Kirins : The Spell of No’an
by James Priest
467 pages
Published 1990 by Yellowstone Press
About the Book:
A magical race of tiny beings lives on Earth today. Because of an ancient dispute, however, humans are totally unaware of their hidden civilization. They are kirins. For thousands of years they have lived in peace, but a deadly menace now threatens their existence. In this first volume of the trilogy, a party of daring explorers, led by the wise magician, Speckarin, is sent to destroy the evil that lurks a continent and an ocean away. Failure of this mission would mean death to the voyagers and to the entire kirin race. But their success will depend on aid from a truly unexpected source–human beings.
My Review:
Thank you to Books Forward for my #gifted copy of Kirins. Such an interesting, old-school fairy-tale/fantasy. At times reminding me of The Hobbit, the author has done a great job of world building which is always really important for fantasy books. Also, finding empathy from the reader for the Kirins was another strength of this author. I was immediately drawn in to their world and the quest.
This book was very long! There were several sections of the book that seemed to have the action stall and the quest seemed to be less important, which was really not the case. Perhaps if this was a shorter book with more focus on the quest, I wouldn’t have felt lost a couple of times.
No matter, it was still an interesting story and as it’s just Book 1 of the trilogy so there is a lot more story to be had.
This book would be great for readers that liked The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, etc and enjoy really long books that have the opportunity to sink into the fantasy world and take their time getting to the end.
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