First off, the disclaimer: I'm a Christian who not only attends church regularly, even if I missed it this week, and has plans to eventually have a prison ministry. That's going to be a rough road, but I want the challenge because it's important. I can't quite believe that I found myself reading a book where the good guys are the pagans and their enemies are the Christians, but here we are. I liked it so much I'm actually going to promote it on my blog. Then, at some point, I'm going to read the rest of the series.
Our hero is a dude name Liam Knox and he starts out way over his head. Like trying to stand on the bottom while swimming over the Marianas Trench kind of over his head. It's crazy. He has no clue what is going on or what is happening to him. I mean, we've all seen this before, right? It's kind of a trope. This one goes from Buck Rogers to Harry Potter and back again, only Knox seems to have it worse.
I mean, with Harry Potter he takes everything in pretty quickly. I love the books, but it almost seems too convenient how quickly he adapts to his new surroundings when he goes from the cupboard under the stairs to the king of the freaking world. Knox takes a bit longer but, if you can believe it, his world is even further from where he started from Harry's. He gets to where he needs to be mentally slowly but surely, I think. There's more to this story than just this one book, and he seems to be getting what's been thrown at him. Then again, the kitchen sink has not quite been thrown yet, that I remember anyway, so there could very well be something he hasn't anticipated. Or at least that I haven't.
I really got a kick out of the way Osborne worked in a lot of mythological figures. No, I'm not going to list them all but trust me, you'll recognize a lot of them. I sure did. I got a kick out of it. I'm hoping to find out more about who from the Christian side is working with their champion in future books. So far, not a lot has been revealed that I remember but that should be interesting. And it's not like a good author is going to give away everything in the first book of the series. If I don't want more, I won't read more and the author doesn't get paid. So not knowing everything is a good thing, I guess.
I'm tempted to believe that a lot of research went into including all of those mythological beings into A Reluctant Druid. I'm also half tempted to believe that Osborne might just be one of those guys who likes reading mythology and decided to throw a bunch of it into his book because he could. I'm not sure if it's one, or both, or something else entirely but either way I approve. He did a great job.
Sometimes trouble can come from unexpected directions and Osborne gets that. He sure gives his main character a lesson or two at the School of Hard...
Knox.
Get it?
Ok, so that was terrible. Please do not take my poor attempt at humor as being reflective of the quality of A Reluctant Druid. I'll accept the thrown tomatoes. Osborne deserves better than that, even if he let me review his book.
*SIGH*
No system is perfect, I guess.
The supporting cast here is huge and lots of fun. As already mentioned some of them are major mythological figures, but not all. Some of them are just regular people. Some of them are just regular people, only with powers. I love the fact that you don't necessarily know who is who and what's what when someone walks in or something happens. It actually does drop in the pot at one point and we're all just cruising along like, "Yeah, sounds rough." for about two or three pages before we realize all hell has already broken out and we were just clueless.
No, not like the movie. I'm neither that young, nor that hot.
Anyway...
There is a lot of suspense here. I spent most of the time I couldn't read the book (listen, I've got a job, okay? And like, reading and driving don't mix and no, I don't do audiobooks.) trying to figure out what's coming next. Osborne seems to have found that weird middle ground between revealing too much and ruining interest and telling too little and getting your book launched against the wall at a high velocity because the reader is too frustrated.
Not that I'd ever do such a thing. At least, not if it were an e-book. I need my phone too much for that.
A Reluctant Druid is the perfect kind of book to knock out on a rainy day when you're stuck in the house. We all know the situation, right? Nowhere to go, nothing to do, oh wow how did I finish that book in one day? I mean, I remember that feeling at least. It's been a long time since I've been able to actually do it.
Of course, you can still read it if you're busy. I read it while working sixty plus hours a week. I'm just saying that A Reluctant Druid is the kind of book that can keep your mind absorbed for an entire day and make you feel like you got something out of it. Actually, if I hadn't been writing all day (going on three thousand words today, it's my day off) I'd probably be reading the sequel right now.
Wait?
Why are you asking ME what the title of the sequel is?
WHY DO I HAVE TO DO ALL OF THE WORK?!??!??!?!?!
Okay, gimme a second.
...
...
...
...
It's called A Tempered Warrior. I just found it on Amazon. I'll be checking it out soon.
Bottom Line: 4.75 out of 5 Lightning Bolts
A Reluctant Druid
Jon Osborne,
New Mythology Press, 2017
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