Guest Review – Pathfinder Tales: Winter Witch by Elaine Cunningham (3.5/5 stars)

Reading level: Adult (fine for YA too)
Genre: Fantasy
Size: 300 pages
Publisher: Paizo Publishing, LLC
Release Date: December 7, 2010
ISBN-13: 978-1601252869
Stand Alone or Series: Part of Pathfinder World
Source: Paiza Booth at Book Expo America
Rating: 3.5/5 stars

This is my first review for the wife, so I’ll try not to make it too bad :). I picked up Winter Witch at BEA from the nice guys at Paizo publishing. I have bought some of their D&D stuff in the past, but haven’t read any of the Pathfinder books. Pathfinder is the world that the Paizo people have created for their campaigns in D&D, and it is an interesting world, though very much a D&D setting, including the magic systems and such, though the author does a pretty good job of making it so you don’t need to know the magic system to understand the book.

Winter Witch overall is a good book, the story follows a boy who has an interesting magical power, and his quest to save the fair maiden in danger. I know that sounds kind of corny, almost like a D&D module huh? Anyway with a fair amount of adventure, and fun, the book weaves it’s way through, and ends in the far North with some twists that I didn’t really expect.

As I said, overall it was a good book, and the writing was just so-so, in the beginning it really bothered me that the author switched between the first and last name of the main character, and not sticking with one in the middle. Towards the end of the book, it got better, or I just didn’t notice as much, I am not sure which.

The characters overall are pretty good, there is some humor, but not so much that it gets in the way of the story. All of them have their own personalities, though from time to time, a few of them are too similar, in my opinion.

This is a standalone book as far as I can tell. Though the end makes it sound like you really could have a second book in the series. I would probably read another book if they did write another.

As for me, well I am Lyle, Karissa’s husband. I am a computer programmer, and though I read some, I don’t read a ton like Karissa does. I probably only get through a couple of books a month, and in a lot of cases, it is the same books as Karissa is reading, and reviewing, so I probably won’t be doing a ton of reviews for this site. I also enjoy video games, board games (including D&D), and I play hockey too. That about sums me up in one paragraph woo hoo for me :).