The Blacksmith's Son

If you are hungry from some of the better traditional fantasy in the indie pub marketplace, The Blacksmith's Son delivers. There is nothing original or necessary inventive about this book (and the series as a whole), but it does deliver a nice, enjoyable standard fantasy tale.  Overall, the world-building is strong and the plot good enough to keep you reading the whole book to the end. The writing is good and at times fun to read. The pacing is good too, nice and brisk. However, the weak point of this novel is the characters which I felt were a bit thin and undeveloped; the pacing, too, is a bit rushed in some parts with events moving forward too fast and not properly set up or developed. Don't get me wrong, this is a good book to read. It's a flawed work that does feel like it needs more work to make it a better work, but even with this complaint, The Blacksmith's Son still stands out as one of the better indie fantasy books in the self pub marketplace, especially when it comes to telling the traditional fantasy tale that many readers still enjoy.  So if you want an enjoyable tale that costs under a buck and a good example of indie fantasy that's as good as a lot of the traditionally published stuff you'll find, well, you should pick this one up. And hell, The Blacksmith's Son costs a mere .99 cents -- with a bargain price like that, how can you NOT pick this one up?