Hi everyone. Welcome back to Bibliophilia Book Reviews. Today I’m reviewing Becoming A Druid by Mike Mollman. This is the first self-published/indie novel that I review in a while. And I apologize for the hiatus. Life got in the way, aka, a baby, and I had precious little time to myself and to reading in a quiet environment. In fact, I still haven’t gotten much of the second back so all those books that are not available as an audiobook are taking me a lot longer to read than usual.
For this review, I was contacted by the author and kindly received an ARC in exchange for an honest review. This book has been out for some time now, and I apologize to the author for taking so long to write my review. Spoiler alert: In this review, I talk about what I liked and what I think could’ve been done better in this book.
Then you must practice your thinking. Perhaps if you’d listened to your old master, you would know not to upset the natural world without cause. That one mistake could have proven deadly.
The druids of Pretanni are protectors of the will of the gods and their job is to help maintain the balance of the natural order of things. And Grahme (pronounced with emphasis on the second syllable), the protagonist of the story, has wanted to be a druid for as long as he can remember. He is an accomplished animorph and highly skilled at making potions and salves, but he has basic skills in animal lore, minimal skills at Barding, no skills at runes and absolutely no ability in weather magic. He is also a willful and headstrong student that has fallen afoul of two druid masters: Master Arthyen and Master Gwalather, who later unite forces to thwart Grahme on his mission of becoming a druid.
But Lord Boswen, one of the members of the Council of Nine, takes Grahme as his student and gives him the quest he needs to become a druid: To search the land for a ghost orchid and bring it back to Men-an-Tol before Samhain. But first, he must seek out his family and say goodbye to his old life. To do this, he must go back home and heal (or attempt to heal) his distant relationship with his eldest brother and then look for his other bother to heal whatever is left of his relationship with him.
One of my favorite books is a historical fiction novel that brings to the fore the clash between paganism and Christianity; between the dying beliefs of the druids and Celtic mythology and the nascent religion of the One God. Today, that novel is classified as Christian Fantasy Fiction (it wasn’t when I first read it). So, naturally, it doesn’t delve too much into druidic lore. But the first thing that stood out to me in Becoming A Druid, the first novel of the Protectors of Pretanni series by Mike Mollman, is the Celtic calendar wheel. Early on in the novel, Lord Boswen explains to Grahme why a day or a year in the Celtic calendar begins in darkness and ends in light. I had to look this up and I learned that, according to druidic lore, the months of the year that fall in darkness, from September to February, constitute the first half of the year and the months of Spring and Summer, constitute the second half of the Druidic calendar. This is why Samhain is so important. It is the beginning of the Celtic year. The same applies for the day, which is why a new day starts at midnight; in darkness. This contrasts significantly with the Christian calendar, which we follow today.
So, the first half of the each day begins in darkness and the first half of the year is when we have the least amount of daylight, also favoring darkness. So, too, does the month start as the moonlight starts to wane, namely the day after the full moon. After the night without the moon goddess, the second half of the month begins. Aine’s glory then steadily waxes, and, just like the year and the day, the month ends in brightness; in this case, the full moon. This is how we make sense of the world.
I liked this. I liked the world-building of this novel; how druidic lore is prominent and important to understand what is going on in the story and when the events of that story are taking place. But I do think that in some passages of the book, this world-building falls short. It is not strong enough to hook us and make us get invested in the fate of the characters. For example, in the first chapter, we meet Master Arthyen and Grahme and we witness how they don’t get along. Showing this is important. After all, it is Master Arthyen (and Master Gwalather) who wants to prevent Grahme from ever becoming a druid. But this doesn’t hit home hard enough. We only see Master Arthyen once in the entire book and that is in the first few pages. We also never see him make his case in front of the council. Master Gwalather, on the other hand, is never introduced. We never see him. So, we don’t spend enough time early on in the novel with Grahme and the teachers who don’t like him and their dynamic to understand just how much they dislike and hate one another. In other words, I don’t think we get to know either master enough to believe that expelling Grahme from the order is something they would do. I also think that if we’d been given some backstory on how the relationship between a Master druid and his student is supposed to work a little bit more, the impact of Grahme’s disastrous relationships with both Master Arthyen and Master Gwalather would have made a greater impact on me as a reader.
