The First Binding (Tales of Tremaine, 1)

There has been a rise in the number of first-person narratives in fantasy fiction recently, with most of them not really working as well as the authors would like. Well, you can chalk this one up to another affair in which we get a first-person perspective on the story and really feel left wanting another point of view on the story.

The story involves storytelling and singing, and a singer on the run and with a past he wants to forget. He runs into a storyteller in a tavern in a mid-size town and finds himself unable to move up and out to better things. The storyteller, who is looking for an adventurous story to add to his repertoire and perhaps gain some notoriety, decides to join up with the singer and help them on their quest to forget the past, although the past does not want to forget.

The storyteller character, whose eyes we really see the story through, gets a little old and tiresome after a while. He is a bit of a know-it-all and grates on the nerves of the reader, especially in a book of this length. Like many first books in a series, it builds up the characters and situation without much happening.