Hero's Song: The First Song of Eirren (1991)

Engaging characters do much to carry this charming tale, but it is overly simplistic for my taste. The Gaelic terminology and use of Irish folklore adds some interest. ( )

This book for middle-graders probably would have appealed greatly to me at age 11, but I could never quite get into it. It felt like Hero's Song did its utmost to hit every fantasy cliche down to the cast: the humble gardener, the tomboy archer, the bard, the elf, the old wizard as the mentor, the bad guys who are absolute evil without any nuances. It felt like it was trying to be Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles, but without that charm and sparkle. The plot is also predictable, and I think it would have been transparent to me as a kid, too. I rushed through to the end, not because I enjoyed it, but because I wanted to get it over with. ( )

I found this book a little stilted and derivative... East, a later work by the same author, is much stronger. All the same, I enjoyed it enough to read the next one in the series. ( )

This is the first in a series. It was written competently but I stopped reading in the middle of it because it just wasn't that interesting. ( )