The Digital Renaissance: Review: Mask of the Eternal Moon

Tuesday, August 22, 2023

Review: Mask of the Eternal Moon

Mask of the Eternal Moon by Luís Falcão de Magalhães
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Previous Review of A Silvery Moon

This is the second book of the Legends of Elessia series and it quick obviously an attempt to bridge the first and last of the trilogy. As such, I felt it was not a good as the either of those two. Like book one, it is fairly short and very action packed (a plus). The write style was very straight forward and simple, so it was easy to follow, but didn’t really pull me into the story much. The pacing was also too fast in many places, but this was all the same of the previous book, so that was no surprise. The PoV also expanded from two to five+ and that was a few too many, especially the inclusion of the PoV for the various antagonists … I don’t need to get into the bad guys head to know how evil they are.

The story itself has our intrepid heroes hunting the ancient (high) vampire that escaped from the last battle in the previous book, and along the way, they realize that she is hunting a mask (from the book title) that would give her god like powers. So far … so good … except despite the looming doom that such an event would entail … the good guys are perpetually giving in to the threat of give me what I want and I will kill you quickly BS. Yes ... I find that aggravating enough to subtract a star from what would have basically an okay story with fairly predictable results all the way to the end (which does has a twist that I didn’t see coming … because it makes absolutely no sense).

The world building is decent … in a D&D adventure sort of way (so I could see marking this as a LitRPG). and Undead and Vampires are still at the center … so it that is your jam … you may be able to ignore the awkward prose. In fact, it took me a bit, but with this book it is clear that the girman, or what ever race Oskar is, are pretty much the same thing as stereotypical dwarves … making any apparent innovation on the fantasy trope only a thin veneer. The only reason that I see to recommend this story is that is is a lead into the last of the trilogy.

I was given this free advance reader copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#MaskoftheEternalMoon #BookSirens #KindleUnlimited

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My Ratings Explained ...

[ ***** ] Amazing Read - Perfect story, exciting, engrossing, well developed complex characters, solid plot with few to no holes, descriptive environments and place settings, great mystery elements, realistic dialogue, believable reactions and behaviors; a favorite that I can re-read many times.
[ **** ] Great Read - Highly entertaining and enjoyable, exciting storyline, well developed characters and settings, a few discrepancies but nothing that can’t be overlooked. Some aspect of the story was new/refreshing to me and/or intriguing. Recommended for everyone.
[ *** ] Good Read - Solid story with a 'good' ending, or has some other redeeming feature. Limited character development and/or over reliance on tropes. Noticeable discrepancies in world building and/or dialog/behavior that were distracting. I connected enough with the characters/world to read the entire series. Most of the books I read for fun are here. Recommended for fans of the genre.
[ ** ] Okay Read - Suitable for a brief, afternoon escape … flat or shallow characters with little to no development. Over the top character dialog and/or behavior. Poor world building with significant issues and/or mistakes indicating poor research. Excessive use of trivial detail, info dumps and/or pontification. Any issues with the story/characters are offset by some other aspect that I enjoyed. Not very memorable. May only appeal to a niche group of readers. Recommended for some (YMMV).
[ * ] Bad Read - Awkward and/or confusing writing style. Poor world building and/or unbelievable (or unlikeable) characters. Victimization, gaslighting, blatant abuse, unnecessary violence, child endangerment, or any other highly objectionable behaviors by Main characters. I didn't connect with the story at all; significant aspects of this story irritated me enough that I struggled to finished it. Series was abandoned. Not recommended.