Dirt!
What sort of name is that for a book? Well, in this case it actually is a very good name – there seems to be quite a lot of dirt in the story, right from the very first page. In actual fact Dirt is just the first of many books based around the characters in this first book. I believe the title of the book I read was Dirt: Series 1, Book 1.
To be perfectly honest, a few pages into the book I wondered if this was really a book I would enjoy. The opening seemed strange, odd, I’m not sure which, but truthfully I couldn’t have been more wrong. I loved this book. It was one of those books that you simply cannot put down. You just have to know what is going to happen next. As the first book in a series, it does its job exceptionally well. When I got to the end, I said aloud; “what? Is that it? No! There’s has to be more.” Of course there is more, in the next book in the series.
C. C. Hogan has created the most wonderfully, fantastical world, out of thin air, it appears and placed into it, the usual cast of characters to make up an very good adventure/action/romance novel. It takes an excellent author to get his/her readers to identify and empathise with strange, wonderful creatures and indeed I did. The story is populated with humans, but with so much more; many varieties of dragons, mythical wild animals and even amazing birds and sea-life. That all this came from the imagination of the author is brilliant.
The story itself is your average kidnap, rescue and love story and yet in C. C. Hogan’s fantastic world it takes on a much more exciting vibrancy. We follow the adventures of a simple boy, from a poor background and his flawed, but amazing, thousand-year-old magician compadre, as they scour their world in search of the boy’s kidnapped sister and her employer, the beautiful Prelate’s daughter.
The action is non-stop and great fun. I particularly liked the wisdom and knowledge the author gave to the many species of dragons they encountered along the way. There were some clear correlations between Dirt’s society and that of mankind. I love it when an author addresses such pressing human issues in a different way by using his/her characters to illustrate the flaws in our own thinking. Excellent job with that!
I absolutely loved this book!!!! Why then, you may be asking, only four stars and not five. I desperately wanted to give the book five stars, but at the end of the day, when I’m reviewing, grammar, spelling, and correct word usage has to be taken into account. There were just too many simple errors in the manuscript to give it five…and that saddens me because this book deserved five stars. Did the errors reduce my enjoyment of the book in any way – the answer to that is a resounding NO! Nevertheless they are there, so on this occasion I reluctantly would give the book 4.9 stars. Sorry C. C. Hogan, it deserves better, but another edit would help.
I am already looking for the next book in this series, so I can continue the excellent journey I enjoyed so much on Dirt. A wonderful book and an awesome read. Thank you!
Review was first published by Grant Leishman at: http://www.grantleishman.com/book-reviews/dirt-book-1-series-1-by-cchogan
For more information about Grant Leishman, visit: http://www.grantleishman.com/
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