A decent continuation

I did enjoy the book. It seems there was a little big of filler as parts of the book seemed to drag on. I will definitely continue the series. ( )

‘Warrior of Woden features a blend of quality battles, tense encounters, and some decent drama. I prefer all the previous books in the series, but this one still has plenty to offer, especially in the last quarter of the book.

As with many historical novels, the author puts so much effort in getting the history elements correct that essential creative writing skills are neglected. Main problem being too much ‘telling’ and not enough ‘showing’. Don’t tell the reader that a character ‘looked shocked’ – show his shock with action, or body language, or a facial expression.

Adverb overuse is another evil, and the biggest problem with adverbs is they ‘tell’. For example, at one point someone ‘walked nervously’, which tells us the character moved from A to B but we don’t see it. Cut the adverb and use a strong verb to ‘show’ the action.

Adverbs are at their most superfluous with this kind of thing: ‘more slowly’, ‘more quickly’, and ‘more loudly’, whereas ‘slower’, ‘quicker’, and ‘louder’ convey the meaning with a concise verb.

Adverbs are also pointless in instances like: ‘nodding silently’; ‘Someone was retching noisily’ (do people ever retch quietly?); ‘Shifted uncomfortably’ (‘shifted’ alone implies the discomfort).

Two other style issues that irritated me are the overuse of ‘then’ (to state what happens next), and ‘had’ (past perfect).

To keep using ‘then’ is lazy and unimaginative. It’s fine in children’s books, but for gritty historical fiction I expect more imagination. Most can be cut, the rest replaced.

‘Had’ appears many times in the previous four novels, but they’re like an infection in this one, which was a major distraction.

The frequent use of ‘had’ in the past perfect tense is something all authors should avoid, as it reports on the scene as opposed to taking the reader into the action as it unfolds. The odd one is inevitable, but in this book it’s consistent, even though it’s easy to cut them down.

For one thing, this narrative is in the past tense, so ‘had’ should only be used if a sentence sounds odd without it. For example, ‘He had said’ works fine as ‘he said’ because ‘said’ is in the past tense. ‘She had sat down’ works better as ‘She sat down’ because ‘sat’ is past tense. If a scene that’s past is being recalled, all that’s needed is to inform the reader that these events have already happened, after which the frequent use of ‘had’ is unnecessary.

In this novel, we get the likes of ‘had shaken’, which annoys and baffles me when ‘shook’ is available.

The frequency of ‘had’ stands out in all novels in this series, but in this one most of all, owing to a lot of jumping around the story’s chronology. In several cases, I pondered why this scene or that scene couldn’t have been fitted in as they happened, rather than open with a character located in a certain place, only to start with the, ‘He had done this, and then he had done that’ type of thing. Stories flow better if kept linear, and when backstory is needed, there’s no need to over-swell it with ‘had, had, had’. It’s a filler word, too.

On the plus side, this author uses some excellent similes. I was impressed with his creativity in this department. Also, he recreates the period well, making me feel like I’m in the seventh century.

He’s gifted at creating child characters. Children don’t surface often in this novel or its predecessors, but when they do appear, they’re vivid and believable.

Despite the criticisms, I liked this novel well enough to read the next in the series. ( )