| Date: 12 April 2011, 03:27
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Publisher's weekly blasted this book condemning it with the suggestion that Salvatore had "borrowed" characters, situations and settings from his previous novels. While this is likely true Salvatore's oft repeated theme surrounding the questioning of Mores, faith and "common knowledge" is such an important theme that it SHOULD be repeated. Even more importantly, the formula that Salvatore uses is just plain entertaining.
This is the second novel featuring Salvatore's Highwayman. The Highwayman is a cross between Jet Li, Robin Hood and Dustin Hoffman's Rain Man. In the first novel we are introduced to Bransen the son of an Abellican monk (a Catholic priest with magic) and a Jhesta Tu Mystic (Shaolin Nun with magic). Branson's mother, newly and unknowingly pregnant saves a dying woman using her mystical Chi based abilities. Unfortunately the healing requires that the Jest Mystic take on the poisons that infect the woman's body. These aquired poisons cause massive birth defects that become apparent after Branson's birth. With his mother dead and his father missing (dead as well), the Stork (as Branson is called) is raised in a harsh monastery. However, Branson trains himself in the ways of the jhesta Tu mystics and combines it with the powerful gemstones of the Abellicans to not only make himself whole, but to make of himself an unstoppable warrior.
In "the Ancient" we find Branson travelling with his wife and his mother in law as they attempt to get to the mountains of Jhest so that Branson can be completely healed of his Stork body (he still needs the gemstones in order to become the Highwayman). Through a series of events, adventures and individuals, the Highwayman is conscripted into an army that is in the midst of a Holy war; his skills and abilities are multiplied by joining them with an unlikely, but skilled group of freedom fighters.
I found "The Ancient" to by highly entertaining, the action sequences are tight with plenty of blood and gore; and while the characters are not new ones that stretch Salvatore's literary muscles, they are likeable, three dimensional and entertaining.
If you are a Bob Salvatore fan you won't be surprised by this novel, but you will be entertained.
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