Obsidian Ridge

Good book, epic, and has it all. Wonderful for Fantasy readers who just want to read a book without all the sequals to come. It starts then finishes. I would recommend this book to Fantasy readers who want stand alone solid reading.

In the kingdom of Erlkazar, King Korox is fighting the underground wizards and other evil foes from making a certain elixir, which is banned in the kingdom. However, the underground lord, the Matron, proves to be a formidable foe. However, the king isn't alone. He has his deadly assassin, the Claw, and his daughter, skilled with spellcasting, helping him bring and maintain order in the kingdom. In the midst of this comes a floating citadel, reeking with even a greater evil, overshadowing the kingdom. The citadel, the Obsidian Ridge, was thought to be of a legend since no one has ever seen it before. Xeries, ruler of the Obsidian Ridge, makes an ultimatum. He demands the king's daughter to become his wife or else he will eradicate all living beings. For survival, the kingdom and the underground wizards must band together and battle Xeries. When I got the *Obsidian Ridge*, I wasn't aware that it was part of a series. However, I soon learned that each is a stand-alone. Therefore, you will not be lost, although the previous book might be somewhat helpful in terms of the Citadels. *Obsidian Ridge* is simplistic in the story plot even though there are several sub plots going on. However, Lebow did a good job to make sure the readers would not be confused or get lost among the plots. It's an easy read with some interesting twists.

Obsidian Ridge by Jess Lebow is the second novel in a series of stand alone novels called the Citadels. The other novels in the Citadels series are; Neversfall: The Citadels by Ed Gentry, and the soon to be released The Shield of Weeping Ghosts: The Citadels by James Davis (May, 2008) and Sentinelspire (The Citadels) by Mark Sehestedt (July, 2008). These novels are much like the other series of stand alone novels that have been previously released, such as the Rogues, the Clerics, the Wizards, and the Fighters. Incidentally, Mr. Lebow also had a novel in the Fighters series; Master of Chains (The Fighters). The plot of this book is multi-layered and nothing like I thought it would be. The main plot line is rather simplistic, a floating citadel appears one day over a city and the wizard in control of the citadel makes a demand on the king and gives him four days to follow through on those demands. However, there is a myriad of sub plots crammed into the pages of this book as well. Sub plots such as the identity of two mysterious figures, the Claw and the Matron. The Matron's identity was done really well; Mr. Lebow teases the reader with a hint to the true identity and then snatches it away. There is a political sub plot as well between a group who is selling illegal drugs and wanting to gain control of the throne, and the king's own who are seeking to stop the sale of the drugs. There are a couple more sub plots, and plot twists but I will hold off talking about those because I don't want to spoil anything. Suffice it to say, that the plot and layout of this book is very good. It follows a logical time frame and pacing is well done. There is very little `down' time in this novel at all. The characters in this book are what you may expect to find in a plot such as this. There is the evil crazed wizard Xeries, there is the noble king Korox, the king's body guard Quinn, the king's beautiful daughter Mariko, and the mysterious underground lord the Matron. The characters, and to a lesser extent, some of their actions are at times clichés. However, they are packaged in such a way that it doesn't cause the reader to think `been there done that'. I found the characters to be engaging and interesting. All the characters were interesting, some obviously more so than others, but the one thing that seemed to really be lacking was character development. By and large the way the characters are at the start of the novel are how they end the novel. With how solid the plot is, I was expecting a little more in this area. Other than that, the characters were fun to read about. I do have a couple of minor criticisms about this novel. 1 - As I mentioned above, for the quality of the plot the lack of character development was kind of surprising and a little disappointing. In only three hundred pages I am not expecting complete character transformations, but I would have liked to have seen some growth in a few of the characters. 2 - Some of the dialogue, at times