Review: Quest Academy: Silvers (Quest Academy #1) by Brian J. Nordon

SiriusB Reviews / B Reviews Category / Book Reviewscrafts / Fantasy / superheroes2 Comments

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A world infested by demons. An Academy designed to train Heroes to save humanity from annihilation. A new student’s power could make all the difference.

Humans have been pushed to the brink of extinction by an ever-evolving demonic threat. Portals are opening faster than ever, Towers bursting into the skies and Dungeons being mined below the last safe havens of society. The demons are winning.

Quest Academy stands defiantly against them, as a place to train the next generation of Heroes. The Guild Association is holding the line, but are in dire need of new blood and the powerful abilities they could bring to the battlefront. To be the saviors that humanity needs, they need to surpass the limits of those that came before them.

In a war with everything on the line, every power matters. With an adaptive enemy, comes the need for a constant shift in tactics. A new age of strategy is emerging, with even the unlikeliest of Heroes making an impact.

Salvatore Argento has never seen a demon. He has never aspired to become a Hero. Yet his power might be the one to tip the odds in humanity’s favor.

Review:

Dear Brian J. Gordon,

Your books were originally recommended by ILONA ANDREWS on their blog. I missed their recommendation, but my friend loved them and mentioned it to me. I mentioned this before, that even though I love most of what ILONA ANDREWS wrote themselves, their book recommendations are very much hit and miss for me. My friend’s recommendations are usually a hit for me though, and the series were on KU, so I dived in.

So the blurb is on point, however it does not warn you about the *very* slow unfolding of the narrative. This story is about people with extraordinary abilities, and about students whom those people help to discover and or/develop those extraordinary abilities, so it is a given that a lot of them had some very cool powers. Yes of course, I felt some super heroes vibes, it would be impossible not to. I would argue though, that because in this world quite a few people end up having those, it does not feel that they are alone in fighting evil. I liked it quite a bit that new fighters (of all kinds, including those like Sal who have extraordinary “support” abilities) come along all the time and they are learning how to be better.

The story is in third person limited so we are mostly in Sal’s POV. I thought that there was a brief switch to some of his teachers’ POV once or twice but I was not hundred percent sure whether that even happened.

I mostly liked Sal a lot. I liked that he was a nice guy who wanted to do his best with what he had even if he could not see himself on the frontlines fighting demons (at least not right away). I liked the friends he made, I liked how he was concerned with making money and helping people and how both goals meshed quite well. This academy seems to very much concerned with making sure students learn not only how to become Heroes, but also how to become entrepreneurs who help people. Cannot explain more without spoilers. So, what did I not like about Sal? Or to be more precise what did I not like about the way the author chose to portray Sal? I felt like he got too many awesome powers, too fast. I am not sure if I would call him full blown Marty Sue Character, but the author sure gives him a lot of cookies in the story and too fast in my opinion.

And yes, all the girls want him (a lot of them anyway), but my friend assured me that in the next books this part of the characterization was dropped. And even in this book the author tries to mitigate the super awesomeness somewhat by showing that there is some stuff that he needed to learn before he would be proficient, but for me it was not balanced yet.

I still found the writing very engaging and characters likable, so I will be continuing with the series at least for now.

Grade: B

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Sirius

Sirius started reading books when she was four and reading and discussing books is still her favorite hobby. One of her very favorite gay romances is Tamara Allen’s Whistling in the Dark. In fact, she loves every book written by Tamara Allen. Amongst her other favorite romance writers are Ginn Hale, Nicole Kimberling, Josephine Myles, Taylor V. Donovan and many others. Sirius’ other favorite genres are scifi, mystery and Russian classics. Sirius also loves travelling, watching movies and long slow walks.

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