"The mysterious world of Kelewan is encircled by magic, mystery and murder. Here at the heart of the Tsurani empire, Mare, Ruling Lady of the Acoma, leads her people through terror and peril on a truly epic scale. She must contend wth powerful rival houses, strike deals with sinister rebel warriors, and forge a treaty with the enigmatic Cho-ja - a race of alien insectoids. But in order to restore the honour of her house, Mare must marry the son of a deadly enemy - and carry the struggle of her people into the heart of his stronghold..."

 

 

A slow steady read. If anyone has read Raymond Feist's books before, you would know that his books are reasonably fast paced and with the right amount of detail. This book is pretty much the opposite. That may be because of Janny Wurts... But personally I don't mind! It was a little slow and there was too much information or too much meaningless information but it was still enjoyable to read. I like the fact that the main character - Mara - a very young woman is thrown into a chaos! She is the daughter of a Lord and has an elder brother, therefore all the teachings of how to be a Ruling Leader were taught to her brother and not her. So when she is unexpectedly the Ruling Lady of Acoma at the age of 16, I think t's fair to say that she had no idea what she was doing or what to do!

 

But she learnt very quickly, and acts quite smart. She kind of twists people's thoughts, and is able to manipulate people into doing what she wants when needed. Very clever. What's more, she thinks outside the box, while staying with in honour and the rules (The Tsurani value honour nearly more than anything else). She achieve's so much in such a small amount of time and gains honour from many other houses, and gaining the respect of very important people. I've often read that Raymond Feist.. Exploits women in his books... But this.. This is great. Mara is character worth admiring. Whether or not Janny Wurts input in the novel series has anything to do with it, I'm not sure. But they have done a great job with creating a remarkable character.

 

It's a good story and one that is continued through another two books. I look forward to reading the rest of the series! 

 

If you've read any of Raymond's series (preferably the Riftwar Saga) than I definitely recommend this book. 

 

And if you haven't read any of Raymond Feist's books than I highly suggest that you start with the Riftwar Saga! They are beyond amazing! 

THE RIFTWAR SAGA:

Magician 

Silverthorn

A Darkness at Sethanon

 

 

 

  

This review does not contain spoiler tags.

 

This book sprung a nasty surprise on me before I even reached the first page. I didn't know Janny Wurts (of War of Light and Shadow infamy) was a co-author on this series. It was enough to get me to hesitate reading it. Yet eventually I relented. It was a co-authorship after all, so maybe the thing balances out to the positive side.

 

How wrong I was.

 

The book covers the story of Mara, who finds herself suddenly thrust into ruling her noble house as her father and brother are betrayed. So far so good, but then the problems begin.

 

First is the prose. Now this, I'll admit, is a personal thing. I don't care for overwrought descriptions of things that do not warrant it and this story is a prime example of that. Descriptions of food and clothing are everywhere, even when there is no specific point to mentioning those. The only good thing about them is that they come in blurbs, which allowed me to easily skim over them. Overall, though it's readable. I wouldn't have managed to finish the book otherwise.

 

The plot is worse. The entire book is a string of distinct set pieces where a single problem is presented and then resolved. For a story that is supposed to be about intrigue this is rather conveniently compartmentalized. And that adverb I just mentioned there is basically my summary of the entire plot.

 

It's all so convenient.

 

Mara starts out with her House forces diminished from a few thousand to around fifty. This is a huge problem, but then news arrives that their herds were raided by gray warriors, which are soldiers who became houseless for one reason or another. Of course she recruits these and thus immediate problem solved.

 

Next up is the lost Spymaster from another fallen house, who hid among these gray warriors. It just so happens he still has a huge information network available and he only needs a year to recover it.

 

Yet just before he leaves he tells of a new hive queen who can be bargained with so that Mara gains a bunch of man-sized insect warriors for herself. I don't even recall what they were called, as after their recruitment they aren't mentioned again save for a few throw away lines that they're still there (I suppose these return in the next books).

 

Then there is the part where a dove lands nearby, plucks out its own feathers, runs through a batch of spices and then cooks itself into a nearby bonfire before flying into Mara's mouth....

 

Okay, that didn't happen. But I was half expecting it by now.

 

My point is; the book tries real hard to make Mara appear as a shrewd player of the intrigue while in fact, all she does is waiting for either aid to fall into her lap or for her enemies to hoist themselves on their own petard. And yes, the petards are dangling in very convenient spots as you might expect.

 

The real kicker is the final part of the novel where she faces off against the main bad guy. Apart from the fact that she walks right into his hands for no reason beyond 'honor demands it' (you have a blood feud with these people, I'm pretty certain that gives you leeway in refusing their invitations to get murdered) the resolution that determines her fate hinges on who's telling the truth after a violent altercation. With two witnesses with contradicting stories things don't look too good, but lo and behold. There just so happen to be two mages present (only mentioned once before in the entire book) and they just happen to have a spell that allows one to replay the past in crystal clear HD for everyone.

 

How convenient.

 

Final verdict:

Don't read unless you don't care about plot at all. Needless to say, I won't be bothering with the next one in this series.

This book was intelligently written and mostly revolved around politics and honor. I was proud of how well I followed The Game of the Council. I am not the strongest at following politics, but I found that I understood the implications of various actions and events in this story.

