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Readers > Riley > Comments And Reviews
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Excerpts | Author Info
Comments And Reviews
"Let your imagination run wild in this spellbinding fantasy. An extraordinary set of characters makes this tale truly an original! Don't miss it!"
--- ActionTales.com
Riley is a ten year old boy with strange abilities. He was taken from his mother when he was born because he set a few nurses on fire and rattled a few test tubes. He's been raised in an institution, treated like a lab rat, never realizing that he's about to become the centerpiece of the army's experiment. The army thinks that he might be a product of alien technology. They plan to use his abilities as a weapon, but not before they use his body to try to sire a few more like him.
Riley suddenly understands what's in store for him. Dreams have haunted him with his true self and his true power. With a threat against his life, this power suddenly finds a name and an expression. Finding himself surrounded by friends who help him escape from his oppressors, Riley begins to remember who he is and the importance of his abilities.
Ken Mason has written a remarkable piece of dark fantasy. Riley is part of us, yet always separate. His mission and his power are nearly absolute, yet at the end of this story, a very human little boy goes looking for his mother. That's what I enjoyed most about this book. It's easy to endow a character with superhuman abilities. It's not easy to make him likeable. Ken Mason has managed to do both.
Joyce Lavene
joyceandjimlavene.com
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Riley is a ten-year-old boy. When he sleeps his dreams are a journey into terror as he visits a realm where he sees a huge castle silhouetted in the night sky and can hear fearful beasts calling for him to come home. His waking hours are no less fearful. He is imprisoned in a world of stainless steel and surveillance cameras as he struggles to control the inner rumblings of a power he doesn't understand.
Let me say here, Riley is not a story for children. Ask yourself, "What if...the last chance for the souls of mankind to redeem themselves in Purgatory was threatened by the demons of hell?" Then turn out the lights, lock the door, and settle yourself into a big comfortable chair because you'll be there for a while.
If you enjoy fantasy adventure you'll find yourself at home as you follow Riley through his brutal escape from this world to his home world of dragons, frightened souls, and magnificent beasts, all battling to save their world. In this world Riley will overcome an army of demons, and the biggest foe to all of life's changes as he wins the loyalty of the souls he is destined to protect.
I give Riley a rating of 5 stars.
Mary Adair
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If you're accustomed to judging a book by its title, Riley will be quite a surprise. The name conjures images of a freckle-faced OPIE-clone heading down a dusty road, fishing pole resting on his shoulder. Although the protagonist IS also a 10-year-old motherless boy, there are no other similarities between him and Opie from Mayberry.
Riley is the central character of a complex plot between Old Testament: Good and Evil, Heaven and Purgatory and God and Satan! Opie's was a world of predictability—one season followed the other, same time, every year; objects were exactly as they appeared; personalities of the characters never varied, and the laws of gravity, aerodynamics, space, time and life and death, were immutable.
Riley's reality includes heaven and earth, purgatory and hell...and everything between! Dragons not only exist, but they talk, fly, reason and plot. Portals into hidden realms open unexpectedly; the mountains are filled with secret caves and doors and bizarre new creatures are introduced regularly—such as walking/talking trees and demons. Riley is thrust into worlds where Dungeons and Dragons merge with Lord of the Rings and Children of Dune! Death doesn't necessarily mean the end of life—if Riley is around. He has the gift to heal—though there are occasions when it doesn't function.
While this tactic of combining wizards and warlords, demons and archangels, walking trees and flying dragons, provides a unique environment for some very bizarre action, it also proves exhausting and confusing when the author's imagination runs amok. The version I read was in .pdf format, 232 web pages long, and the reader can easily lose the threads of the last plot that unfolded when trying to absorb the new one being revealed.
The action is fast-paced with ever-changing characters, plots and sub-plots unfolding in tandem. Readers who enjoy the age-old battles between good and evil will be enthralled with the many variations of characters engaging good and evil and the very different outcomes!
In summary, here are the pluses and minuses from this reviewer's viewpoint:
Plus
...attention-grabbing (and holding) plots to suit all.
...unique, well-drawn new creatures.
...detailed descriptions of everything. (I could actually visualize the scenes!)
Minus
...jolting anomalies—e.g., 21st century idioms and slang used throughout the book in author's mentally constructed world-before-time era.
...excessive vulgarity—curse words and vulgar expressions were used
by everyone, and everyTHING (trees, dragons, banished angels) and
even by 10-year-old Riley! Again, the incongruity of a dragonet, a child or one of the higher-placed heavenly creatures uttering phrases like "Kiss my ---" or "F--- You!" was so jolting to me that had I not been involved in reading the last third of the book, I would have stopped the first time any of those words appeared!
...introduction of too many sub-plots and their assorted characters.
Sonya Rolls
srollss+netscape.net
(Change + to @)
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"Meet Riley, Archangel of Purgatory, in this compelling dark fantasy!"
--- ActionTales.com
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