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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Superior to Book One: Recommended Fantasy, March 20, 2008
This review is from: In the Earth Abides the Flame (Fire of Heaven) (Mass Market Paperback)
After reading book one, I was on the fence. I decided book one was good enough to buy book two, and I did. I'm glad I did so. Book Two, In the Earth Abides the Flame, is superior to the first book in the trilogy. The characters are well-drawn and evolve, and the world created by Kirkpatrick becomes more fully realized. The book convinced me to go with book three. If you like fantasy, I think you'll like this series. It is pretty typical quest fantasy, but the world is well-conceived and the majority of the characters are well-drawn. It is slow-moving at times, and more character- than story-driven, but the action improved and I went ahead and bought book three, which I have enjoyed thus far after about fifty pages. Recommended.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
In the Earth, abides fewer characters, March 11, 2008
This review is from: In the Earth Abides the Flame (Fire of Heaven) (Mass Market Paperback)
First of all, any book about a fantasy world that contains flamingos can't be all bad. When was the last time you ever read about flamingos in one of these "Young Man Full of Doubts and Secret Past Grows Up To Save The World" stories? OK, the flamingos don't have much to add to the story, but as this book is part travelogue, part, "Gee, I wish I could have written 'Lord of the Rings'" it does make it interesting. After all, LOTR had elephants, and this series has flamingos. That's basically all you need to know. Don't get me wrong, I liked this story. It was better then the first one, at least once the story got moving and the author ditched the tired, predictable plot about the "Once good Government gone corrupt" and moved on with the story. The biggest problem with this series is that there are just too many characters. They just keep cropping up everywhere. You get whole bunches of them, moving together, and you have no idea who is where or who is doing what. The author does a smart thing about half way through and separates this mass of people into two manageable parts and then basically ignores the duller of the two halves for the rest of the story. It makes the book much more interesting. I would like to have seen more about the evil powers in this one. The head bad guy, Sauron, errr, I mean the guy who's almost exactly like Sauron, is rather interesting and actually has a great story to tell. Unfortunately, we don't get to hear it. Just a lot of whining from people who have spent way too much time outdoors marching halfway around the world and yet constantly have enough food in their backpacks which must way at least 500lbs as you know they don't have lightweight sleeping bags and freeze dried food in these types of worlds. All in all, I recommend this and I appreciate greatly whoever made the decision to just release these books one a month here in the U.S. as it was obviously published internationally prior to making a debut here in the States.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Intriguing 2nd book in the trilogy, April 7, 2010
This review is from: In the Earth Abides the Flame (Fire of Heaven) (Mass Market Paperback)
'In the Earth Abides the Flame' is the second book in the 'Fire of Heaven' trilogy by Russell Kirkpatrick. *Spoiler alert* This second book picks up where book I left off, with Leith and his compatriots at Instruere. Not surprisingly, things start to go poorly, very quickly. The all important meeting with the authorities doesn't go as planned; their warnings to the council regarding the impending Bhrudwo invasion of the Faltha Kingdoms appears to falls on deaf ears. As a result, our group of heros eventually get separated into two groups, one remaining in Instruere while Leith and his party head south on a quest for a ancient relic. *End Spoiler* On the cover of this trilogy writer Trudi Canavan states 'Not since Tolkien have I been so awed'...to me, an accurate statement. I've found this trilogy (so far) has provided a set of characters with a quest that is comparable to that of Frodo and friends. The writing is first class; the pacing is simply magnificent. I've found some books tend to rush head-long into completing side stories or spend time developing what appears to be near perfect characters. Not this story...the members of the questing party are varied in scope and abilities and each has is own unique personality quirks. In addition, there are 6 great maps in the front of the book. One is a global map of the overall area, one is of the land surrounding Instruere (where a lot of the first half of the story takes place), one is of Instruere itself, then there are two maps of the Southwestern Kingdoms, one of which features the political divisions and the other the envirnomental partitions of the land. And finally there is a topigraphical map (with elevation scales drawn in) of Kantara and surrounding area. This last map is an extremely important aid in trying to appreciate the circumstances and the geographic difficulties that befall Leith's company in this area of Faltha. There is also a Glossary in the back of the book explaining many of the various persons, places and things that you'll encounter in trip through the Faltha Kingdom. Conclusion: A great story, written with impecable pace and timing. Some reviews found the pace slow, but I'm not one of them. While our heros have some unique individual attributes, they also have some surprising flaws and limitions, providing this epic adventure with a definitive 'human' touch. Simply one of the best large scale adventures I've read in ages. Easily 5 Stars. Ray Nicholson
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