Customer Reviews

Crown of Shadows (Coldfire Trilogy)

5 star:		(49)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

By the time I had reached this book in the series, I cared so much for the characters that I practically DIED during some scenes. This book is the perfect conclusion, which is kind of a bad thing because now we can't pester the author into writing a companion book. The ending was just so magnificent, I was both sobbing and laughing at the same time. The plot becomes even more complex so make sure you've got your understanding of the first two pretty well. However, it's so complete, encompassing the whole of Erna, executed on such a grand scale...in other words, worthy of Gerald Tarrant himself. Wow but he's changed. And Damien has too. They've become so close and dependant on one another that sometimes I just stopped to marvel. I think the story was very real. Because for not one moment did I doubt Tarrant's evil while I also believed that he was good. And if I'm making htis sound cheesy, don't blame C.S.Friedman. She did an excellent job, so read it, especially if you've already travelled with Damien and the Hunter in the first two. After I read this I was haunted a long time so I guess I should warn you that you won't be able to appreciate any other literary work until you've got it out of your system. I don't think I've ever encountered the likes of Damien, Tarrant and Erna before in all my years crammed with book reading.

It was with those words that a friend of mine introduced me to C.S. Friedman and the Coldfire Trilogy. At the time, I had no idea what she meant - now I do. Introduced in the Trology's first book, Black Sun Rising, are two characters who are pitted against incredible odds. The first is Damien Kilcannon Vryce, a priest of the Church and Knight of the Flame, who in the first book was a righteous and angst-ridden man who shuddered to think that he would ever work in close quarters with such evil. The second character and perhaps the most memorable is the handsome, vain, intelligent and ice-cold Gerald Tarrant (AKA the Hunter or the Prophet), who nine centuries ago killed his wife and children to forge a pact with the Unnamed Evil, who would sustain his life for eternity. But as the Trilogy goes on, you see both of these characters change; Vryce becomes so inured to the Hunter's presence that things he once would have protested are second nature to accept, and he worries if he's damned his soul beyond redemption. Tarrant suffers a similar change, and apparently from his very rare outbursts, it's not totally of his own will - we lucky readers get to watch as he becomes more and more human. It's touching.

In the 3rd book, The Unnamed Evil and the Iezu demons are the focus as Tarrant and Vryce seek a way to destroy their Iezu foe, Calesta. With the help of another Iezu, Karril, who risks everything for friendship, they might just have a ghost of a chance.... But in the meanwhile, another Tarrant is forced to wade through the Hunter's legend in wake of a tragedy that still has him resorting to alchohol and narcotics. A few familiar faces to those who've read the first book of the Trilogy pop up to help him through it, and by the end these characters are as dear to your heart as Vryce and Tarrant.

My favourite part of the entire Trilogy, though, is the way that Vryce and Tarrant click. It's like the Odd Couple - two people you'd never expect to work together so well, and yet they can do amazing things if they stop arguing long enough to. Throughout the Trilogy, the witty exchanges the pair have make you laugh out loud, and their fragile something-like-friendship at times has you reaching for the tissues. I stayed up till 3AM to finish this one, and I suspect you will too.

Crown of Shadows is the third book in the Coldfire trilogy. I found all three books to be enjoyable on a number of levels. Friedman does an excellent job of creating a world of "logical magic". In other words you can see how and why things work based on the rules that Friedman sets forth. I love fantasy novels, but I like for the element of magic to make a certain amount of sense. The best part of this book and the entire series, however, is the relationship between the two principal characters: Damien Vryce and Gerald Tarrant. In the beginning Vryce represents all that is good while Tarrant is the embodiment of evil. As the series unfolds we watch as the two meet somewhere in the middle. I ended up rooting for Tarrant as much as for Vryce and was pleased with the way the author chose to leave things. I've read hundreds of books in the fantasy genre and this series rates in my top ten. --SB

Oh but you utterly cannot skip this most important, conclusive book in the trilogy. It's got wonderful twists, some heart-wrenching scenes, more excitement, some sorrow, and a heck of a lot of surprises. I loved it, truly! Some more great Tarrant-Damien stuff, though there is a new (but known) main character which takes up a few scenes. I was a bit impatient with that character becoz by then I was attached to Damien and Tarrant and just wanted to know what happened to them, who cares about anyone else, but that character is crucial to the ending and stuff, so don't skip his part until you're rereading! :) Anyway, the end of the book is pretty emotional (for the reader) and like someone else said, I was crying AND laughing at the end. Adored it. Adored all of these books actually. So do read it and buy it if you are so lucky as to be able. These books are so easy to reread again and again.

P.S.: Has anyone noticed that really cool and hilarious note among the copyright page, which says normally enough at first: this is a work of fiction. any resemblence to characters living or UNDEAD is coincidence (or blah-blah). It cracked me up! Check it out.

