Customer Reviews

Betrayals (The Blending, Book 4)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Let me give you a little background. When I first bought these books I was probably thirteen or so and remember thinking they were just the keenest thing ever. Looking back, I think my little thirteen-year-old self was either far more patient then I am now, or I just enjoyed the soft-core, romance novel porn passages. Whichever.

Anyway, remembering how much I loved them I decided to go back and read them recently. I promised myself I would read every single one of the damn things. Every. Single. One.

Problem one: This could have been one book. Honestly. One. Heck, I'll be exceedingly kind and say that maybe you'd need two to completely round out the story. There are FIVE. Want to know why? Picture a scene. Character one tells character two that, say, "Blue Monkeys are attacking", except, you know, in a few pages, moralizing endlessly about the place of the blue monkey in society. Character three enters the room and character one and two tell her about the blue monkeys, again, in a few pages. Character three then goes into the garden and tells character four about the blue monkeys. While I admitt no blue monkey's actually appear in this book, every problem or idea brought up by a character is passed around this way. It's insane.

Problem two: The pep-talks. There are a lot of them. They drag. You dread them. You start to wish that someone would loose hope and no one else would give a damn.

Problem three: The sex scenes that my thirteen- year- old-self enjoyed so much are laughably bad. No one has the proper bits, instead they both have "sexes". Which causes quite a bit of confusion over who's doing what to who. The good guy sex is always mind-blowing and fantastic, and the bad-guy sex is kinky and evil, which bring us to...

Problem four: Most of the villains. I admit to having a soft-spot for the challenging blending, villain wise. But everyone else might as well have pasted on a twirly black mustache and kicked some puppies. If you're a member of the aristocracy you range from deeply unpleasant to totally evil. The villians usually show how evil they are through lusting after the heroes and wanting to have that kinky, evil sex with them. After the third or so villian taking this route it becomes ridiculous.

There is good here, the four main characters are interesting for, at least, the duration of the first book. The magic and world-building are good and the cover art is exceedingly pretty. My advice, buy the first one and assume everything works out all right, make up your own ending, just don't try to slog through the whole series.

1) Should have been titled "Transition". The rescue was good but the rest of the book failed to move the rest of the plot along. There were no new discoveries of the characters' powers or relationships.

2) I'm hoping Ms.Green's character dialogue is an attempt at some type of experiment in writing like a victorian novelist. There are no dialects or differences in speech patterns anymore. The supposed farm boy's vocabulary,usage, and mannerisms are identical to the son of nobility (Lorand and Rion). And then to do what? Make writing easier? Alison Meerk suddenly loses his dialect! To prove what? that if you're an "educated" man you speak like a victorian woman? Sorry, I really liked the 1st 3 books but now its starting to get on my nerves...

3) Ms.Green needs to flesh out her laws of magic. Fire is "spectacular", Earth has a broad range of abilities, and Spirit almost as broad when dealing with "entities" and humans but all water and air seem to be able to do is suck things dry (though there was some water magic improvement this round)! Come on get creative! You've done such a great job with the basics, if you worked on the details ...

I have read the first four books in the Blending series, and although there are certain things about them that I dislike, I still seem to be driven to read the next one. I think it's because there are some unanswered questions from the first one. I am reading the last book in the series now, and I hope those questions are answered. I do like Ms. Green's type of magic, though. Her books are definitely different from other types of fantasty. I sometimes get the impression I am reading one of those Victorian romance novels.

After Challenges I wanted there to be something that moved the plot ahead. You did that. But this book doesn't come near Challenges. Partly because after you've got everyone together nothing really happens. Except Tamrissa and Vallant fighting again. Grr! If you're looking for fast paced action then you may find the second half of the book a bit boring. Oh, by the way, are the fireball, spider and air objects the 'signs' in the prophecy? I'd like to read this mysterious document. And get a satisfying ending to these really addictive books!

