest.

The Bad Seed (Battle for the Heavens, #1)

Nicole Lambert

I remembered hearing about this book over a year ago when it was originally self-published; however, I at the time hadn't had the time to read it due to school, even though I really wanted to. When I heard that another edition of this book was going to be published, I immediately got it and found it very difficult to break away from this story for even a minute.

For starters, this was the first medieval fantasy book that I read. I've always been a fan of fantasy books in general, and the closest I've ever gotten to experiencing a medieval fantasy tale would be when I played through the last two games of the Elder Scrolls franchise (Oblivion and Skyrim, and Skyrim in particular had apparently garnered a lot of inspiration from the Lord of the Rings franchise). Therefore, this book particularly grabbed my interest because not only were there dragons in it (much like there were in Skyrim), but the town of Whitehold reminded me of the towns in Skyrim named Whiterun and Winterhold respectively.

I found the entire concept of the demons entering the world of Amundiss at first through a strange tree that devoured countless amounts of animals and soon a human to be rather interesting. The background story that surrounded the demons that sought to take control of Amundiss made me feel almost sorry for them but not enough for me to completely root for their victory. The characters were especially enjoyable, and for some reason, I found myself be particularly drawn to and interested in the Elves and their history. Overall, Lackey does a great job in creating a fictional world that almost seemed as if it could exist in real life with memorable characters, especially the characters of Zachery and Gabriel.

One thing I didn't like about the book, however, was that the pacing in the beginning, at least for me, seemed to go by too fast. I would have enjoyed the pacing of the plot in the beginning to be slower in order for there to be more opportunities to create suspense that surrounded the mysterious tree. However, that minor flaw didn't inhibit me from thoroughly enjoying the book, and I will be highly anticipating the release of Lackey's next novel.

The Bad Seed (Battle for the Heavens, #1)

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