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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best book in the series yet, May 7, 2005
This review is from: Darkwitch Rising: Book Three of The Troy Game (Troy Game (Tor)) (Hardcover)
Darkwitch Rising was a completely engrossing novel. The plot twists and thickens in way I did not expect, and at the end, I was left with a sense of despair, knowing that I have to wait for the final installment.
As stated before, you have to have read the previous two books in the series before you cannot even begin to appreciate the majesty of this book. If you have not read Hades' Daughter and God's Concubine, you will not have the background to fully understand and appreciate the characters and the plot.
This novel is not a light read. It is extremely dramatic with no humor to lighten the mood, much like the other two in the series. While some people would find this a bad thing, I think it keeps the overall feeling of the series consistant while keeping you "on the edge of your seat" and focused on the story. This entire series has been one that keeps me thinking about the what has happened, what the characters should've done different, and what the heck is going to happen next... even when I am not reading it. To me, this is a mark of a especially talented author to keep a reader's interest as they go about their other daily tasks.
The characters is this series are extremely well-constructed. In most fantasy series, the characters will start out rather 2-dimensional, and as the author continues to write, will evolve into more complex personalities, purely through accident it seems. Not so in the Troy Game. The characters do evolve as the story progresses, but as a reader you can tell it is a purposeful evolution. The characters will occassionally refer back to their previous experiences/lives and what they have learned from them, and how it has shaped them into the people they are at this time. The occassional character who isn't evolving as fast as the others seems dim-witted and stubborn in comparison until you just want to reach in the book and slap some sense into them.
I realize that in this review I have not given an plot summary or set up to the novel. This is purposeful. There are a few great surprises in the novel that should not be ruined for other readers. I urge you to find them for yourself. Enjoy!
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Intricate, May 26, 2005
This review is from: Darkwitch Rising: Book Three of The Troy Game (Troy Game (Tor)) (Hardcover)
If you haven't read Book 1 & 2 of the Troy Game, read them first. This isn't the sort of fantasy trilogy you can just hop onto. In fact, if you read God's Concubine when it first came out it might be a good idea to reread it before jumping into the third volume. Unlike Book 2, which eased into the conflict, Darkwitch Rising leaps into the plot and pursues it in so many different places, with so many different reincarnated characters that it is difficult to keep all the identities clear.
Still, if one keeps on reading there is a great pay off. Douglass' narrative is so intricate that there are surprising twists and turns in almost every chapter. Plot wise, the Troy Game is one of the most intricate fantasy epics you will find. Sara Douglass is impossible to predict and the layers of surprises are amazing (some work better than others -- switching around two characters for example opens up way too many questions). The beginning is slow, but from the moment the character of Catling is introduce, this book finds its way.
Douglas' characterisations are a little more problematic. Often the characters seem to act in a certain way simply to allow a surprising plot development to happen. The reader is therefore more engaged intellectually than emotionally. Reading the book is like watching someone solve a rubix cube, but as satisfying as that is, a little more emotional investment would have made the tale even better.
For example, PLOT WISE, it was interesting to see Noah/Caela/Cornelia fall in love with a character she previously loathed, but EMOTIONALLY, as a reader it is difficult to accept how easily she forgives the atrocities he has commited toward her, women who he whored and raped, and entire civilisations which he caused to be slaughtered. Explaining it away as 'you had a bad childhood' doesn't quite work. One of the best things about Sara Douglass' writing has always been how the ideas of good and evil are very flexible. In her Wayfarer Redemption series the character Wolfstar had killed dozens of children and yet Douglass made us sympathise for him at moments.
However, in that narrative, Wolfstar's actions came back to haunt him. In The Troy Game so far (who knows what will happen in Book 4) many characters commit rape, genocide...etc and then their actions are forgotten or dismissed. In Darkwitch Rising Noah seeks to heal all wounds, and while the wounds of many characters are healed, one is left questioning 'what about all the wounds they have inflicted on characters not central to the Troy Game'? Resultantly, it is sometimes hard to sympathise with the characters. The way that every character in every direction is becoming a god or similar being is also a little grating.
However, overall, this is still a great book. I still feel God's Concubine was a highpoint in the series so far but this is a worthy successor. All the pieces are coming together and this book leaves you breathlessly anticipating the final volume.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
(3.5) Cornelia rising, May 23, 2005
This review is from: Darkwitch Rising: Book Three of The Troy Game (Troy Game (Tor)) (Hardcover)
The setting is Restoration London. Cornelia, Brutus, Coel, Genvissa, Asterion, and assorted friends and enemies are walking the earth yet again, as is a mysterious new character who has the potential to throw a wrench in all of their best-laid plans.
This is Cornelia's story more than anyone else's, as she matures further. Noah, as she is called in this life, is a far cry from the bratty Cornelia of Hades' Daughter, and even the staunchly loyal Caela of Gods' Concubine. Here, Noah begins to question everything she had previously accepted, including the Troy Game and her love for Brutus. At first, she begins to teeter into Mary Sue-ness. She is becoming ever more powerful, and it seems like everybody in the entire world is in love with her. But she really wins my heart around the middle of the book, when she begins to break free of the things everyone expects her to do and choose for herself. She makes a shocking choice-one that could destroy many lives, or redeem them. I am really beginning to like this character-and I'm getting quite sick of Brutus. It almost seemed in Gods' Concubine that he might become a decent man after all, but his issues really come back in Darkwitch Rising. I'm sort of hoping Cornelia/Caela/Noah kicks him to the curb in the next book.
What didn't work for me: How to say this without spoilers? About halfway through the book, Douglass throws a twist into the plot. Two characters turn out to be the reincarnations of different characters than the reader previously believed. This switch didn't work for me. There were a few sentences that foreshadowed it, but overall, I think the two characters acted much more like the people I had assumed them to be.
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