Two semi-finalist reviews in one day! We’re really in the end game now. Following on from our review of Meg Cowley’s Flight of Sorcery and Shadow, we’re here to review Travis M. Riddle’s Pokémon-inspired On Lavender Tides!
To just reiterate some of our boilerplate text… we will be posting these semi finalist reviews in no particular order, and each of them will feature multiple (sometimes opposing) opinions from our judges. Rather than requiring a mandatory review from each judge, however, our readers have the option to opt-out of providing any text should they feel like all of their opinions have been touched on. We figure that this saves you from reading the same stuff a whole bunch of times! Please keep in mind that the nature of the competition means that there will be a fair bit of critique present in these reviews — we have discussed the merits of each book a lot at this stage — but we hope that we have kept this fair and balanced, and it of course only reflects our own opinions.
With all of that out of the way… let’s talk Pokémon. Uh, I mean, Jekua.
The Blurb:
Ever since he was a kid, all Balt Vana wanted was to be a world-renowned Jekua Summoner like his grandmother, battling other Summoners in front of audiences of thousands. But from where he stands now, living up to the Vana name feels impossible.
When his best friend Alani, an initiate at the local Church, is sent on a pilgrimage to find her path in life and the god she will follow, Balt sees the perfect opportunity to launch his career by escorting her across the archipelago and its purple seas. The islands are filled with monsters to imprint and Summoners to battle, with every victory bringing him one step closer to his dream.
It will take more than just his family name to reach the same heights as his grandmother, but Balt won’t stop until he does.
Jared’s Thoughts
This Pokémon-inspired LitRPG is vaguely structured as a road trip. Balt is escorting his friend Alani on an archipelago-touring pilgrimage. It so happens to coincide with a big tournament, and Balt’s keen to prove his chops. We are go.
The setting really is ace. The author has a Martinesque obsession with food that, although occasionally distracting, provides colourful world-building. It also serves as a recurring reminder of the book’s low stakes. Balt will get het up about something, and then eat a sandwich and move on.
The Pokebeasts (and the harnessing thereof) are, of course, the raison d’etre. Like their antecedents, the ‘Jekua’ come in all shapes and sizes, with fixed categories, powers, weaknesses, etc. Alas, there’s no actual ball-flinging, but there’s a mana-based mechanic that essentially does the same thing. You sort of hose your spirit at a Jekua, make a “cast” of it, and then shove that into a hard drive. (This is all a tidy way of avoiding any Jekua-slavery concerns. All Jekuabrawls take place with digital replicas. No actual Jekua were harmed in the making of this fantasy novel.)
Lavender is not only low stakes, it is low action. Despite the book’s girth, there aren’t many Jekuajamborees within, and the final battle (such as it is) is more an emotional milestone than a major achievement. Lavender reads more like an extended prologue: the ecology of the flokes, a gentle introduction to the characters, some hints towards the benefits of epic progression (SPOILER: limited edition Jekua) , and then more on Jekua.
The low-stakes, food-stuffed, info-rich Lavender is, for the most part, quite a pleasant read. It is a curious world, the Jekua are good fun. Exploring it is no chore.
A road trip, however, is made or lost by your companions. And Balt is truly unpleasant, both as a person and a concept. As an individual, he’s the whiny, slightly slovenly “gamer” trope. He is sloppy, rude, and only shows any sort of animation when he’s mansplaining Jekua to his friends. Despite being brand new to Jekuajumping, he’s convinced he’s a champion in the making. Unsurprisingly, he’s also a sore loser and a bit of a dick. Alani, despite being a POV character, is not a Jekua person. She’s there to provide metaplot and reassure Balt that he really is fabulous, despite being kind of a dirtbag.
Balt has good traits, no doubt. He does (generally after a snack) “get over” his snits. And he works hard. Really hard. He may be obsessed with Jekua, but he is obsessed with Jekua. He reads, works, trains and breathes Jekua. Dude isn’t fun to hang out with, but you have to respect the grind. He earns his success.
Except, he doesn’t… And this is where, conceptually, Balt falls apart. Balt starts with unique privilege. Sure, he’s working his way from level 1, and he doesn’t have a lot of money. But it just so happens that his grandmother was the greatest Jekuajumper in the land, and he has exclusive access to her notes. A guide, Balt points out, that is more robust than all the other shared knowledge in the land. He bitches about not affording fancy gear, but he’s also bogarting a unique trove of insight into the land’s most precious resource.
But it goes beyond knowledge, because [FOR REAL SPOILERS] it turns out that Balt has special Jekua powers! After getting his ass kicked a few times, Balt stumbles on his latent mutant ability to mind-meld with his Jekua, essentially allowing him to play without lag. This is a ridiculous advantage. Having a magical advantage — an honest to God magic bloodline thing — removes what little respect Balt has earned. His grind got him nowhere, but, hey, he can fall back on being magic. He’s a sore loser and, hey, a cheater. And all his hard work was for naught, because ultimately, the lesson is that he’s Chosen anyway. [OK THEY’RE OVER NOW]
Rationally, I probably shouldn’t like this book as much as I did. It is a prolonged set-up for … something, it is expositional as hell, and the main character is a bag of dicks. But On Lavender Tides has that undefinable mojo that makes a book really entertaining. Despite all of the above, it is a proper page-turner, set in a world that invites — and rewards — exploration.
