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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I was surprised to find such lukewarm reviews here,
By
This review is from: Across the Face of the World (Fire of Heaven Trilogy) (Mass Market Paperback)
I bought this book at Borders without looking at any reviews here first. I'm glad I did. The reviews here talk about slow pacing and not a lot of character growth. I can only attest to the second one.I hope that the lack of growth is because the world is being set up. I can see through the foreshadowing that Leith will be doing the growing, as is typical of most fantasy lit. However, I think there is room for other characters to grow as well: Stella towards or away from Leith, Farr as he continues to discover himself. Thus far, we've really been seeing the opening moves of the grand chess match that is coming. There is a endgame here, but at the beginning we have to get a few across the board first. I know it's tough, once you get through the 671st page of the **first** book of the trilogy, to even contemplate looking at the interview provided at the end. But doing so provides a good deal of Kirkpatrick's thinking and ideas about storytelling. He talks about his reasons for his deliberate pacing. I guess I happen to be a fan of Romantic Literature; I tend not to mind Dickens spending pages describing a character, or Cooper taking a long wordy paragraph to describe the copse of trees, or to read a sentence with about five too many commas or semi-colons in it, as this one has. One other reviewer said that this book could have been a 300 pager. Yes absolutely it could have, but that would have, in my opinion, left it squarely near the bottom of the derivative fantasy stories, most of the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms stuff. And don't get me wrong, I LOVE Dragonlance and the Realms, but only because they are braincandy and require little or no work. I can just be swept along. This novel requires some effort on your part. SPOILER I enjoyed the fact that Kirkpatrick was not afraid to kill off a character that I thought was going to be a series long romantic entanglement for Leith and Stella. It speaks to Kirkpatrick's storytelling that he is unafraid to let the story go where it needs to. In the end, Kirkpatrick is building a world while telling a story. At the beginning of Chris Moeller's Iron Empires Volume 1: Faith Conquers (Iron Empires), the introduction by Mike Carey says, "Beware the Map!!!" He goes on to explain that, when you see a map, "the writer is trying to pull off the hardest trick of all--not just tell a story, but to create a world to make you believe in, and care about, the whole package" I found, with effort on my part, Kirkpatrick was able to make me believe in and, more importantly, care about his story. Hope this helps you decide.
26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Slow pace, too much detail,
This review is from: Across the Face of the World (Fire of Heaven Trilogy) (Mass Market Paperback)
Across the Face of the World is a novel filled with lush scenery, the clash of climate and geography, and the characters who must brave the elements. Kirkpatrick, a geographer by trade, has brought that skill to bear full force in Across the Face of the World. The setting is rich and detailed. Kirkpatrick is well versed in the nuances and effect geography has on a people and this comes out in detail in novel, the first in a trilogy.I can only put some force behind a recommendation. The novel is a long one, so it is daunting to slower readers, and lacks enough action to keep fast readers riveted. It was rather easy to put down Across the Face of the World and turn to doing other things for me, and I even found myself skipping descriptions of some of the setting towards the end of the novel. There is simply too much of it, and not enough character. Kirkpatrick has built a world but has failed to people it with characters the reader can identify with, save perhaps Leith to a small extent. I would say that for the most part, this is one novel you can avoid and not really feel the loss too keenly. [...]
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Decent fantasy debut,
By
This review is from: Across the Face of the World (Fire of Heaven Trilogy) (Mass Market Paperback)
I give this book 3.5 stars. This book is your typical fantasy, in that a small group of ordinary people from a remote/rural village, called Loulea, have suddenly realized that all the tales and stories they've grown up listening to is real, and that they have been thrust into an adventure straight out of one of these mythological stories. Of course, also familiar to fantasy is usually a prophecy foretelling the forces of good will defeat the evil threatening the land, in this case, called The Right Hand. There is also one big evil villain, the anathema to the forces of good and righteous. So, the basic idea of good vs. evil isn't that original and Kirkpatrick is just following in the steps that other well-known fantasy authors have gone before him (JRR Tolkien, Terry Brooks, the late Robert Jordan, etc). This isn't necessarily a bad thing, I like the adventure-quest storyline and clear drawn lines of the good guys vs. the bad guys of many fantasy trilogies.The villain is a man that is cursed with immortality for rebellion, called The Undying Man and Destroyer. He was one of the First Men (of which the people of Faltha are descended from) called by the Most High (e.g., God) to a fabled jeweled city that was like a paradise, called the Dona Mihst. In this city the First Men had no worries, everyone was living the good life in the city, regularly conversing with their creator and master and being in his good graces. But one day, the man called the Destroyer wanted more, and drank from the forbidden fountain of life in the city square that was not to be touched. The Destroyer and his followers rebelled against the Most High, for they wanted the knowledge the fountain would grant them, and this causes the city to be destroyed and the First Men to be scattered throughout the land and cutting off their link to the Most High. Well, 2,000 years pass from the destruction of the ancient city to the present day and the Destroyer is still festering and angry, and plans to bring the Most High to his knees and cause strife by preparing to invade the kingdoms of Faltha a second time, and holds a grievance against the Most High who cursed him with immortality 2,000 years previously. Everyone in Faltha have forgotten their origins and believe the First Men and the Destroyer are only myths, not knowing that the Destroyer is biding his time, after all, he has eternity to enact his revenge. One of the strong points of this book is the vivid and detailed descriptions of the fictional world of Faltha. The author describes the background scenery so well that it transplanted me right with the characters into this fantasy world. Unfortunately, the author's characters aren't that complex and fully-fleshed out, and I found this lack of depth in the characters hindered my enjoyment. I like to read about life-like characters and getting to know them in detail, and that just isn't the case in this book. Also, the plot wasn't that exciting, it was just the group (called the Company) going after the bad guys who have captive the parents of one of the member's of the group. There is a reason for the capture and the subsequent rescue attempt, but there wasn't any tension or suspense for the group along the way. It would have been more interesting to see them encountering more deadly threats than those from the natural environment. Aside from braving the elements, the only fears and worries are whether they can reach the bad guys in time to get word out of a disaster coming to all of Faltha from a menace thought to be a legend. So the suspense, action, and tension are few and there aren't any *gasp* moments where you're biting your nails in anticipation of "What will they do next?". You know what they encounter next, another snow-storm or another hike through an icy landscape with biting, chilly winds. However, since this is the first of a trilogy, the pace may pick up with the plot and characters becoming more complex and engaging in the later 2 books. Despite the slow pace of the book, the world was interesting enough to keep me reading and I will probably read the 2nd book. Not a bad first book for this new author.
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