Scepter of Truth, by DL Jones
My review: ★★★
This book is part-SciFi and part-fantasy. It begins in a near-future world where Tangie, a determined woman who’s after an explanation of her father’s death during her youth, becomes a soldier in a military unit that’s based on nanotechnology of her father’s design. It takes a sharp turn after that, though, as she is thrown into a more fantastical setting when she’s stranded on an unknown land somewhere previously undiscovered. Here she ends up on a quest to retrieve the Scepter of Truth for the queen, who may have information about Tangie’s father.
If you enjoy action, this is a great book for you. The story is action-packed, with battles at every turn. The settings, creatures, and people have a fair bit of imagination to them. On the flip side, we don’t get to know any of the characters that well, even Tangie. I actually love who the main character is: a smart, self-reliant female computer programmer warrior – yeah! But we don’t get a lot of depth of her. And I must admit some personal disappointment that this self-reliant computer programmer woman… was then dropped into a world where she did zero computer programming. While I’m a fan of both Sci-Fi and Fantasy, I am not really a fan of putting them together – but have no logical complaints about how this book does it. This is just a personal preference, and it’s probably influenced by that bit of personal disappointment.
So my personal preferences aside: the ending is satisfying, and sets up some interesting mysteries to be solved in future books. Fans of creative fantasy world-building and action-packed adventure will find much to love here.
