The Ambassador's Mission (Traitor Spy Trilogy) [Hardcover]

Product Details

• Hardcover: 528 pages
• Publisher: Orbit
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1841495913
• ISBN-13: 978-1841495910
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.9 x 9.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,260,107 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars super fantasy, May 22, 2010

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Ambassador's Mission (The Traitor Spy Trilogy) (Hardcover)

The Magicians' Guild had always feared that one day during their annual sweeps for rogues that a commoner with untrained power would surface. Their worst trepidations occurred when Sonea the commoner displayed talent. She was quickly brought into the Magicians' Guild, but her ancestry made her a pariah until she has become a Black Magician of Kyralia with one foot tentatively inside the ruling Guild establishment and the other deeply embedded in her heritage.

Her son is a chip off the rebellious block, but more volatile than his mother. Lorkin resents the bias towards him and his family. Thus Lorkin joins the support team of powerful Lord Dannyl who is Guild Ambassador to the enemy Sachaka for two reasons. First he wants to get away from the prejudice shown to commoner mages and second he hopes to influence behavior in a place run by abusive black magicians with slaves. No one in Imardin trust the Sachakans whose belief is that the Black Magicians should rule the world and those of Sachaka should rule the Black Magicians. When Sonea learns Lorkin vanished, she fears for her offspring, but knows if she leaves the city she cannot return as that is Guild law. She promised her concerned friend Cery to investigate a recent slew of homicides as a serial killer using magic as a weapon assassinates the leaders of the Thieves Guild though no one knows why or who, but Sonea has some internal fears about what she will learn.

The latest Black Magician fantasy is a super tale filled with several great twists that make the second tale in the prequel saga (see The Magicians Apprentice) a standout. The story line is fast-paced with two well written prime subplots starring mom and son. This is a terrific magical whodunit where mom the Black Magician amateur sleuth investigates the killings and readers are shown a deep look at the culture of magically dominated Sachaka as seen through the lens of the missing son. The audience will relish this strong entry into the world of Trudi Canavan.

Harriet Klausner

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Extremely disappointing, September 22, 2011

By 

T. L. Mikael "Book Voyager" (Shanghai China) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Ambassador's Mission (Traitor Spy Trilogy) (Paperback)

I'm very sorry to say that Trudy Canavan's books just seem to get worse and worse. I truly enjoyed the Black Magician trilogy, but ever since then every book has been a huge disappointment. The Ambassador's Mission is so utterly boring I struggled to get through it. The plot is not very interesting, it brings you back to the Kyralia world, but this time the experience feels like no more than a faint shadow of what it once was. The characters are flat and vapid and their development poor, but I think worst of all is that the story is so very predicatble! I think I got surprised like once - in the whole book! Well, now I have learnt, once and for all: No more books by Trudy Canavan for me.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid Fantasy with plenty of places to go in the next one, May 23, 2011

By 

BlueFairy (New York, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Ambassador's Mission (The Traitor Spy Trilogy) (Mass Market Paperback)

I read the Black Magician Trilogy a few years back, and really enjoyed it. This is more of the same.

It's solid fantasy action, with an interesting world, complicated politics, sympathetic characters, and not so many characters that you get lost. I don't think a new reader would have any problem getting up to speed here, because enough time has passed since the events of the first books. If you read The Ambassador's Mission, and want to know more about Lorkin's parents, I do highly recommend the Black Magician Trilogy, even though you would know from this book at least some of what happens and which characters survive.

My only hesitation with this book is that many of the characters feel somewhat the same. They aren't really, but there isn't a lot of variation in narrative voice. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, and it hints at more intriguing explorations of gender politics to come.