I was deeply disappointed in the minimal amount of magic in this book. Magic is one of the main reasons I love fantasy so much. The setting was somewhat similar to the orient, and the environment was manly a dusty desert. This was neither a negative nor a positive for me.

Mara is an extraordinarily brilliant young woman who's father and older brother just died leaving her the ruler of her lands. She never formally received any political training from her father because she was not the heir, so when she is thrust into this role, she has to learn as she goes. She also pushes tradition to it's edges so that her people can survive.

I did struggle with all of the names. It is typical for fantasies to have unique names, but I didn't like any of the names in this book. These weren't just the names of people and places either. It was of clothing, food, plants, and animals. It was just a little too much in my opinion.

There are some other great characters in this story as well. Nacoya, Keyoke, and Papewaio (my favorite) just to name a few. These were the main advisers for Mara and they each stood out to me for their differing personalities. I admired how the authors could manage that with all of the other complexities in this book.

What makes this book different from all others?
I think Mara's strength of mind and spirit was definitely unique. I've read about quite a few strong women, but Mara's situation was much more difficult. The whole culture of honor in this book was very unique. I found myself very interested in understanding its rules and reasoning. For example, for the people in this book, suicide by blade is considered an honorable death and hanging is considered to be a slave's death or very dishonorable.

I will continue this series. Mara is so cunning I can't wait to see what she does next. I hope that magic plays a larger role in the future books though, and I hope that Mara can open herself to find love.

(I got this ebook through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

I usually like stories revolving around Arthurian legends, and there were good elements in this book, but I had a hard time getting into this one. I think it was a combination of weird happening and incoherences regarding the main character, with some editing problems in the middle. (NB: I'm not sure if the copy I got was an ARC or the finished product, considering when I got it and the officiel publishing date. If it wasn't an ARC, then there are definitely quite a few time shifts to get rid of—the narrative is mostly in the past tense, so whenever present tense pops up, it's jarring. It also seemed to me that the story was first written in 3rd person, then turned to 1st person, and that a couple of sentences from the previous version remained.)

The main idea, that of a twin sister deciding to fight Fate and help King Arthuer, was in itself interesting—especially considering her reputation as a "witch", because twins are considered as bad omens in such a world, and she indeed displays a few features reminiscent of druidism rather than the "new" Christian religion. Besides, I like my girl characters strong and willing to live their lives on their own terms. Unfortunately, I'm not sure this is what really happened here.

I found several things to be too incoherent to my liking. The historical mish-mash, for starters. Arthurian literature being what it is, of course I don't expect exact history, but I have a hard time seeing "Druidism vs. Christian beliefs" and "knights in shiny armour" put in the same time period. Most of the Arthurian retellings I read and liked settled on one or the other (Chrétien de Troyes's French stories, for instance, place Arthurian chivalry against a backdrop of 13th century Middle Ages and Christian times; while other books place Arthur as a chief in older times, with people and customs also fitting such times). It's probably a silly argument on my part, and I'll file it as something being really specific to me here.

What I couldn't wrap my mind around, though, was how Deirdre was portrayed. On the one hand, we have a fiery girl who's learnt to fight with swords and bows, can ride like men do, doesn't hesitate to wear breeches, wants to lead her own fights... and this is all very well. On the other hand, though, she regularly displays childsh attitudes and naive behaviours that clash with that image that I felt the author wanted to convey, and made her character inconsistent. For instance, the first time she's at court, she falls way too easily for "the knight". All right, she's "only" 14, but in such a time of turmoil, and in such societies, this just wasn't the equivalent of 14 in our world: girls would likely have been more savvy in many things at that age. I was surprised that nobody actually prepared Deirdre to life at court, except for a few pieces of advice from Nia (who basically had to get out of her way to apologise for her younger sister's blunders... every day or so). I also couldn't help but question some decisions Deirdre made, like accepting an invitation when she knew it would've reflected wrongly on her.

Now, it wasn't a bad story. It still kept me interested enough to finish it, and I liked some of the other characters, like Dewey and Sioned, who each have their own story, their own views on the world, and try to do what they can to better their situations. But I'll still leave it in my "just OK" rather than in the "I liked it" section.

 

Uncorrected Arc provided by Netgalley

 

DNF at 40%

 

This seems to be turning into a habit. But here it is, another netgalley book that I just couldn't convince myself to finish.

As it is, the beginning turned out to be the "best" part of this story. We are given some vague glimpses into middle age (Arthurian time frame) life. Costumes, ideas, prejudices... like twins being seen as a bad omen. And normally drowned.
Let's say the word "witch" was thrown around a little too casually.

 

The twins are Deirdre (our main character) and Rhys. Now Deirdre has a "curse" attached to her name.

Apparently she will be a mother of many... but since she starts out as a tomboy, someone more interested in fighting against her twin, and envying his luck in being born a man, let's say that predicament scares her to death.

 

The story starts on the eve of the twins' birthday. They will be turning fourteen.

 

As it turns out, it will be decided that Deirdre will accompany her older sister to Court where she will be acquainted with the ways of Court as befits someone of the nobility. Even those of the smaller nobility, as is Deirdre's case.

There, in Court, and through Deirdre's eyes, we will be shown the customary plot of Christianity against the old ways (obsessed crazy monks... and all of that).
Nothing new in this.