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Midshipwizard Halcyon Blithe (2006)

Midshipwizard Halcyon Blithe (2006)

Book Info

Author
Genre
Rating
3.61 of 5 Votes: 4
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ISBN
0765351102 (ISBN13: 9780765351104)
Language
English
Publisher
tor books

About book Midshipwizard Halcyon Blithe (2006)

Very much a wizard meets Horatio Hornblower book. This book like Harry Potter details the training for a young man who is an officer in training or midshipman, but he also has magical abilities so he holds the rank of midshipwizard. The usage of "quotes" of the articles of war on each chapter is nice touch.The character of Halcyon is not perfect, but he is an exceptional young man just like Hornblower. He has red eyes that show his demonic heritage, but he is honorable, and holds rare talents not to mention that he inspires his men. Ward though does write the Arcanian navy much on the 18th and early 19th century model of the British navy, and combined with the fantastic elements of magic, dragons who have ships constructed atop of them, and fantastic races such as shapechangers and half-giants makes a new type of story.His writing style fits in well with the old Forester novels, and the only current writer who writes in a similar vein is Naomi Novik.If you like sea-faring yarns, and fantasy you'll like this book. If you like militaristic fantasy--sea or not--you'll also like this book.

Billed as Harry Potter on the high seas, Midshipwizard Halycon Blithe follows the adventures of the title character as he comes into his own as a wizard and a naval officer (and he has some big shoes to fill considering that all of his family for generations have been wizards and naval heroes in the land of Arcania). Wasn't a terrible read, but at the same time it wasn't a masterpiece by any scope of the imagination. Ward creates some pretty imaginative fixtures in Halcyon's world (namely the idea of nautical ships powered by sea dragons - the boats are basically built around the dragons and form a protective shell), but also has a maddening habit of describing in detail random scenes and characters that you think will have some kind of bearing on the plot, but end up being non sequiturs

Do You like book Midshipwizard Halcyon Blithe (2006)?

I really wanted to like this one because of all the Hornblower meets Harry Potter descriptions, having read both series multiple times. But alas, the writing was so horrible that Blithe never made it out of port before I gave up. There are examples in other reviews but one that I particularly recall is Blithe's initial meeting with a senior midshipwizard. There is a sense of impending rank struggle, like embittered Simpson's tyranny in Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, but without explanation in the next paragraph, they have become friends with intimate knowledge of each other's backgrounds. Weird.I hope that once out to sea, Blithe's fortunes would improve, but I just couldn't cut the bad writing enough slack to find out.
—Garrett

Poorly edited (at one point it's said that "all" dragonships are called "it" and "them" and are male, but literally one page later the character who *said* this is referring to the ship with female pronouns, later the main character does magic and passes out before he finds out what happens, wakes up and finds out what he did, is disappointed that it wasn't more impressive, and when later under a TRUTH SPELL is recounting it, states that he "intended" what happened to happen, and NO MENTION is made of that setting off the truth spell). And the book itself wasn't to my taste, but really, multiple instances of contradictory writing. Bah.
—Ezekiel

Astonishingly awful fantasy. It's so badly written that I thought the first chapter was a parody or a play within the book--here's a sample line from the first page. "'Hook, me old friend, you've been complaining about storms for as long as I've known you. Here, take this to warm your salty bones,' said the friend while handing Hook a tankard of hot rum." The friend's name is Pegleg. Pegleg and Hook, I kid you not. They exchange a few lines of dialog about how they're hearty sea dogs, and then they meet (and are incredibly impressed by) Halycon Blithe, the newest midshipwizard in the Arcanian fleet. Here's what his dialog sounds like: "'I know I'll have to serve a few years to earn the respect of such men,' Halycon said to himself. 'But earn it I will, because I'm an officer with prospects, no doubt about it.'" Ye gods! Published by Tor, horribly enough.
—Wealhtheow

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