Review: The Sleeping King

Posted: December 3, 2015 by in Books We Hate (1/5 single_star) Meta: Bill Flippin, Cindy Dees, Fantasy

I can’t recall a time that I encountered a fantasy novel I didn’t enjoy on some level. Congratulations, THE SLEEPING KING (Amazon), you got that award.

How can I best describe this book? I know! A poem!

“Oh Sleeping King,
How thy premise intrigued me,
but upon inspection of the thing,
this heart screamed to flee.

There was politics and warfare,
terribly dull, and contrived, and,
for thy characters, I could not care,
these bound pages should be banned.

Thy prose is insipid,
Thy plot leads into despair
Yon love of fantasy is now frigid,
This book, no author could repair.

Its naming conventions, inaccurate,
Allowances for fantasy must be given,
But no quarter for the author, lofty aspirant,
will be found, for the good name of fiction, he has riven.

How I loathe your cover, it is an artful prison
It blandly relates, and as the book progresses
The tropes of your villains, becomes problems arisen,
and the ineptitude of dialogue, upon faith it stresses,

I can't recall a time that I encountered a fantasy novel I didn't enjoy on some level. Congratulations, THE SLEEPING KING you got that award!

Perchance, thine luck is incomplete,
For truth be told, though this review it may diminish,
Although mine eyes read so fleet,
this book, this awful curse, they could not finish.


If that left anything to your imagination, I can sum it up.

Tropey characters. A flat and inconsistent world. Flat antagonists, with a contrived conflict. A boring cover. Bad dialogue. Linear and unfulfilled plot lines.

  • Recommended Age: 13+ (violence and such)
  • Language: Some, yes. Nothing awful.
  • Violence: Yup. There's some. But if it's poorly written does it count?
  • Sex: Referenced. Nothing explicit comes to mind?

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