Customer Reviews

The Gates of Dawn (The Chronicles of Blood and Stone, Vol, 2)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

His nation virtually destroyed, Prince Tristan wishes only to rebuild. But his own son has gained impossible power and now drains the very magic that supports the world's sorceries. Aided only by two wizzards and his sister, Tristran is virtually helpless against the powerful magic that the once-dead and now alive Nicholas can bring to bear. Nicholas has subverted the league of wizards that are supposed to help the people and Tristran, posted a huge reward for Tristan's capture, and is ahead of Tristran and his wizards at every step. It doesn't help that Tristran can't trust even the two wizards who support him. They think nothing of keeping secrets from him--mostly for no apparent reason.

Author Robert Newcomb delivers an intriguing magic system based on the mystically imbued blood that certain people have. The concept of blood magic is well developed and interesting. Nicholas and his assistants, poisoned Ragnar and assassin Scrounge are strong and sympathetic. Each has suffered at the hands of Tristran and the system that has brought him to power.

THE GATES OF DAWN suffers from three problems: First, Newcomb's writing is ponderous. Characters spend too much time thinking, remembering, discussing ad nauseum, and not enough time actually doing things. This is expecially true in the first half the book but continues to the end. Second, Tristran's wizards keep too much secret from Tristran. This feels like an artifice--constructed to keep the reader in doubt rather than something that flows naturally from the story. As a result, Tristran seems like a manipulated child rather than a heroic character. Third, the resolution is terrible. Essentially, if Tristran and friends had headed to Las Vegas and gambled, the end wouldn't have been changed. All of the plotting, near-death experiences, and acts of bravery are so much wasted time. Reading nearly five hundred pages only to find out that it didn't matter is a frustrating experience.

Oh this was disingenuous fantasy. Newcomb appears to have no grasp of consistency or of the genre. I kept being thrown out of the book by simple things like knives pulled from "quivers" (Knives and daggers come form sheaths, braces, boots. Arrows come from quivers. A quiver may have a knife sheath on it but even then a quiver-knife comes from its sheath).
Also I was annoyed by the excessive use of made up phrases for ordinary things like the name of a season (something "crystal") when a simple word like "winter" would have sufficed.
If there is a festival or a cultural event during winter known as "blah-blah crystal" that is fine, but in this book it appeared that some simple things were made obscure just to make them seem exotic somehow.
Other inconsistencies that made me put the book down time after time were things like Tristan's sister being able to telepathically talk to butterflies as well as the crafted bird-like creatures, but for some reason the minions ("of day and night") don't have any immediate bond with her or any telepathic communication with her. Why is that so? I gathered from reading what I could that she was "forestalled" to be one their mistresses, (oh may be he's saving that for book three).
I could go on but I think I mostly agree with the review that lists other possible ways that the ubber-villain could stupidly die at just the right moment.
Perhaps the villain could suddenly explode for no apparent reason and then later while the good guys are licking their wounds they could just sit around and say that they have no idea what the `fraggle'. (Read that 'what the heck happened' - Gee its fun to make up nonsense phrases).
Finally the clincher of how bad this was. I only read this second book but from the beginning to the end there was a need for the protagonist to learn the Craft because he has the wunderblud that will make him the greatest, and by the end of the book he still hasn't done anything about it.
The hero sucked and was never in control of anything- much like the writing style of the book itself.

Just my opinion,
Stanley

I am very hesitant to ever call a book entirely awful, but Newcomb's writing is so terrible that I can't mince words. Since his first novel was not well edited and was his after all, his first effort, it was almost understandable that it was poor reading. I had hoped that the author would get over his ponderous style with practice but I could see no improvement in this second book. I found this novel painfully boring and poorly constructed. This leaves me to conclude that Newcom simply lacks the talent it takes to write a decent book. Perhaps he should go back to selling cars.
In my opinion, two elements make an excellent novel and these are characterization and plot. These elements were lacking in Newcomb's sophomore effort. I found the continued weak roles of the female characters particularly exasperating. It is a pity the first book was launched with such fanfare. And by the way, the suspiciously effusive reviewers that compared this book to Tolkein and Goodkind were way off the mark.

