The Warrior Heir by Cinda Williams Chima. First in a trilogy.
In a magical world where most people (Anaweir) are completely unaware of magical happenings, wizards are willing to stop at nothing to gain the upper hand in their own political intrigues. These wizards use all other magical beings (Anawizard Weir) to achieve those ends. The highest pawns in demand are Warriors, a class that is almost extinct, due to a barbaric, gladiator-like “Game,” in which the warriors are forced to fight each other in their wizard’s stead.
Jack belongs to the Warrior class of Anawizard Weir. Having come into his abilities late in life, he is fought over by the two major wizard political groups. Jack doesn’t want to die in this political game… and he doesn’t want to kill anyone else, either.
The book was entertaining, with a somewhat original premise. However, it seems that Chima’s foreshadowing is a bit heavy-handed – I predicted several key plot and character developments in advance (remember, I’m the only Harry Potter fan in the world that didn’t foresee Ron and Hermione’s relationship). Additionally, Chima’s wording is awkward at times, and she has a love of incomplete sentences. Chima often has two sentences where one would be more effective and elegant. For my taste, fragment sentences are forgivable in dialogue, when communcating dialect – in narration, it is less forgivable.
Characterization is shallow at times – best friend Will is big and loyal, but there’s really not much else to him – and characters’ objectives tend to be simple. Additionally, aspects of The Warrior Heir’s world were not initially well explained. Since most of the book is in third person, from Jack’s point of view, perhaps Chima was trying to force the reader to feel the same confusion Jack feels. However, I felt that because we did see some backstories that Jack wasn’t privy to, the information was simply poorly dealt out. For example, it was difficult to figure out just why Jack was being sought after – it wasn’t until late in the book that we really learned about “The Game,” even though we’d seen characters talk about it in the first chapters.
Negatives aside, the story was entertaining, if not engaging, and certainly a fresh take on the normal-teenager-turned-ancient-warrior line of YA literature (My favorite series in this vein is Percy Jackson). Chima’s writing is descriptive, and she seems at ease with using variety in her language, without sounding like a thesaurus. My twelve-year old source loved the book, but if you’re looking for a book to enjoy with your young teen, you might consider others (Three unrelated but fantastic series you might enjoy as much as your young person are: Artemis Fowl, by Eoin Colfer; Percy Jackson, by Rick Riordan; Bartimaeus, by Jonathon Stroud; Ranger’s Apprentice, by John Flanagan). That said, this book would be great for young audiences who are just beginning to edge away from the Children’s section of the library and towards the Teen section. Kids that love books with lots of action (like my source!) should also enjoy The Warrior Heir.
On the other hand, I would say that for a similar-premis-but-better-written book (also the beginning of a series), you might pick up The Hunger Games over this one.
-Carlin Mackenzie
