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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not really a novel, just a preamble, March 25, 1999
By A Customer
In one word, wait. If Elliot keeps up then within the next year or so the fourth and final novel in the series will be published, then you should buy this book and read it. But not now. This novel sets the scene for the action in the next book. Where the first two books told an independent story, (The Kings Dragon -- the story about the fall of Gent; and The Prince of Dogs -- the story of its recapture) This novel tells no individual story. It merely adds to the charectorization and history of Crown of Stars saga. This book should not have been released alone. Better to publish a single twelve hundred page book, then to split this story in such a manner.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
It's becoming interesting!, March 4, 2000
Kate Elliott's third volume in the Crown of Stars series is the best installment so far. Ironically, it is also certain to confuse - and disappoint - quite few readers. Elliott is not afraid to shift her attention from one (sub)plot to the next; neither does she balk at peculiar (and quite non-linear) character development. In this third volume, for example, both Alain and Sanglant (two of the main "heroes" of the first volumes) fall from grace, becoming, as a result, much less "heroic" than they were at first presented. More generally, a lot happens in this book, and quite a bit of it is surprising. That alone is a good thing, but, more importantly, it shows that this is a writer who is willing to take some chances at least. Having said this, there is enough to criticise as well. Elliott places, for example, to much emphasis on her rather contrived version of Christianity. For starters, just about every day in the year seems to be the day another saint is remembered, and Elliott hardly ever fails to tell us all about it. And the very thing I just I just applauded above - the way the story shifts and turns - can very easily be overdone, which would simply ruin the series as a whole. All in all though, this series is still developing well. Elliott is a proficient, though not an excellent writer. To place this book in some sort of pecking order: it is better than Robert Jordan's Path of Daggers, but not nearly as accomplished as George Martin's A Clash of Kings.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
True quality of this book will show when series is complete, June 5, 2000
Thinking that this was the last book in a trilogy, I panicked whilst reading the last hundred pages, frantically flipping to the end wondering how the hell Elliott was going to tie it up. Realising there must be at least one more book in this series provoked conflicting emotions in me. Relief that it was not over was certainly one of them, but frustration and irritation were also right up there. I think the major problem with this book is that the Crown of Stars series appears to have been conceived of as a trilogy. I feel this for two reason: Firstly, this volume is substantially longer than the first two, which were of uniform length, and Secondly, the ending of this novel makes the reader feel like Elliot simply had to cut it off due to the burgeoning length of the novel, and go onto a fourth book. The truncated feel of the last couple of chapters somewhat diminishes the novel as a whole. The first two novels ended on wicked cliffhangers but at least I did not feel confused by them or irritated at being left so high and dry. Nevertheless, this novel is as beautifully written as the first two in the series; the sense of countless threads running warp and weft together into a fantastic tapestried revelation is intriguing and skillfully maintained. As usual, Elliot's attention to historical and religious detail is superb. Her character development is curious in this novel: in the first novel, the protagonists were all lost, trying to find themselves; in the second, they all find themselves an identity (Liath and Hanna as Eagles, Alain as the Count's Heir, Sanglant by fixating on Liath, Ivar and Tallia their heresy, Fifth Brother as a leader), in this third installment, each character essentially loses themself. They must each begin to let go of that which they clung to as an anchor, and redefine their very selves. A conventional fantasy third book would be the 'find themselves heroes' bit; but this is exceptional fantasy not conventional. All in all, the faults that are rife in this novel (mainly to do with the abrupt, confusing ending and some plot difficulties, e.g. the inexplicable Quman invasion - Zacharias seems a poor pretext) will probably seem trivial when the whole series can be read as a seamless whole. Hang in there with this series, 'cause it's only going to get better.
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