The relationship between master and student is also relevant between Lord Boswen and Grahme. Lord Boswen is shrouded in mystery throughout the entire book. This doesn’t help Grahme’s character development. With Lord Boswen, Grahme is no longer that headstrong and willful student. How did this happen? Yes, we see the two of them interact as student and teacher, but two or three scenes is not enough to make us believe that Grahme has undergone such a huge change. Instead, we are told time has passed and we have to assume that that change in Grahme has occurred gradually and off the page.
A lot of things happen off-page. Another example is the festival of Lughnasa where Grahme meets Ysella. And meeting Ysella off-page would’ve been fine if she wasn’t a character that is relevant later in the story, but she is. She is a druid; more specifically, a Plains druid. What does that mean? What is the hierarchy of the druids? What is the difference between a Plains druid and an underground druid like Katel? What kind of druid is Grahme aspiring to be? This is never touched upon. And this is where the world-building falls short. The author does not explain the structure and hierarchy of the druids and their role in that hierarchy. We, as readers, have to build that structure as we read along and, frankly, we don’t get much information to build it with.
What, for example, is the role of the Council of Nine? What is its function? I know that they are protectors of sacred sites, and these are mentioned in the book, but they are not relevant. They would’ve been if Grahme had had to go to each one of these in his search for the ghost orchid, but he doesn’t. I was curious and wanted to know more about all nine Druid Lords. I know this book is about Grahme’s quest and his mission of becoming a druid. But I feel like we barely get to know them, and I would’ve liked to. Side note. The story of Loris being selected as the leader of the druids would be an interesting one, and one that, in my opinion, would help us understand all the other members of the council better and why they don’t like him. I would definitely pick that prequel up.
The ghost orchid is one of the most original and interesting things about this book. A flower so rare that it can only be found growing next to the gravestones of dead elves? How cool is that!? Though tenuous, this flower is the only connection between the druids and the Dark Lord. It is coveted by everyone, even the leader of the Council of Nine. And yet, the world-building and backstory needed to enhance this storyline in the plot is lacking as well. The backstory, for example, between the druids and the Sorim isn’t tapped into as much as I would’ve liked. This is important, in my opinion, to understand characters such as Alswyth, Figol and the Dark Lord. It also helps to understand their role in Grahme’s journey. I didn’t understand, for example, what Figol’s purpose was. I get that he is more prominent in the next installment of the series, but I thought that he was going to be useful here in defeating the Dark Lord because Grahme had no idea how to fight a mind-controlling mage. Figol controls minds and having someone who can fight the villain in his own terrain would’ve made his defeat more believable. In my opinion, this is a great way to introduce the protagonist of the next book in the series too. But this is not the case. Instead, the Dark Lord is defeated with weather magic, a type of druidic magic that we never see Grahme learn but that we are explicitly told that he has no ability to perform at all. Yes, Lord Bowen tells him he will teach it to him, but we never actually see him do it. It is taught off-the-page. And we, as readers, have to assume that that is what happened. Figol’s presence was also an opportunity for Grahme to heal his broken relationship with Figol’s father, one of Grahme’s brothers. Instead, Figol is sent back home 6-7 chapters after he is introduced and he doesn’t show up again. This lack of connection between the druids and the Sorim; between the druids and the Dark Lord felt like the villain of the book was dangling outside of the story, sort of like the noun that is out of place in a sentence with a dangling modifier.
My biggest problem here is that the book has two different storylines—one, Grahme studying to become a druid and completing his quest, and two, the Dark Lord wanting more power—that were loosely connected to one another by the ghost orchid, but this connection is very tenuous. The story itself is not bad, however. I just think that there are some things that could’ve made it better.
I will read the second installment of the series.
