Review: "Stiger's Tigers" by Marc Alan Edelheit

Title:  Stiger's Tigers
Author: Marc Alan Edelheit
Genre:  Fantasy, Military
Publication Date: March 23, 2015
Publisher:  Telemachus Press, LLC
Pages:  315

Rating:  4 out of 5

Amazon Book Blurb: 
  

The empire has endured many centuries but is now threatened by multiple wars and a major rebellion in the South. A nobleman from an infamous family, imperial legionary officer, fighter and a right proper bastard of a man… Captain Ben Stiger finds himself reassigned from a crack legion to the rebellion simmering in the South. Placed in command of a truly terrible company, the 85th Imperial Foot, he is unknowingly sent on a suicide mission to resupply an isolated outpost, the garrison of Vrell. Along the way he must rebuild his new company, gain the respect of the men he leads, survive an assassination attempt, fight bandits, rebels, and an agent of an evil god. His companions on this journey of discovery and adventure are one of the few remaining elven rangers and a paladin on a quest for the High Father. The battle to save the empire and the world begins here in the first book of this exciting new series!

Review:  The world Mr. Edelheit has created for his book series is an interesting blend of high fantasy with a heavy dose of Roman Empire culture.  It's not historical fiction since the empire in the book is not the Roman Empire nor does the story take place in a real geographical location.  No, this book is mostly fantasy while relying heavily on bringing in elements of the Roman Empire's military and politics to give Stiger's Tigers a distinct flavor from other novels of the genre.  Those looking for a hardcore Roman Empire experience will probably be disappointed.  I'm not a historian but I'm fairly sure that the military structure isn't quite true to form.  Again, this will probably only bother the Roman Empire aficionados looking for something more historically accurate.

One of the most interesting attributes of the Roman Empire is its incessant political intrigue and Mr. Edelheit wastes no time in introducing some of his own.  We're shown hints and shadows of imperial power plays taking place behind the scenes.  Stiger, our stereotypical no-nonsense gruff but caring commander, has no patience for political games but finds himself in the middle of them anyway which always makes for an interesting read.

Stiger comes from a noble family that has a reputation for being overly harsh leaders.  This reputation is so well known that whispers and fear accompany Stiger wherever he goes.  And while Stiger is clearly a man relentless in his duty there were times when I found it hard to reconcile his caring nature, his cold pragmatism and his over-boiling anger.  I couldn't quite nail down exactly what I expected of him at any given time.  At times he felt the burden of the men's welfare heavily on his shoulders while at others he was eager to kill men who made him angry.  But then again, I've experienced similar whirlwinds of emotion so perhaps Stiger is more real than I give him credit for.

A lot of the book deals with the struggle of military training and the difficulties it presents for not only the men that are subjected to it but also the commander who is ultimately responsible for their welfare.  I was fascinated by all that that had entailed, from building a proper fortification to arms training.  It kept me engrossed in the book as they struggled with their lot in the military.

Turning a bunch of dirty peasants into a cohesive unit ain't easy.

I think the biggest issue that readers are going to have is feeling that there's a lack of conflict or plot.  A great deal of the book addresses Stiger's burden of being given command of a pathetic group of soldiers and turning them into true legionaries, all of which occurs before they even begin down the road to their true objective.  Given that this is a book about a military company, most readers will probably be looking forward to conflict in the form of battles and will be disappointed when the fights they were looking for are quick and towards the end of the novel.  But to say that the book lacked a plot would be a mistake.  The entire training section of the book is its own plot, it's own conflict.  It's not military in nature.  The conflict that dominates the first half of the book is the looming specter of failure.  Stiger constantly wrestles with the idea of failing to make something out of his sorry lot of soldiers as well as the idea that poor training will lead to more deaths being on his already burdened conscience.  There's significant conflict, it's just not in the form most readers will expect.

When there was violent conflict the book didn't shy away from the violence but it didn't wallow in it either.  While talk of swords scraping past ribs might be too much for children, the average adult will probably be okay with it.

Despite the book listing a publisher, this is a self-published book (See A Note For Self-Publishers below).  I only researched the publisher after finding a considerable number of typos, missing words and punctuation errors:  quotation marks at the end of a paragraph that preceded more dialogue from the same speaker, misuse of semi-colons and—every author's weakness—overusing commas.  The punctuation issues lighten up considerably as the book progresses signifying Mr. Edelheit's continuing improvement as a writer and while these issues bothered me at first, I kept reading because I really enjoyed his writing.

I enjoyed the book immensely.  I loved the Roman Empire's dominance in both politics and warfare as a youth and find myself still admiring the dedication to form and function laid out in Mr. Edelheit's pages.  I'm a picky reader and so I usually have between two to six books that I switch back and forth between.  Should I encounter a lull or particularly uninteresting plot point in one novel I've got plenty of backups to refresh my palate.  I didn't need them for Stiger's Tigers.  It kept me engrossed throughout, which, coming from me, is quite the complement.

Also, it's the first book I've read that uses the proper measurement for wood:  cord.  As the son of a man who was a logger in his youth, I appreciated it.

A Note For Self-Publishers: 

Telemachus Press, LLC has made a non-fan out of me.  It appears that they charge thousands of dollars to give you a cover and format your novel into the correct format for a number of platforms.  Now, a top-notch book cover is about $700 and finding someone to do your ebook formatting for much cheaper is easy.  The formatting is so simple though, I don't see why anyone wouldn't spend an hour on a Saturday morning to do it themselves for free.  None of these options requires handing over your rights which seems to be Telemachus Press's big sales pitch.

But not only do they overcharge in my opinion, they also kinda failed in their delivery.  The font size wasn't kindle standard.  It was incredibly tiny and had me changing font size every time I went to another book or came back.  They also missed an extraneous line return.  And the cover is mostly nice but there's a glaring perspective error that immediately drew my eye.  The crests and plumes on the soldier's helmets are crooked.  They're almost diagonally positioned on the helmets, facing too far the the soldier's right.  Also, as a professional cover creator informed me, using the same font for every line on the cover is one of the first signs of an amateur at work.  For the kind of money Telemachus asks, they should've delivered something of a higher quality.

If you want additional editing services from them—the kind that actually improve a novel—, those cost a lot extra.  If you're self-publishing the two things to spend money on are a quality cover and a thorough line editor.  Don't waste money to have someone do your ereader formatting for you.  You can visit Telemachus Press and view their quaint but functionally useless menu here.