Recently, I came across a book from my favorite music band, and I was like... "they write books too?" Because I love Two Steps From Hell. Naturally, I was curious about it, and decided to purchase and download it. That's because it's an e-book, and it can't be purchased as a physical object. Actually, it's more than just an e-book - as a trailer music band, they've naturally chosen to embed a brand new soundtrack into their book, and that was a good idea. I do not regret reading or purchasing this book at all. If you want to take a look, you can get it from the iBooks store here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/colin- ... d893656333 It's not available elsewhere because of audio playing capabilities.

Colin Frake On Fire Mountain is an e-book written by Nick Phoenix from Two Steps From Hell. It has 400 pages according to iBooks, however when I downloaded it, it had 671 pages. I guess this is device-specific. It was published on June 26 this year by BookBaby.

I like Two Steps From Hell a lot. The music they create is a wonderful work of art. So when I found a book written by them, I was a little surprised and I eagerly felt I had to get a copy and read it. And I can say straight away - I do not regret that decision. This book is a work of its own, and I really, really wished more people would read it. The book has its upsides and downsides, just like every other book, and I'll get to that now.

Assuming you have already read the description (you can read this on the linked iBooks page), I won't go into details on the actual story of the book. So I'll start off with the text itself. Immediately after I sat down and purchased the book, I read about a third of it. The book was a little slow and difficult to get into, but that's true for a lot of books - we're following a lot of people here. So far there had been few ties between the characters, making me feel I was reading several different stories at once, and in a sense I was - there are a lot of people in this book, each with their own story to tell. This is understandable, though, and I've come across many books who have had a much more difficult start than Colin Frake.

But after this slightly slow start, things started to get interesting. The short, seemingly inconsequent stories I had read earlier started making a lot more sense now as they progressed and started to build a storyline. Each of the characters now had goals to accomplish, and I got a feeling that this book had more to it than my first impression would indicate. This feeling grew even more by the time I reached halfway into the book, and when I had one third of the book left I simply couldn't put it down. Eventually, the different storylines started interconnecting for real, and I was completely absorbed and just had to keep going. When I finally reached the end, I almost felt a little sad that I had already finished reading it. Colin Frake is definitely a highlight in my book collection, and I can't wait for the sequel to be released next year.

Another noteworthy aspect of the book is how it contains so many amazing illustrations. Otto Bjornik has done a fantastic job of illustrating the story portrayed by Nick Phoenix through his writing. These illustrations really help you visualize how the story unfolds. Most of these illustrations are completely hand drawn, but there's an interesting surprise tucked away late in the book - in full color. The drawings in this book are definitely far beyond anything I would be able to draw.

And then, there's the music. If you have not heard Thomas Bergersen's and Nick Phoenix' music, and think you've listened to music - then you don't know what music is. Thomas Bergersen and Nick Phoenix both create music of a kind and quality which really stands out from the rest - it should basically not be possible to compare their music with what other artists create - that's just how special and amazing it is. And the way they embedded the music in the book is simply amazing too - if there is anything in this world that really makes you feel you're part of the story you're reading, it's this music. Listening to the music in this book while reading pretty much makes me feel like I'm part of the story. I can truly visualize the scenes, and immerse myself in the fantastic world of Reanne. I simply can't stop praising the music. It's just absolutely wonderful.

The book is primarily about the story, though, with music and images added to help perceive the point the story is trying to deliver. Look at the book like a movie. The story is told through what you see. The music is there to help you enhance the feeling of what goes on in the story. (Think of a movie without music.) Intense scenes, like battle scenes, are accompanied by battle music, and when exploring new lands or going on an adventure you might hear mystical music. Also, I didn't know that Nick Phoenix was a book author before now. He does, after all, work in a music band. Whether or not he wrote the book because he wanted to write a book or because he wrote it to have something to convey music through, I don't know, but it might well be both. I'm not in a position to answer that. I should probably clarify the music a bit too - I wrote in the beginning of my post that Two Steps From Hell is a trailer music production company, but what that actually implies could be perceived differently from person to person. It's sort of hard to describe what it actually sounds like…. it's kind of ethereal… they've written music for quite a few movies, and if you want to hear a sample of what they've made, you could check out this video: http://youtu.be/Lq2ANOkfsIA, or this one: http://youtu.be/8NGtL3HUPUo The instruments they use vary, but commonly there are violins, maybe an Aah-choir or similar, and sometimes drums. Most of what they make is far from rock music, though. I know they've made at least one dubstep track, but that's not the kind of music they're mainly into.

As for the images; they don't provide you the entire visualization of what's going on, but helps you have a good starting point for portraying the story graphically in your mind. Most of the drawings in the book show people, and they're hand drawn by pencil in black and white, with the exception of one image near the end of the book. One thing that has certainly annoyed me with a lot of books previously is when my visualization of the story stops making sense because of some misconception.

I'll give an example of this (as good as I can), though not from this book. Say that the book describes a huge tree, hundreds of meters tall, which someone lives in. This tree is placed on top of a hill. What immediately comes to mind is that there's a small grassy hill, with one single, huge tree at the top. The book might also specify that you need to walk through a forest to get to the tree. I'll still freely imagine that there's a grassy hill with a single, huge tree on it, although the hill is surrounded by a forest. Now say that later in the story, the protagonist is in the tree and suddenly someone steals something or whatever, causing the protagonist to pursue someone down the tree and out onto the hill. Maybe the protagonist has a bow and arrow, and is capable of shooting the thief, although that won't be possible inside the tree. So they reach the ground, and I expect that the thief will be shot. However, it turns out the hill is actually covered by trees too, so the thief escapes because the protagonist cannot see where he went. This might not be the best example, though, and I'm pretty tired now, but I hope you sort of get the point. What images help me do is get a visualization which is right in the first place, at least to an extent, so I don't come across flaws which makes me have to completely regenerate the world inside my head.

To sum this up - the book is a little slow going at the start, as with most other books, but when you get into it, it's absolutely amazing. This must be one of the best books I've ever read, in part due to the storyline itself, but also due to the illustrations and music this book contains.

At last, I'd like to say thanks to Bodhi from another forum for helping me improve my book review to the state it's in above. I posted it at the other forum first, but then thought I might post it here too to bring the review to the attention of more people and hopefully make more people read the book. That would be amazing, because, at least from my view, this book is great. That's about what I have to say for now, thanks for reading through my rather lengthy review!