Refugees: Mud, Rocks, and Trees Book I
The brief description for this book begins with the sentence, “An epic journey of a lifetime.” I can honestly say there isn’t a truer statement to describe Refugees.
We are given a book that takes us through the lives and travels of characters who are called into a destiny they didn’t ask for. The theme of the book stands out strongly as ‘mud, rocks, and trees’ are woven into many aspects of the writing from the culture to the settings; Denny does a wonderful job at keeping the theme alive from page to page.
One of the important things to remember about this book while reading is that its not a stand alone novel. It is the first installation of many more books to come. When I first realized that I was honestly a little bit disappointed. I’m not a huge fan of series, especially not fantasy ones because they tend to be unnecessarily long. I don’t feel like waiting through a number of books to see if they ever get to the point, ever finish the mission, fight the battle, accomplish their dreams. Epic fantasy has a lot to live up to, every page must be worth it. I think its fair to say that Denny definitely made me want to keep reading.
I appreciated the world building, the incredibly intricate details of every land, culture, and creature. From cover to cover, the world as I knew it was something else entirely. I drifted into a place ruled by Denny’s writing and limited only by my own imagination. I saw things I’ve never thought of before and imagined places that could only exist in a land undiscovered. I genuinely enjoyed myself in the world and culture alone but there was much to appreciate within the context and the plot itself.
I think the book kind of follows a cookie cutter theme because the three protagonists are somewhat reminiscent of ‘chosen ones’. I see that a lot in fantasy so I wasn’t bothered by it but I did wish there was more purpose in why those three were chosen other than because they simply were. I did like that there were some surprises and tragedy in the book. It reminded me of one of the Final Fantasy games where characters were ‘assigned’ a fate and a destiny. That sort of concept was prevalent in this book where the three main characters didn’t exactly get a choice in the part they played in the eerie prophecy we read in the opening of the story.
While it seems like this is the beginning of a very long adventure, I have to say things are off to a great start! I definitely enjoyed this book very much and would certainly recommend it to others. If you like epic fantasy or adventure, then this may be the series for you.