“Seeker,” by William Nicholson, was a stew of fantasy. In it, three outsiders are brought together through a common goal and together set out on a quest.

Yet this book could have used some spice. While it holds many common elements of a fantasy-genre book, it has nothing that sets it apart from its peers.

The first part of the book focuses on a teenage boy named Seeker of Truth. Seeker is the son of the locally renowned schoolteacher, and Seeker feels the pressure from his father to follow in his footsteps. Yet Seeker wants to pursue the path of his bother. His brother is in a society of fighters called the Noble Warriors. They are monklike fighters who are said to guard the god Lost Child in their island home. When Seeker’s brother is “kicked out” of the society, Seeker sets it upon himself to find out why. The only way he sees to do that is to join the society.

Then Nicholson switches to the character Morning Star, who lives in the country with her father. When she was a young child, her mother left her to go and join the Noble Warriors. Morning Star feels she can find her mother by journeying to the island and joining the Noble Warriors.

Wildman is a river pirate who witnesses the Noble Warriors’ strength when he attacks a port village. He longs to have their inner peace and strong skills. All three meet up on the Noble Warriors’ islands on the day that they can join its ranks. After a few events, they realize they need to find out who is threatening the island by travels abroad. Thus they start a quest.

Nicholson has great diction and is able to convey the feelings of his characters through his words. The scene where Seeker faces another one of his father’s tests is wonderful. He breaks under the pressure and does his best to fail the test. Nicholson is able to make this action sound not only reasonable but also the best choice for Seeker.

Nicholson’s writing style was interesting, but the book has a very slow start. The Nicholson gives the background history of all three of his main characters so that the characters don’t even meet until halfway through the book. Most of the background is unimportant and does little to develop the story or the characters. The reader does find out the reason for the characters’ need to be a Noble Warrior, yet it would have flowed better if the background had been kept shorter.

Nicholson changes perspectives from character to character, which was sometimes confusing. As a reader, it would take a few sentences to get back into the story. Yet not only did the story switch between main characters but also minor characters. The minor characters are often participants in the plot against the Noble Warriors so the reader knew more about what was going on the characters. This is often infuriating and boring.

Even with all the background of the characters, they seem flat. The reader never witnesses the relationship that Seeker has with his brother. That relationship is important because it is the driving force behind most of Seeker’s actions. Wildman is greedy and selfish in his motives and doesn’t connect to the other two until later in the book. Overall, the characters’ motives for being Noble Warriors lack feeling.

While the author’s writing style expresses feeling, his plot was slow and his characters lacking.