Customer Reviews

Fifth Quarter (Daw Book Collectors)

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

 

 

Very few second books in a fantasy series manage to live up to the promise of the first book. This one takes the already-interesting world of "Sing the Four Quarters" and vastly improves on it. It's not really a direct sequel in that the main focus of the book is not on the same characters, and even that in itself was a great choice. Huff has a talent for writing deeply flawed characters that are still very interesting and sympathetic, and this book is probably the best example of that. The characters are fascinating, the plot is suspenseful, and the mythology of the world (one of the most interesting aspects of the first book) is greatly expanded on. This book and the third installment, "No Quarter," are definitely two of the best and most original examples of the multi-volume fantasy genre.

A 'noir' fantasy. "Fifth Quarter" reminded me of one of those old German woodcuts of the Grim Reaper stalking through a medieval village, bishops, commoners, and knights falling dead in his path. The grim reaper in this tale is a pathetic old man with a Song that can seal the souls of the dead back inside their decaying bodies.

Tanya Huff sets "Fifth Quarter" in the same world as "Sing the Four Quarters". There are Bards who can Sing to the 'kigh', the elemental spirits of earth, air, fire, and water. The Empire and its armies are major elements in the plot. However, "Fifth Quarter" is not a continuation of the earlier book. It is the story of brother and sister assassins, who end up inhabiting the same body (the sister's) when they attempt to kill a man who has discovered the secret of eternal life. How the brother gets his body back is one of the book's dominant plot lines, along with the hunt for the grim reaper, who has abducted the Emperor's son.

I didn't enjoy "Fifth Quarter" as much as Huff's earlier book. It dwells too much on incest and decaying bodies. However, it is a strong, well-plotted novel with likeable, interesting characters (the only exception is the narcissistic brother-assassin). Huff does her usual good job with the minor characters, too. I grew especially fond of the city guard who is one of the first to encounter the walking dead. She survives the encounter, only to be demoted because no one believes her. Next, she barely escapes death at the hand of the sister-assassin. Finally, she stumbles across the assassin who has sworn to kill the brother-sister team because they deserted the Army..

I've already bought the sequel, "No Quarter" to see what happens to Vree and her new live-in companion. Huff is always worth reading, especially for her carefully developed characters.

This book brought back fond memories of The Firestone...my first encounter with Huff...managed to create a tapestry of words, revealing all the many things going on just beneath the surface. The simplistic yet complexity of each character reminds me of people in 'real life' The petty bickering of sibling rivalry mixed with very serious issues of FAMILY blend well with the other aspects bubbling away within the pages. Even though i felt more kinship with Vree (there is nothing i would not suffer for my brother) Bannon managed to find a special place in the circle of my thoughts...Despite his self-centered rediculous behavior...Shallow, vain, beautiful, mysterious but most of all silly. I read this in one day...now i'm just slightly vexed because that's it...the end! well of course there was the Quartered Sea... and to think...I kept frowning and leaving this book on the store shelf for so long!

This is a an amazing book! The characters are built, and I felt that I really understood what they were feeling. The action was fast-paced, but the plot was still built delicately. I really enjoyed the topic also, two assassins whose target turns their lives upside-down. I found the characters highly amusing with their witty remarks and sometimes stupidity. But, be warned, if you don't want love in your books, this might not be the book for you. I highly recommend it.

Huff continues in the world she started in "Sing the Four Quarters" but with a new set of characters. We meet two Imperial assasins, brother and sister, Bannon and Vree, who are quickly shown to be the most impressive and skillful assassins on the block. The beginning is a bit disconcerting as we traveled through Huff's last book with bards and kigh in a completely different kingdom (Shkoder instead of the Empire), and so it takes a bit of readjustment to get settled into this part of the world and the way it works. But the adjustment is small and only noticeable for the first few chapters.

Vree and Bannon have been trained together since they were 7 and 6 respectively, and have no family save the Imperial Army. They have been brutally trained throughout their lives to act as two blades with one mind. But when they go on a mission to take out Governor Aralt all that changes between one heartbeat and the next as Bannon blinks and finds himself in the dead body of his target, looking up at his own smiling face. Apparently it is possible for your kigh to jump bodies, and that's exactly what Gov. Aralt did to trap Bannon within the Governor's dying body. Vree is able to reach Bannon/Aralt's dying body and take her brother's kigh into herself before the body dies. Now these siblings are closer than they've ever been, and that may just tear them apart. Instead of being two blades and one mind they are now one blade and two minds. An unsteady truce is struck between the man who took over control of Bannon's body (his name is actually Gyhard) and Vree/Bannon to capture a new body for Gyhard to jump to so that Bannon can have his returned. Unfortunately the one Gyhard has his sights set on is the Imperial Prince, the one person above all else those in the Army are sworn to protect. Because Bannon and Vree share so many memories it becomes quite confusing which memory belongs to whom. Vree and Bannon have to deal with the uncomfortable mixture of their kigh and the resulting loss of identity without going mad while formulating a plan to not kill the Prince and still get Bannon's body back. Packing all this in a few hundred pages makes for a very suspenseful and fast-paced read.

Okay, I could have done without quite so much of Bannon's thoughts in this book, though they often served to lighten both mine and Vree's mood. I simply found his thoughts not as interesting and wished that he'd shut up and let other characters have more dialogue in the story. ^_^ It's very interesting to watch Huff take her characters to the brink of insanity and back, and to see how each of their personalities deal with their mutual loss of identity.

The main theme of this book is the issues raised by the coexistence of two individuals (of opposite genders) in one body. I found it to be a fascinating treatment of the subject, contained in the vehicle of a gripping fantasy novel.

Military life was featured heavily, and reminded me of Elizabeth Moon's "The Deed of Paksenarrion" series, while the handling of the supernatural called to mind some of Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar works.

I was impressed by the matter-of-fact handling of bisexuality.

Fifth Quarter has quite a few interesting characters involved in intricate relationships. There's excellent action, horror, romance, and a bit of humor mixed in throughout the story. This book explores taboos but doesn't step delicately; rather, it plainly thrusts the situation in your face. I enjoyed the emotional stress on all the different characters as their self-images changed. Tanya Huff does a lot of character development in her books.

Having found the first of this series and being totally hooked, I was certainly not disappointed. If you enjoy Anne McCaffrey or Mercedes Lackey, you will love this and indeed the whole series. Be careful...not a book easy to put down.

Maybe you will like this book. I didn't. Huff attempted to do something new with gender by pushing a male into a female's body (actually, a brother and sister are sharing her body). Personally, I think it fell rather flat. The hint (well, MORE than a hint) of incestuous desires was mostly gratuitous. I wasn't impressed.

In addition, I didn't care for the objects of their quest: (1) to acquire the body of a prince and push HIS spirit out of his body and (2) to locate a "could-have-been" bard who is raising the dead, like zombies. The whole "walk of the living dead" portions of the novel were too dark for me, but I generally prefer my fantasy to be more idyllic, epic, or lighthearted.

Hey, this book might be for you if the gothic or vampires appeal. If not, I'd pass on this one. Read "Sing the Four Quarters" (book 1) and "The Quartered Sea" (book 4) instead and skip the two middle novels. Both are self-contained enough that books 2 and 3 won't be missed.

When I read the back of this book I thought it would be a typical SciFi/Fantasy book. You know the type, where the characters do the same thing as the characters in the last SciFi book. They all seem the same. But this book totally blew me away! I've never read anything like it and I love the love-hate relationship between Vree and Ghyard. And the next book, No Quarter, is just as good and also a must read.