Having only read (and enjoyed) the first adventure of Royce Melborn and Hadrian Blackwater, I didn’t enter into Age of Myth with the same expectations a long-time fan of Michael J. Sullivan might have. As such, I’d like to think I was able to read it a bit more objectively, and treat it more like a mass market debut than a long-awaited graduation from the indie shelves. There’s no doubt that Sullivan is a decent writer, and I admire his dedication in not just plotting out by actually writing all 5 books in the series before allowing one to see print. In an era where we often wait so long between books, and where publishes drop authors mid-series, that effort provides a level of comfort to the reader. It’s a double-edged sword, though, because I swear you can feel that comfort permeating the text. While I largely enjoyed the read, I didn’t feel there was any real drama or danger to the story. It felt like a comfortable, connect-the-dots kind of read, and I never felt as if the stakes were truly high enough to justify all that effort. The other (huge) problem for me was the characters – or, at least, half of them. The elves I quite…