This book is profound. It has a lot of philosophical meanings, foremost is the war between good and evil. In the end, good triumphs. Gerald Tarrant's immortality has its limits, because in a way he has never really left his humanity. His thirst for knowledge strengthened his will to live, and his sense of honor was his undoing--and his triumph. The Coldfire Trilogy is a book to be well-remembered. A sequel would be highly anticipated.

To date I have read all of Friedman's books (all five). Each story demonstrates her ability to create whole worlds which interact with, but do not center around, the characters. I found that this conclusion to the series wrapped up some of the loose ties put forth in the first two books, and yet left others to the reader's imagination. And just when I thought I understood how her world worked after the first two books, the conclusion presents further twists. Friedman is my favorite writer. She has a gift for melding science fiction and fantasy. My only disappointment is that she is not more prolific. I would highly recommend not only this series, but her first two novels In Conquest Born and The Madness Season to anyone.

This final volume of the Coldfire Trilogy closes the series with a bang. The pace never lets up as the priest Damien Vryce and the darkly mysterious Gerald Tarrant race against time and the nearly-all-powerful Iezu Calesta to save the planet Erna from demonic domination.

At times in the previous two books, the drawn-out traveling sections made me pause to wonder if it was worth it. After finishing this one, I felt that it definitely had been. Not only does the tension in this book build upon the plotlines from the last books, but it introduces several new story arcs that pack this book with drama. The Patriarch from book one is back. In the first book, the true depth and complexity of his character was only hinted at. In this volume, he becomes much more of a main character, and he becomes a man with the heavy burden of being given the opportunity to save his own world, and must struggle with the sacrifices that duty entails. The character of Andrys is initially despicable, but his growth and change in the story guide the reader through the journey of a man finding his own redemption.

Once again, our heroes Vryce and Tarrant are forced to travel cross-country in a dark adventure to reach their goal of stopping Calesta. However, there's so much more going on in this book that the travel sections are trimmed down to an acceptable minimum. The interaction between the two, and the ordeals each endures for the other, lends a bittersweet edge to the resolution of the crisis, which I must say was a really great way to end the series. Much more of the nature and origin of the Fae is revealed in this book, and the truth may surprise you.

In short, it's worth slogging through the first two books to get to this one.

Honestly, a considerable portion of this thrid and final book in the Coldfire series didn't really interest me. However, the ending and some other truly memorable scenes make it all worth it. The ending is very touching, and really makes you yearn for another story of the relationship between Damien Vryce and Gerald Tarrant, who now is someone else entirely. The whole Riven Forrest deal was very creative, and near the end where he toasts to the picture of the Hunter and says "Here's to you, Dad", I could hear "Sympathy For The Devil" playing in the back of my mind. I really wish that somehow, some way, this series will be revived and adapted into a film or TV mini-series. Gerald Tarrant is the perfect evil prince...with something else inside him as well. His human essence, smothered yet not dead, comes to the forefront and allows him to make the ultimate sacrifice for his brethern and his God. And through it all we know that the strength and righteousness of one sole man, Damien Vryce, allowed Gerald to reject 900 years of evil and save the world. What a series! What an ending! C.S. Freidman...what a genius!

I'd like to start off by saying that this is more a review of all 3 books, and that I haven't completely finished the third one yet.

Well....wow..that sums up this whole series. Friedman is one of the most talented authors I have ever read, and the way she blended too genres that are so..."un-alike"...it's just fantastic. The overall concept of something like 'the fae' is what initially brought me into the series...I was reading the back of books at my local Bookstop to find a new series, and the introduction of the fae hooked me.

As I dove deeper into the second book and became really in tune with the personalities of the Hunter and Damien Vryce - and of their complex, subtle relationship - I found myself realizing that their characteristics and personal trials really help to expand on our own minds and how we work. I don't know if Friedman intended this to happen as she was writing, but she did.

I would have to say that I see nothing wrong with the series. This is rare for books of any kind, and so I congratulate Friedman on that. If I had to choose my favorite part or aspect out of the entire series, it would be probably be the subtle, slow-but-sure change in Gerald Tarrant as he travels with Damien. The reader can hardly tell it is happening, but the author puts it in with tremendous talent.

I give it 10 fingers up!

This is the final volume in what has become one of my favorite trilogies and I was pleased with it overall. The selling point of the trilogy, for me, is the relationship between Damian Vryce and Gerald Tarrant. That relationship came full circle in this novel. The evolution of their partnership and friendship was facinating to watch and served as the thread that tied the three novels together. There were a few aspects of the novel that seemed a bit forced (why wasn't the surviving member of the Tarrant line ever mentioned in the previous books?) but overall the story kept in line with the other novels nicely. This was by far the fastest read of the three and the protagonists settle right down to business soon after the novel opens. My only real dissappointment was the role of Narilka Lessing. I think so much more could have been done with her character and her relationship to Gerald and Andrys. Overall, however, I felt that this was a more than satisfactory conclusion to an intriguing trilogy.