Curse of the Mistwraith

by Robert J. Sawyer

Reviewed by Coral

Half-brothers Arithon and Lysaer have been raised as enemies, each the son of a King whose kingdoms have been at war for hundreds of years. But when Arithon’s father is killed in battle and he is taken prisoner by Lysaer’s father, it sets off a chain of events that led to the brothers finding themselves exiled to another world where they have been prophesized to defeat the Mistwraith, who has plunged that world into permanent darkness.

I was not able to finish this book; I gave up at around the 200 page mark (the book was almost 700).

A part of it has to do with the fact that I read the back of the book summary of a later book in the series, because I mistakenly thought that was book 1. So, I kind of spoiled myself to the fact that the brothers’ troubled relationship does not get any better, negating any hope that their journey would bring them closer in this book. Although maybe it does and they resume disliking each other later on, but that thought wasn’t enough for me. Maybe it’s because I come from a close family, but I have always been able to identify more with siblings who are shown to have a good relationship and I tend to dislike the ones where they are not close and/or hate each other.

This probably has more to do with the fact I didn’t read the whole book, but I didn’t understand why their grand-father (their mother’s father) so blatantly favoured one son over the other. I am assuming it would mostly come down to the behaviour of Lysaer’s father.

I think that, considering they were dropped into another world and told they represented the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy, the brothers’ reactions weren’t all that believable. They didn’t question anything, they didn’t have any other reaction other than just going along with what they were being told.

I didn’t really like the author’s style of writing. Every once in awhile we would get this ‘chapter’ that would be three really small glimpses into what was happening in various places. Sometimes they would just be a couple of lines. They never really revealed anything important (though maybe they become important at a part after I stopped reading) so they just kind of annoyed me.

Despite this, I will not be giving this book a rating, because I don’t think I read enough of it for it to be fair.font>