The Red Wolf Conspiracy (The Chathrand Voyage #1)

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Title: The Red Wolf Conspiracy
Series: The Chathrand Voyage
Author: Robert Redick
Rating: of 5 Battle Axes
Genre: SFF
Pages: 466
Format: Kindle





Synopsis:
The greatest ship still in existence, The Chathrand, is making a historic voyage. It is carrying an Ambassador's Daughter who will be wed to a Prince, hence signalling the beginning of a long peace between two Mighty Empires.
But Empires are rife with corruption and full of the corruptable.
This is not a voyage of Peace, for both Empires are planning treachery. This is not a voyage of Peace, for others are planning to use it to bring back some of the mightiest and evilest power ever known to Man.

My Thoughts:
I really enjoyed this. That was a surprise because I had thought this was going to be about anthropomorphized cats [Chathrand just sounds Cat'y to me and when you've read as much SFF as I have, sometimes words have a "ring" to them that lead you to believe something about them] and it was very evident from the start that that was not the case. So my expectations were dashed from page 1.

This was an adventure story filled with magic, Awakened animals, the Littles and derring-do. It was great.

However, I found that not a single main character was good enough for me to want to care about. If any of them had died and the plot had proceeded, I would have been just fine with that. It wasn't that they were horrible people, not by any means but they never caught me by the nethers and held on.  You know how sometimes you just connect with some people? And then there are the times that you don't? I've had times where everything seemed perfect with somebody else but that spark wasn't there and things just kind of wound down. That's how it was with these main characters.

To be honest though, I don't expect to connect to characters in every book I read. It is nice when it happens, but I do have my Man Card to think about and sometimes some good old fashioned violence and action are much more necessary. Such was this book.

I am looking forward to reading this completed [HURRAY!] series.