A Knight Of The Word A fantasy written by Terry Brooks in 1998 Reviewed edition by Ballantine from 1999 A paperback has 390 pages ISBN 0-345-42464-6 Click to rate this book from worst 1 2 3 4 5 to best.

John Ross is a Knight of the Word. It is his sworn duty to combat demons and other creatures of the Void, with the aid of magic that was bestowed upon him when he entered the service to the Word. Except that John Ross no longer considers himself Knight of the Word, his resolve broken by a particularly gory episode in his Sisyphus struggle against the Void. What John Ross does not realize is that it is not possible to give up the service to the Word. Resigning does not bereft him of his magic. If anything, it only makes him more vulnerable to the attempts of the Void to sway him from his path and turn him into its servant. And one such attempt is just about to fruit, with John Ross blindly walking into a trap that will make him take his first step towards the dark side, a step from which there is no return. The Lady of the Word cannot afford to loose her champion. She sends an old friend of John Ross, Nest Freemark, to warn him of his peril. For the fall of a Knight of the Word would be too costly to the cause of the Word ... even more costly than the life of the Knight himself.

Reading the synopsis, I have to say that the plot does sound very potent. Unfortunately, its execution does not stand up to the promise. For one thing, the story seems to be unfocused. Jumping from one theme to another, it looks as if the author did not quite know if the book should be a treatise on the problems of homeless people, a journey into the soul of a lonely fighter for justice, a chronicle of an epic battle between Good and Evil, or something else entirely.

Another disappointment is the predictability of the story. It is sad when the reader is already sure about who the bad guy is before the first half of the book is over. It is even more sad when the only doubt he has from that point on is whether the story could really be that transparent. And the most sad point comes when he reaches the end and finds that yes, it really was that transparent.

I still found the book quite interesting, but I guess it was more because I came to like its characters from the previous volume, rather than because of the book itself.

Rated as average by Ceres on 1999-10-06

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