This review was written for JordenLeonard, and is dedicated to them. Please click the dedication to go check out their work!

Book Title: Ranger Of Path (Rewrite)

Book Genre: Fantasy

Date of Review: February 24, 2016

Chapter(s) Reviewed: 1

Approximate Chapter Length: 2400 words

Content Flags: Profanity  *Note there will be profanity in the review as well.

Summary (copied from book description)

Ishkur's second chance starts with a simple mission. Fly a griffin and pick up a friend.

When the demigod he serves disappears and everything he values is stolen, he finds new strength and new friends.

His old life abandoned him, but didn't forget him. They will clash, and Ishkur must survive to save everyone.

Review

Ranger of Path sets the tone right away with an opening line you won't soon forget:

Griffins shit logs. Long, thick, and adhesive, when launched mid-flight the spears of excrement generally hold together until impact.

Immediately we know this won't be a fluffy story, but that it will have a certain sense of humor. After all, a character that puts thought into the uses of griffin shit as projectiles is bound to have a certain levity to him. (And yes, we do get to see these projectiles in action.)

The main character of Ranger of Path is Ishkur Inshushinak Ishtaran, and he does have a sort of unintentional humor to him. Unintentional on his part, that is. JordenLeonard knows exactly what he's doing in writing Ishkur with a subtle light-hearted flair.

Ishkur is host to an avatar, which means that sometimes a vaguely god-like entity takes control of his body. His world blurs away and he wakes after his body has performed tasks he doesn't remember, which usually means he has a note from his avatar in his hand: usually instructions, sometimes advice.

His story opens with him cleaning his griffin's aviary, which is what inspires his ruminations on the use of griffin excrement as a weapon. In the course of the first chapter we see Ishkur interact with Hildr, host to another avatar and recently estranged lover to Ishkur. We learn that Ishkur has a rebellious streak but for the specific purpose of righting things when he thinks the avatars have gone too far. And we learn about Ishkur's current orders from his avatar, and fly with him on his griffin as he leaves to fulfill those orders.

This is a story unforgiving of inattentive readers. It took me two readthroughs to really grasp what was going on. It's not that the information isn't there, just that it's presented very quickly in the form of quick verbal exchanges that serve multiple purposes. I'm a fan of starting right in the action and picking things up as we go along, but this story did move a bit quickly for me, at least for a single read. I found that the second readthrough really endeared me to this story because I was able to absorb more of the details layered into the narrative.

The one aspect I found a bit lacking was that I didn't feel very engaged with Ishkur on a personal level. I prefer a very close narration style, and parts of this chapter—particularly the dialogue between Hildr and Ishkur—felt very fly-on-the-wall. The dialogue is clever in that it reveals quite a bit about the characters' relationship, quirks, history, and even some worldbuilding, often at the same time, but the quick exchanges were narrated more from an omniscient standpoint than Ishkur's perspective. This is a personal preference that I think many readers won't suffer from. I like being in the main character's head, not just an observer.

Overall, I would recommend Ranger of Path to attentive readers who like complex stories with interesting worldbuilding details to pick up along the way. Happy reading!