Review - The Debt of Nelira by Peter Leonard (self-published)

The Debt of Nelira by Peter Leonard
Self published

eBook - 59 pages
Published January 2010
Personal copy of book
I bought this book online after a friend of mine recommended it to me. The pitch that I was given was that it was a very good fantasy novel, and one that would pique my interests (at this time I was a big fan of Terry Goodkind and Ian Irvine) so I readily bought the book. After reading through it I was, I'm sad to say, disappointed.
I think the main reason for this was that I was expecting a fantasy novel, and what I had instead is best described as a children's adventure novel.

The story follows four school children who travel the length of their island (Zephis - conveniently shaped like a Z) in order to return a lost cap to their hero and guardian of the world, Zephyr (a being who seems to be a mix of the coolness of Bart Simpson along with the appearance of Rayman). Along the way they meet and help a number of island residents and creatures, who in turn show up at the end to help them out in their final battle. The antagonists to the story are a group of school bullies who want to steal this cap in order to demand a reward.

From the beginning, The Debt of Nelira reads like a children's book. That in itself is not a bad thing by any means, but when you are expecting to read a book of one genre and are confronted with something else entirely, it is very frustrating (see my earlier post about The Law of Nines by Terry Goodkind for more on this). The story is your basic questing adventure in the style of The Lord of the Rings (I was annoyed that there is a   line that is more or less directly lifted from The Fellowship of the Ring, 'one more step and this is the farthest away from Leafana I've ever been'.)

The characters manage to travel the length of their land to their destination with seemingly blinding speed, and though the book is short (59 A4 pages) they only spend half of that actually on their quest. The characters are fun in that they are children acting like children, as are the bullies who are against them. These characters are what would make this novel better suited for children rather than adults.

The world itself doesn't feel very fantastic. There are places with odd names, the land has two suns, there are creatures with extra limbs and the land has a superhero for a guardian, but the people and their culture seems a carbon copy of our own. It could even be argued that this story is more akin to science fiction than fantasy (people seem to have electricity, modern schools are in place, someone owns a light that dissolves dirt). It doesn't seem as if the world itself had been thought out beyond points on a map as opposed to a living land of people and the individual cultures.

In conclusion, The Debt of Nelira could have done with a rewrite or two before being put out to sale, and I would have found it a lot more readable if I had known what kind of story I was following. Still, this may be an exciting read for children, but an an adult reader would find it frustrating.