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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting, gripping read., September 14, 2007
This review is from: Forged By Fire: Book Three of the Dragon Temple Saga (Paperback)
I was really impressed, and on some level deeply disturbed by these books. Definitely not for the faint of heart. Still, an great storyline woven in a very interesting world, that kept me at least confused until the end, and wanting more even though all the plots were tied up. Also, the end is like the rest of the series, rather brutal and somewhat expected, but not nearly as hopeful or idealistic as other fantasy.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Breathtaking Finale, April 18, 2007
This review is from: Forged By Fire: Book Three of the Dragon Temple Saga (Paperback)
A breathtaking ending for this gripping tale of revolution and the feminist revolutionary,Zarq, who forged it.
In this final installment, Zarq has little time to savour her victory in the Arena in winning the ownership of her own Clutch at the end of Book 2. She and her few supporters are immediately attacked by Temple Auditors and again, she must hide, renounce her claim and also again, she forges relationships amongst the brutalised rishi she shelters with.
Still struggling with her dragon venom addiction, she is captured and then escapes with a pair of winged female dragons. Arriving deep in the jungle she finally learns the secret of breeding male dragons, the secret that will ultimately lead to breaking the power of the Temple and spark the revolution.
Janine Cross brilliantly weaves the realism of political intrigue and conflicting self-interests, while creatively overturning traditional magical fantasy narrative, into a rich detailed exploration of oppression, where the personal is indeed the political.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
This series is excellent. That's all there is to it., February 6, 2009
This review is from: Forged By Fire: Book Three of the Dragon Temple Saga (Paperback)
I have read the deluge of negative press that this series has gotten, and frankly I do not understand one bit of it. Is the fantasy world really so fast asleep that it can't bear to be woken out of its safe, tame, cliche-induced coma?
The Dragon Temple series is a rich, intensely three dimensional, sophisticated work of anthropological investigation. As a student of anthropology, it always irritated me how in modern fantasy, cultures are usually bland, unimaginative stock pseudo-medieval European window dressing with some two-dimensional "other" culture as a foil (see David Gemmell's Mongol-ish Drenai vs Nadir or David Farland's pseudo europeans vs pseudo arabs). Janine Cross not only thinks outside that box, she tears it to pieces. And if her descriptions of torture, oppression and perversion as cultural practice make you squeamish, you'd better not ever turn on the news-- she draws on real-life cultural practices which are occurring every day in other parts of the world.
I guess Cross' works can be considered polarizing. If you're content to have your authors rehash the same old "intrepid caucasian male knight in shining armour saves kingdom from ancient evil" formula, then steer clear of her. If, on the other hand, you want something new, dive on in.
Also why do people keep calling her work "feminist"? Is any work with a female lead who shapes her own destiny considered feminist? That's a little silly, isn't it? Would a story with a dark skinned lead (say, Drizzt) be considered a Black Pride fantasy novel?
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