Book Review

Shield and Crocus
by Michael R. Underwood

Things I liked:
Underwood does a great job of combining a superhero story with a gritty weird fantasy setting. It works very well and there's a nice subtlety to the way he puts it all together.
The characters and their powers were interesting and used well, and in most cases, had the right balance of referencing familiar heroes and being original creations.
The setting had a lot of potential.
The different races were cool, and not retreads of typical fantasy tropes.

Things I didn't like:
The setting could have used a lot more development and description. I had a lot of questions about many aspects of the world: who were/are the titans and what is their role in the world, where does Audec-Hal fit into the larger world, who/what is the City Mother and where did she come from?
The plot really bogged down just after the midpoint. There were a series of small missions and battles that got repetitive and lacked narrative direction or significance. The characters may have been flailing about, but the story and book itself should not have been flailing about, too.

Underwood seems to have some good ideas, and I'm curious as to what he will do next.