Crusader (The Sanctuary Series Book 4)

After enjoying the first three books of this series and giving them a collective four-star rating, I was looking forward to the fourth installment. What I found was a bloated disaster with typos, absurd dialogue, bizarre character choices, interaction that make no sense, and at least twice as many words as necessary to tell the tale. I gave it an extra star because the underlying story remains compelling despite the poor telling of it, like a perfectly cooked steak drowned in ketchup. I’m not sure which I find more surprising – that this book has a 4.6 star rating on Amazon, or that the next 6 in the series all have even higher ratings.*Note to parents – while the first three books of this series are appropriate for YA level readers, the sexual content of this book increases significantly. It’s not X-rated, but somewhere between PG-13 and R.The first three books were fun reads, not perfect by any stretch, but interesting and at least passably written. Crane’s strengths are story development and his description of setting, both of which carried the earlier books. His weaknesses lie in character development, and dialogue. Until book 4 he played play to his strengths, whether intentionally or not, thereby diminishing the impact of his weaknesses. In Crusader, he appears as if he tried to address his weaknesses head on. A noble approach, but a failed one. Instead of improving his work, we end up with a lot of really bad writing. And a book that is longer than it needs to be by at least double.Here’s an example: “I assumed that like my conversations with Unger, you preferred to remove all the guile from the subtext by throwing everything onto the table first, so that then we could proceed with our talk unfettered by political silliness which I, incidentally, excel at.” Even accounting for speech patterns suitable for the genre, this dialogue is excessively convoluted.Here’s another: “However, I would hope that our General might bring his own insight into our foes to the battle plan before we go into the fight, so that any troubles unseen by the esteemed leaders of Actaluere and Syloreas might be anticipated before we march headlong into the teeth of those beasts.” Not only does the speaker refer to the listener in the third person (the listener is the General), but again we have tortured dialogue that seems unlikely and excessive in any settingAnd my personal favorite. “She felt the taste of irony on her tongue, and it was not to her liking.” Did she really feel the taste? Or did she simply taste? And what exactly does irony taste like? Chicken? I’ll give the author poetic license on that second point, but “felt the taste of irony” is amateurish, something that shouldn’t survive a college freshmen writing course, and certainly not an allegedly professionally-edited novel.These are just a few of the most egregious examples, with far too many to include here. A handful of such sentences could be overlooked, as was the case in the previous books. But they are everywhere throughout Crusader, which helps explain the 824 page length. (The previous three books combined only had 1,005 pages.)This theme of excess wasn’t limited to wordiness, however. Crane drives home every subplot, side plot, and foreshadowing with the nuance of a sledge hammer. Every point he tries to make is repeated with such tenacity and frequency that it became a chore to continue reading. The funny character says something funny every time he opens his mouth, without fail, even in the most inappropriate or unlikely scenario. Another character makes sexually-suggested comments every time she appears. A third always has a drink in his hand, which Crane points out as with no shortage of words. It goes well beyond stereotyping – these characters are little more than one-dimensional cartoons. It is unfathomable to me that these flaws or excess weren’t caught by the several editors and reviewers he mentioned in his acknowledgements. Either he needs to listen to them more, or find better ones.And so many of the dialogues were far, far, too long. A quips or two in the midst of a battle scene is OK, but when characters drone on for 10 or more responses while engaged in fighting, dodging arrows and swinging swords, it loses authenticity. When a character who hesitates in delivering a message or offering an opinion is then berated to speed things up – with a monologue lasting a page or more, adding far more delay to the message delivery – the absurdity level skyrockets. And each of these examples occurs at least 6 times each in Crusader – a conservative estimate.I trudged through to the end, out of sheer stubbornness, in the hopes it would get better, or that there would be some payoff. Neither happened. The ending was predictable, the characters somehow oblivious to a fairly obvious solution that only occurred to them at the very end. The story had a solid plot – covered in ketchup, as it were, but solid none-the-less, and the series-level plot also progressed, but slower than before, despite the interminable length of this latest entry. And there is some development of the main character, additional backstory that answers long-standing questions. But all that could have been accomplished with so many fewer words.I can’t recommend this book unless you are already hooked on the series (as I was, going into it.) If you are, prepare to be disappointed. Unless you like your plots dragged out, themes repeated incessantly, and bizarre character interactions. In that case you’ll love it.

