Threads That Bind (The Havoc Chronicles Book 1)

Threads That Bind (The Havoc Chronicles Book 1)
by
Brant Williams

This is not Mr. Williams first book, but it's the first one available (his web site states that he wrote two books for middle grades and the acknowledgements at the end of the book state this is his first publicly available novel), but it reads like a first book. Full of exposition that an editor should have cut. Full of redundancies that don't forward the plot or develop the characters. There are also at least three spelling mistakes and twice again as many grammar issues, but these are things the editor (and the spellchecker) should have caught.
This story starts out slow. Really slow. And then it adds in high school drama of a level that would bore a high school student. But, along the way things do start to happen, and what things they are. The magic in this book, or perhaps the magical is a better word, are very fresh and not like anything I've seen in a novel. There are some aspects that remind me of a RPG I played and some that remind me of a Japanese movie, but they are only similar in some respects. The baddies in this book are not like anything I've read in a fantasy or sf novel. This alone is reason to push through the slow beginning and finish the book.
The good news is that it does pick up and by the end of the book Williams seems to have hit his stride. You do find yourself thinking, "just one more chapter", which for me is a huge deal since I am such a slow reader - a chapter is a much bigger time commitment than it is for your average bear.
This book is intended to be "YA". No problem, I think some of the best books being written now are Young Adult. This book does commit the cardinal sin that all YA stories should avoid - it talks down to the reader. Now, I'm an adult male so it might seem like any YA book would do this, but that's not the case. I never felt that any of the Harry Potter books, or the His Dark Materials books, or the Hunger Games, or Little Brother to name my favorites, talked down to me. Not even the more popular, which I mean in the pop culture sense of the word, Percy Jackson books do this. I think part of it might be that a man in his 30s or 40s is trying write from the first person perspective of a 16 year old girl. I think that is something certainly beyond my capability.
Williams is just starting out as a published author and hopefully has many more books ahead of him. He currently still works a "day job" but I hope in the future his books allow him to write full time. I think with more words written under his belt, his books are going to improve. And if they continue to be as imaginative and original as this one, Williams could be a force to be reckoned with and his characters household names.
I hope so at least, since I broke one of my rules by starting a series that is not yet finished and which hasn't even stated how many books are in it. I hope that doesn't mean open-ended. Or it it does, he needs to write more and put these out faster than every several years.

Threads that Bind on Amazon.com