Rise of Gnurlbane doesn't have the most complicated plotline, but that's sort of the point: Gloria wisely avoids the monumental clash of Good versus Evil that would have devoured the book's originality in the hands of a less capable author, making the book a character study of an everyman protagonist who initially seems to think he's in a Redwall book and has to realize that his setting is to Redwall what A Song of Ice and Fire is to the Lord of the Rings. No matter how jaded you might be on fantasy, this is worth a look. What can possibly lie in the sequel is anyone's guess.

The ending is not only unexpected but an ingenious twist on one of the stock elements of the standard hero narrative that Gloria has up to this point followed. A thoughtful Atlantis-like legend in the historical background takes the story's social setting in a direction that surprises both the reader and Tamytch himself. The setting is as much the author's home base of rural Pennsylvania (rust belt factories, quaint communities that aren't nearly as safe as they seem) as it is the genre's stock world, with more than a touch of Andean South America and all that it entails adding depth. Gloria knows the genre and plays up the expectations that come with it, only to deftly pick them apart piece by piece with an eye to both environmental and social-justice concerns. We think we're in the idyllic, morally black-and-white setting of most lesser forays into the fantasy genre, especially with anthropomorphic rodents as the species of choice for our orphan coming-of-age hero, Tamytch, and his friends. Gloria leads us with ease into a seemingly familiar fictional world that recalls the Redwall series but hides secrets worthy of a good Ken Follett novel. Thanks to a bitingly accurate grasp of social myth-making both in the conventions of the genre and in the real world, Pennsylvania-based first-time author S.D. It's not often that a book in the young-adult fantasy genre comes around with a legitimate claim to originality.

But events occur which send Tamyth down a very different path than he expected as he realizes that nothing is so simple as it once seemed. He proves himself worthy in combat, and his ambitions are realized.

When his cozy farming community is raided on midsummer's night, he gets his chance to do just that, joining the rescue mission to free the captives. Tamyth burns with an intense desire to avenge the deaths of his parents and brother. A fantasy novel which departs the conventions of the genre in an unexpected way.

The Rise of Gnurlbane by S.D. Gloria