Book Review: The Four Kings by Scott Spotson

http://tempestraven.wordpress.com/2013/12/23/book-review-the-four-kings-by-scott-spotson/ by TempestRaven Guest Post: A.J. Raven

The Four Kings by Scott Spotson is quite a gripping tale. I have always wondered what life would be like if wizards decided to rule over our world. Kind of like the Ministry of Magic, from the Harry Potter series, taking over and setting things right. The Four Kings introduces such a concept. It talks about different political, economic, and philosophical ideas and presents everything in a way that feels quite ‘life like’.

What’s the best thing about the book? Definitely the characters! We get to know about four young wizards, Regi, Indie, Justica and Demus taking control of the United States. The story starts quite interestingly and you just want to know what happens next. The four wizards, along with others take care of all the nuclear weapons and announce their rule over the world. As expected, the humans, or mortals, don’t take that well. The wizards appoint a liaison, Amanda Fullerton, and it is through her eyes we get to see what happens next. Even though the wizards are extremely powerful, the author does a great job in making them feel ‘human’. They too have faced hardships and their power was a gift as well as a curse. Power corrupts, there’s no denying it. And even if the initial ideas presented by the wizards looked as if they’d work, I was waiting for it to all go downhill. You could tell from the way the wizards interacted that what they thought wasright wasn’t necessarily right for the Mortals.

I enjoyed Amanda Fullerton. She is split between the duty to her people and the feelings she is developing for Regi. I also liked the way she gets information out of the wizards in order to bring them down when necessary. Everything is expressed in detail and the magic shown in the story is different from what I’m used to reading. Most of it had to do with games the wizards created in order to pass time and to improve themselves.

There were some parts I felt dragged too long. I understand some readers enjoying the wizards playing the games, but I wanted things to return back to the main story as soon as possible. Even the final confrontation between the wizards and Amanda was a huge game type duel. It even included a whole chapter of Amanda trying to reach level four of a life like Donkey Kong game. I also wanted to know about the dynamics regarding the rest of the wizards governing other parts of the world. That would’ve introduced too many characters in a single book, but I think it would’ve helped change things a bit.

The resistance to change by the Mortals was understandable along with the fall of the regimes the wizards implemented. Nothing can be perfect in a supposedly perfect world and that’s what the story tells us. We, as a civilization, need some sort of friction to keep moving. Even though I’m not into politics, everything was explained in an interesting manner and I could tell the author put a lot of research before writing the book.

In the end, I would give The Four Kings by Scott Spotson…4 stars! It’s a well-constructed story, with believable characters, a different kind of magic, but felt too long in some places. It’s highly recommended to anyone interested in magic, the paranormal or even politics.

Give it a read and we’ll talk about it.