Robert J. Crane went a little overboard in his prolix tendency in this book. That is, Tending to use large or obscure words which few people understand. I can only guess that this was done to up the average reader level because to be honest, I don't think this would have been an appropriate book to see on middle school shelf.I expect you could enjoy this on its own, but a lot of what is going on behind the scenes really requires you to have read books 1-3 in this series. I was actually expecting to see a few more loose ends tied up with what was all going on in book 3, but I guess it will take a bit longer to see the results of that.Anyway, as with the books before it, Sanctuary is set in a sort of RPG fantasy world, where there are 'classes' such as fighters, rangers, and wizards, along with resurrection and conjure food and water spells. It's an immersive world, with a large cast of characters, recurring villains, plot twists, politics, and gory fighting. You primarily follow the fighter Cyrus Davidon, who began in book 1 as a common low level fighter and battles his way to greatness. The amazing setting and colorful descriptions are what really set this book (and series) apart from other swords and sorcery style books out there.The kindle edition of this book is especially nice with its low price and built in dictionary that let you combat the superfluous use of unusual words. I highly recommend Kindle edition for Crusader, book 4.I only give this book 4 stars because the epic feeling I got with the first three books seems to have worn off. If I could, I think I would give it 3.5 stars, but I am rounding up here. The world changing events and reach I came to expect and enjoy in the first books seems to have been replaced with a bit of drudgery. But this was at least intentional as we read books for the contrast of highs and lows, of seeing how our favorite heroes react in the worst of times. There were very few surprises for me, and I expected almost all of the 'plot twists' long before they occurred. I would rather read books 1-3 again then 1-4 again. But make no mistake it is a good book, weaves a good tale, and helps you learn a lot about the characters you have come to know and love.Be warned, If I had not read books 1-3 I expect I would give this a 3 star rating at best. And books 1-3 appear to be free for now, so read them first and then enjoy this more!

I've given far worse books five stars, and this does definitely deserve the rating.After reading the first three, I found the action vs the Cyrus romantic content just about stayed in balance. They were entertaining page-turners. However, with this book, about 50% of the content is given over to Cyrus' state of mind, romantic encounters and the implications / repercussions thereof. This I did find tedious and disappointing. For me, I would have preferred the content to be reduced by 30%, keeping the action parts and whittling out much of the rest.It was an excellent read nonetheless. On a side-note I would be very surprised if the author hadn't taken his inspiration from the Warcraft game series. The guilds, races, classes, abilities and even some of the battle tactics seemed to be lifted, although he has drawn short of using terms like "Off-tank", "Conjored Food" etc. I will be getting the next in the series.

Love, love, love Crusader, it offers opportunities to learn such a lot about Cyrus and his background. He typically 'dives' in there only to learn that there is a bigger, MUCH bigger issue ahead. Cyrus never backs down and goes on in there to try and solve the problem which he believes in some part he caused anyway. His usual band of warriors follow him through everything although there are some mischievious encounters with females along the way. Heart broken from Vara's rebuff he has lost his ability to know what it is he wants blundering through events in a sombra but still efficient warrior that he is. I laughed frequently at some of the goings on, smiled at others whilst not wanting to stop reading to discover what happens next. Throughout this book you get the sense that something is afoot at the Santuary guild so when a major player takes what seems to be final steps it is and is not a surprise for different reasons. I am looking forward to reading Master if only to learn which of the ladies in his life went to him i he middle of the night. I know where my hopes lie but am not sure it will be the one that I want. Another fantastic book written by Robert J Crane.

The first 3 books in this series were really engaging and hard to put down. The characters were interesting, the plot was interesting and there was lots of action and intrigue.This book however, is a lot slower and focuses more on sex than anything else. There was a real opportunity to develop the conflict between cyrus and terian or cyrus and hoygraf but instead it was repetitive - kill a few undead scourge then have sex in the woods, then same again the next day, and again and again.It became very boring and towards the end i found myself skipping large sections just to finish the book.Hopefully the next installment will be better.

For readers of books written in the same genre, I believe that the majority will enjoy these books.Books 1-2-3, all move along at a steady pace. So no fear of being bogged down with page after page of waffle.The fourth book sadly has quite a few part chapters that I skipped over, without losing any of the plot.Sadly when the ending came it all seemed a bit rushed. There were other places that did not quite gel, but SPOILER ALERT, no reason whatever was given as to why the bridge was not destroyed once all were safely on it, instead of fighting for pretty much its whole length when retreating. Curious.

So disappointed. Liked the first three novels of Sanctuary, but it's a familiar pattern where the author decides to milk the series by plot detours and verbiage. Pages of emotional analysis about Cyrus's love life gets tedious, and happens all the time with the plot becoming static.I've given up the series, better things to do. Bye