Tuesday, December 31, 2013

D.S. BROWN - Book Review - Woman Of The Woods By Milton Davis




 

I have been following the evolution of author Milton J. Davis for a number of years now and it pleases me to say that with Woman Of The Woods Davis is climbing to the pinnacle of his considerable storytelling powers.  He is truly the dawning heart of Sword and Soul, building on the powerful legacy created by master Charles Saunders. 

Davis creates a world complete, conjuring images of Africa full of magic and mysticism, courage and adventure, warriors and monsters.  Uhuru is a world apart, but as with other masters of the Sword and Sorcery genre we see our world in what Davis has crafted.  The continent of Uhuru comes alive, we walk the lands of Adamusola.  In his skilled hands the imagery leaps from the page, and we walk the grasslands, feel the breeze, hear the hyenas hackle, and the shumbas roar!  We hear, see, and feel the people of Adamusola live, as well as die.

Sadatina is a woman who is loved beyond measure, but forbidden her very existence.  It is love that allows her to live, the love of a mother.  It is the love of family that allows her to thrive.  It is the love for one other that allows her to realize her considerable gifts, and the strength she alone possesses.  It is the love for her people that makes her a leader among elite warriors, and in the last it is love for all the people of this fabled land that lends her the strength to stand against the cycle of violence, and the evil that drives it.   

I was so taken by Sadatina and her struggle that I lost myself in Davis’s words, lost in his world, realizing in my mind the full scope of the majesty that is Uhuru, the people of Adamusola, the gods that guide humankind, and the seemingly insurmountable evil against which they  must stand.   Woman Of The Woods is Davis at his finest, and Davis at his finest is Sword and Sorcery at its best, which is why it is so very much Sword and Soul.


The Aspiring Critical Thinker,
D.S. Brown