I was incredibly disappointed in Newcomb's second novel. While the sections where there's actually action and adventure going on are just wonderfully enthralling, there's very large parts where it's just Wigg and Faegan explaining thing over and over. Those parts were very boring and actually put me to sleep at one point.

It's a good read, but you could skip most of the hub-bub of the dialogue and still know what's going on with the storyline.

And how many times is Tristan going to see the most beautiful woman he's ever seen? I think Celeste was woman number 4 described that way when she first appeared.

After dragging myself through the first book which was ponderous and hard to become interested in, I decided to give #2 a try. BIG MISTAKE! I should have read all of the reviews first, because I would have learned what a slow, poorly written mistake this book was. The hero is a bumbling hothead who gets himself into trouble, and his friends, through amazing leaps of logic, devise the trouble he is in and how to get him out of it without telling him first. The villan accidentally kills himself at the end as the hero lies dying... not much of a struggle, there. It was frustrating to go through all those pages only to find that the characters could have sat on their butts and got to the same conclusion without going through so much trouble. Don't bother.

...and it's also the last. Was Newcomb paid by the word on this novel? The rhetoric of his main wizard characters is distracting and downright annoying. Newcomb insults his readers by having his characters explain in great detail obvious plot points. The characters are stereotypical and flat. The story is predictable and slow. This book was a huge disappointment.

OK... I work in a 9 to 5 job and read books for a way to relax and wind down. So, typically, books with the same old themes and one dimensional characters don't bother me- I could use a little mindless relaxation...right?

When I finished with the first book's "arching eyebrow" annoyances, I gave the author the benefit of the doubt and bought the second book. Error.

How anti-climatic can you get?! Watch out, I might spoil this one for you- but the all powerful anti-hero, in essence, blows himself up. No classic struggle... nothing.

Newcomb, I have some ideas for future book endings where good prevails over an omnipotent evil foe:
1) The great villain could cut himself shaving and die of a rare infectious disease.
2) The great villain could get thrown from a horse and break his neck.
3) The great villain could trip near a desk and stab himself in the eye with his letter opener.
4) Heart attacks are always good.... It could be the final show down with the hero and the villain could have a heart attack from all the stress that comes from trying to takeover the world!

Save your time and go get a root canal; it will feel better than this book.

First I want to note that most of the reviews are either glowing, five star reviews, or they are very negative. It seems like Newcomb and his friends are at it again, writing false reviews. I mean give me a break! One so-called reviewer says, Goodkind's books don't hold a torch to these." And another is counting the days until the next book! The worst thing is that I can even spot the repetitive grammar and poor English in these reviews that is a hallmark of Newcomb's writing! I read this book just to see if he'd improve. I was especially interested because I was personally acquainted with his bragging. I'd feel sorry for him if it weren't for this. Back to the book, the characters were flat and the story boring. The female characters are ridiculous.

Ok, even a publisher who has sunk a lot of money into a longshot author needs to know when to quit. With the tide of crappy books on the market these days, Robert Newcomb has made his mark as the worst of the worst. Yet here is his second book, carefully packaged despite the howls of protest from fantasy fans such as myself who believed the hype about the first one, then read it and wondered if we had purchased the same book.

More of the same brutal and inconsisent nonsense fills this book, with dull characters and a stupid plot. Spare yourself! Skip this book. And ignore every piece of marketing from Del Rey from now on.

In a nutshell, nothing the heros did or might have done made any difference. The bad guys lose on a technicality and the author spends 20 or so pages explaining what the technicality was. If the good guys stayed home talking about how hopeless the situation was for the entire book, instead of 90% of it, the result would have been the same.

Don't waste your time on this piece of garbage.