The Sun Singer

You know a book is good when you reach the last page and don't want it to end. Malcolm Campbell's The Sun Singer is doing that to me right now. The book took me into a different world, and at the moment, I'm not sure I want to come back to reality.

Robert Adams is a young man on a vision quest. It takes him through a portal into an alternate universe, where he joins a band of rebels who are fighting against an evil ruler. This is a world of magic - a more "primitive" place, without the technological "advantages" we know of in our version of reality. Science, in this place, has not yet shut the doors on our ability to dream and imagine.

The characters one meets in Robert's new-found world are very real, and effectively drawn so that we become involved with them as we read. The descriptions are vivid and poetic. The images are clear, so that the reader gets drawn into the places being described, and the action has an immediacy to it.

This is a hero's journey at its best. All the elements are there: the call, the threshold into the land of adventure, the helpers, the trials, and the eventual return home with the "treasure" that will heal the whole community. We know the basics of such stories. The trick in telling a good one is that of keeping the reader involved in its twists and turns by making it unique, creating characters and situations that pull us into a world where we suspend our disbelief, as we get caught up in the happenings and involved with the people we meet there. The Sun Singer ranks with the best of them.

I will be thinking about this one for a long time.

Ann

Good review Ann. I also enjoyed the book.

Wow, Ann, your review means a lot to me, coming from another writer, and most especially one who is acquainted with the heropath schema.

I had a little help with describing the surroundings since I was writing about a real place that I had spent a lot of time in. The characters sort of "wrote themselves" once I turned them loose and stopped trying to control them.

Thanks so much for reading the book and posting your thoughts about it here.

Malcolm