The Golden Cord by Paul Genesse
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a fun read.

I think Paul does a great job of writing fight sequences. It was very visually evocative.

Setting: The setting is unique. The "world" is set on top of a rather large plateau. The plants can be dangerous but also offer unique protections (obscuring scents). The first half or so of the book is spent in Cliffton, the home of our protagonist. The rest of the book is spent traveling to and finding a dwarven mine. I thought the whole thing was well-explored and I am interested in finding out more in the subsequent books.

Plot: The main plot revolves around a young man helping a couple dwarves to find a mine and some lost relatives while trying to avoid some nasty evil creatures. There is also a prominent romantic sub-plot and is continuing. And plots about plans the evil master dragon has put into motion. While the plot arcs didn’t really surprise me, I thought they were challenging for the characters, and thus quite appropriate.

Conflict: There are some religious conflicts, cultural conflicts between humans and dwarves, and conflicts with some evil creatures. The main character also has some major internal conflicts going on.

Character: The characters are fairly complex and, more importantly, likable.

Text: The writing was easy to read and simple. I think even those who haven’t read much fantasy will be able to understand much of what is happening in the story.

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