AvonNova -- pbNew York -- ©1996 -- 278pp
ISBN: 0-380-77980-3
cover art: Darrell Sweet
Young Tom Keeper is an artist in a time and place when being an artist is not good. Tom meets up with an angel who promises to take Tom to apprentice with a famous artist. Tom learns much about the ways of the angels during his journey.
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I have really enjoyed the works of Scott Ciencin that I've come across before, and so was really looking forward to this particular work. At the beginning I was really enjoying it and looking forward to my time in the novel -- how often does one come across a book in which art and being an artist plays a major part of the plot? Weaving artistry and magic and fantasy together seemed like a blend written just for me.
But then the book took a turn.
In looking back on this work I fear that it is a jumbled mess of plots that don't quite weave together well. Plots, sub-plots, and characters all seem to be tossed aside as the book moves on, and new characters and plots are revealed, leaving us to wonder just what this book is about.
One thing that I did find quite interesting is that there is much here that would seem to be would allow a pretty good case against J.K.Rowling and her Harry Potter series ... the idea that Tom can't be killed by his enemy because there is a part of his enemy inside him. Of course there's more, and the Potter books are much more entertaining, but there are more than a few such similarities. I did check the copyright, and Ciencin's book is copyright and published in 1996, the first Harry Potter book was published in the U.S. in 1998 and in Great Britain in 1997.
There is much here that makes me want to read the second and even third books, but I am disappointed that this did not turn out to be the book that it seemed to be at the start.
Reluctantly, this is not recommended.
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