I enjoyed the previous three volumes a lot, and did this one too. The action is less repetitive than in "Convergence" and "Challenges" (once one or two of the Five had battled the fireball and passed the initial and subsequent tests, did we really have to read the same thing again and again?), and the storyline is enjoyable, but the relationship between the characters is becoming a bit contrived (this Scarlett/Rhett back-and-forth between Vallant and Tamryssa is getting tiresome). And it is overly simplistic to depict ALL nobles as being morally defective. No class of society (or race or gender for that matter) can be made entirely of "bad apples", and yet here there is not a single nice person among the nobility. Talk about sweeping generalization and stereotyping! I do look forward to the fifth volume though, but I hope it will be the last (too much is too much), and that Sharon Green will not forget to tie all the loose ends (who sent the fireball, the comforting "miracles" in the residence, the bird and the spider? Who's really the first Lord who taught them how to Blend? etc...) There are so many unanswered "mysteries" and so many things prophesized (The Four, for example) that have been hinted at in the preface but not mentioned again in all 1,600 or so pages published to date that I wonder how all can be resolved in one single last volume. But I can't wait! So, Avon Books, do hurry and print the last one. Do try to print a better copy though (the one I got of "Betrayals" was missing 31 pages right in the middle of the story), and a greater number of copies (most of Sharon Green's books are out of print, which I find endlessly frustrating).

I've been reading Sharon Green's work for over 13 years now. When I got the first book, Convergence, I was thrilled. It made me yearn for book two, Competitions, which made me want the next one NOW! I patiently waited for book three, Challenges which I found out was held because of the wishes of the publisher. BIG Sigh. I found book four, Betrayals, quite by accident and was thrilled!!!!!!! I read it in one sitting. This one is not quite as interperson action packed as the first ones but you can see that Sharon Green is leading us to the conclusion, book five. Other than being freed, freeing others and finding out more how the nobles are running the show, you really don't get very far with this book. BUT you can see that she is leading us to the final book. While I don't think it is her absolute best book yet, it is a good companion book. I'm hoping that the final book in this series picks the pace back up and wraps up things without looking too rushed. I have enjoyed this series a lot. I haven't enjoyed a series like this since I last read the Stephen Donaldson series, Thomas Covanent. I would recommend this book as it is a good read. Thanks!

Initial story line was as imaginative as Sharon Green usually is, but there is too much stereotyping - the five (six, actually, with Naran) main characters have all the qualities, physical and moral - you can tell which female character is one of the heroines because she is breathtakingly beautiful and has "these incredible violet eyes" or "lovely green eyes", and which man is one of the good guys because he looks like the dashing hero on the cover of a romance novel, and no trial or tribulation in earlier life has spoiled their innate goodness and nobility of character. The style is also contrived: the bad guys are "rigidly inflexible" (can one be rigidly flexible? or supple and inflexible?); they are also fat, ugly, spoiled and cruel. I also agree with one earlier reviewer that the mention of Srebenica in one dedication was tasteless - specially as the "nobles" in the story act exactly like the Serbs in real life. But - all this being said, I still want to know how it all ends, and hope the fifth book will be out soon (if not, I'll probably lose interest and imagine my own ending...). Dear Ms. Green, some of your earlier books were so imaginative and exciting, why did you embark on this endless, meandering tale? Please finish it up soon and give us another Lady Blade, or Terrilian, or Rebel Prince.

Tamrissa, Jovvi, Vallant, Lorand and Rion have lost the competitions which they were about to win. They are seperated and the five find that are drugged and seperated from each other. With the help of Naran, Tamrissa goes off to help free the rest of her Blending members.

Meanwhile the nobility Blending is starting to get out of control. Delin's manical tendency and desire to kill is starting to cause trouble with the advisors whom disapprove of the fact that it is not Adriari's group that is seated on the throne and suspect Delin of killing Ollon Kampar.

On a personal note: The plot is quite intriguing and has been what has keep me interested, however the speech and terminology used seemed a bit out of sync with the era.

The Blending series is the first Sharon Green I've read. Really enjoyed it, though I'd say that book 3 (Challenges) was my favorite. I still like Kambil, even though he's grown more villainous. Does anyone know when Book 5 is supposed to be published? I certainly do hope all the loose ends are tied up (but I know it's already written). Does Avon plan to reprint any other Sharon Green books?

I'll admit that I was a little cautious about the first book of this series, as I found the repeated scenes from each character's viewpoint a little tedious. Yet each scene had information that I as a reader needed to know -- and Ms. Green really hit her stride in the latter part of Book 2, and I *WANT* Book 5. It was bad enough, being left with with a cliffhanger at the end of Book 3. Book 4 nicely resolves the problems of Book 3's cliffhanger, and leaves me looking for Book 5. At the end of Book 4, it says "Look for Book 5, coming soon." Yesterday would have been a nice time to have Book 5 in my hands. This whole series is WORTH a read.