Calvin’s Thoughts
I think Jared has covered most of the informational aspects of what I’d say in a review. This novel is very much inspired by Pokémon, while making a couple small but significant changes to the formula (Jekua are essentially simulacra, and so the ethical issues of imprisoning living, sentient beings in balls and storing them electronically magically (!) goes away). Like many of Riddle’s other novels, this one has a very slice-of-life feel to it. There is plot, but the stakes, at least in this first novel, are very personal.
As Jared points out, Balt can be an annoying character at times. However, I didn’t mind Balt as an annoying character. He very much reminds me of real life people that I know. They may not realize exactly how naive and inexperienced they are, but they do have passion and a certain amount of heart — even if they can also come off as incredibly arrogant and self-serving at times. Alani is certainly my favorite viewpoint character, even if she isn’t doesn’t have any Jekua, and I think that having her as a sort of counter to Balt’s viewpoints was helpful.
If you enjoy progression fantasy, love Pokémon, and enjoy a slice-of-life feel to your fantasy, I think there’s a lot to link here. In fact, this is in my personal top two among our semi-finalists. There’s just something really fun and enjoyable about being along for the road trip in this novel.
Adam’s Thoughts
I agree with Calvin (this may be a somewhat repetitive statement depending on when these reviews go out!) When I say that the plot of this book has a lot of plot similarities to Pokémon, I specifically mean the Pokémon TV series – I remember Ash being somewhat of a whiny jerk too. You’ve got a richer, douchier rival who always seems to be two steps ahead, friendly Jekua battles with other ‘trainers’, a jaunt through a cave.
I didn’t feel like this book was spending a disproportionate time trying to set anything up – I think the slice of life elements are part of the point. The gentle exploration and effective food porn, the building camaraderie (which could be a little better with a slight attitude shift from Balt) evokes some of the most fun episodes of the TV series this book emulates so well.
This book was a gentle breeze through a cool setting, and it was certainly one of my favourites of our batch of books.
Hiu’s Thoughts
I don’t have a lot to say here that the others haven’t already touched on! And honestly my thoughts lie some place between Jared and the Adam/Calvin hivemind (I kid, I kid).
You can really tell when reading Lavender that Riddle has spent a lot of time practicing the writing of those “down time” moments. The chill vibe of this book allows you to relax into the story, although to what extent will depend on what kind of reader you are. Personally, while I enjoyed the slice-of-life aspects of Lavender, I did find that the lack of conflict (or other distractions) meant I could really, really fixate on how much Balt annoyed me at times. So… swings and roundabouts?
In fairness, that annoyance sort of faded after the first two thirds. The setting makes this a fun read, if a bit derivative (obviously), and it’s a series that I might continue!
Additionally, I thought the whole mind-meld playing-without-lag thing was a lot of fun. Makes the battle scenes a lot more active when you can see through the eyes of the fighter! Whoever said chosen one narratives had to be a bad thing? (I will be so upset if this actually is a Chosen One situation tho.)
Devin’s Thoughts
I went into this book really really unsure what I was going to get. I’d never read a LitRPG or progression fantasy before, nor had I read one of the author’s earlier slice of life works, but having always been a big gamer I hoped that would help. It… kinda did? At least every time Balt talked about checking his mana and having his mana slowly refilling, I imagined the mana globe from Diablo 2 — a handy visual but not so good for taking this book seriously. Thankfully, I soon settled into it.
Never having played or watched Pokémon/Digimon/Other-kinds-of-mon I had enough knowledge through osmosis to know what was going on, but not enough that it tweaked any nostalgia nerves, which pretty much left this book to stand on its own for me. And it does just that, in what seems like a relatively unique way, by combining a gaming-style fantasy with slice of life vibes. On Lavender Tides is a very chill book. It is never stressful to read, rather it saunters through its world pointing out things of interest like a slightly smug tour guide. Unfortunately, the tour too often diverts for no reason other than to explain some new aspect of the summoning system like high-powered Jenus and hybrids, and to take part in that most irritating of gaming mechanics — the random encounter battle. Despite this, I was happy to keep reading, vibing along vibily with this colourful world and its neat animals, and I think this could have been a great read for me if the characters and I had clicked. Sadly, we didn’t, to the point where there were times I liked the awful cousin best because at least he had range.
As has been amply discussed above, Balt is annoying. I can roll with annoying if they have a goal I can get behind, but I think that’s where the characters fall down for me — their motivations are paper thin. Alani is doing a thing because her church told her to, but she’s not that keen on the church (she’s just with them because she needed to get away), and Balt is going with her because small town is boring and he wants nebulously to be a great summoner like his g-ma. The stakes are Low. Capital L Low. And the motivations don’t lend that any oomph because there are none. The combination of this lack of momentum or purpose makes the windy path of random encounters and training scenes and meeting-random-people-for-no reason-other-than-explanation-of-summoning harder to roll with.
So in a way for me this book was the opposite of one of our other semi-finalists in that I liked the first part better and then it slowly fell apart, the most climactic thing that happened being that our characters fell out of a boat and everyone was fine. I don’t like being too stressed in books, but I have now discovered I don’t like zero stress either where everything goes well and there’s no consequences for anything. Perhaps it’s a quirk of slice of life or a quirk of gaming mechanics fused into books, or perhaps it’s just On Lavender Tides, but I was left with so little idea of where, ultimately, this series is going, that it could be a three book series or a 300 book series with equal ease. 300 might stretch my interest, but for now I am keen to read the next book and see where all this goes.
Conclusions
It would seem, then, that Lavender Tides is another book in serious contention for our finalist spot. Taking an average of all readers, this book finished with a final score of…
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