Customer Reviews

The Grand Crusade

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Dear Reader,
I usually enjoy Michael Stackpole books very much. It greatly pains me to write a poor review for one of his books. Quite frankly, however, The Grand Crusade stinks! At the risk of spoiling the novel I pose this question: Why "kill off" the most likable character of the series and then bring him back as an animated slab of lava? Another question: Is it really necessary to include the romance scenes between the old man and the hot twenty-something? It was sick enough to make me put the book down and watch "Simpsons" reruns. Worst Series Ending Ever!

I first started reading Stackpole around the time his fourth X-Wing novel, Bacta War, hit stands and I've been entranced ever since. He's been my favorite author for years. I've gone back and read Talion:Revenant, Once a Hero, A Hero Born, the Battletech novels - anything I could get my hands on. I've never had reason to look back or to doubt that a Stackpole book would be enjoyable. However, as Stackpole's books roll out, I find that I keep feeling his talent is regressing. He has grand ideas that fall short of the vision. In short, I felt that the Dark Glory War was his best novel of this series and The Grand Crusade his worst. I felt hardly any affinity for the characters. Crow or Tarant Hawke seemed to lose the virtues that I enjoyed in him. Instead he became a two dimensional character: love Alexia, kill bad guys. The other characters seemed to feel the same way, with the worthy exception of Resolute. Resolute seemed to thrive in this novel. Perhaps this is because Resolute has always been melodramatic, so his human side seemed that much better. The reincarnation of the Norrington was, unfortunately for me, I very big let down.

In all, I felt like the story had great potential, despite my reservations about the Norrington, but it lacked the development, vitality, or the rapport I needed to grab onto this novel. Take this review for what it is. I'm still waiting for the next Stackpole novel with high hopes (the new trilogy he's working on). And hopefully, his mystery novel will be released at some point. Peace.

I've never read Michael Stackpole and was pretty happy with the first book in this series..couldn't wait until the second one came out. Of course, the ending was a bit of a shock (the author's own notes warn about ill will towards him because of it) but I still was hoping the story would pick up a bit of speed and resolve itself in the third installment. What did I find? Ho-Hum...I had to force myself to finish. Nothing is resolved to any satisfactory measure - the most important character is a lump of clay (literally) and the other characters just seem to start fading away. We can't always expect a happy ending, but there didn't even seem to be one at all! A thoroughly disappointing way to spend some hard earned cash. Next time one of his books come out I'll be sure to see if my local library has it first so I at least don't bother spending my own money.

The Grand Crusade is the final chapter in the The Dragoncrown War Cycle. The previous book suffered from some dreadfully dull passages, and I'm sorry to say the final book has the same problem. Stackpole spends way too much time arranging the pieces for the final conflict, and not enough time making those pieces interesting. The Dragoncrown War Cycle ends up being a series that starts on a high note and then plummets from there.

Will Norrington is dead. Will is the man everybody believes was prophesized to be the one who kills Chytrine, the queen of the north and the woman who wants to take over the entire world. Chytrine's armies are raiding the southern lands and the various provinces are fighting each other politically as much as they're fighting her. King Scrainwood of Oriosa, a conniving coward, has made an arrangement with Chytrine in order to protect his kingdom and the seat of his power. General Adrogans has beaten Chytrine in the west, but the rulers of the southern kingdoms fear that he will set up an empire for himself. Paralyzed by politics and fear, it looks like Chytrine has an open invitation to take over everything. Only a few heroes are willing to try and stop her, and they manage to get enough support to raise an army. But all is not what it seems. Is Will really alive, able to fulfill the prophecy? As the southern armies fight for their lives, a new figure may emerge to decide Chytrine's fate.

The Grand Crusade does little to live up to its billing, feeling more like a half-hearted skirmish as far as this reader is concerned. I was hoping for a riveting conclusion that would keep me on the edge of my seat, and I kept waiting for it to happen as Stackpole maneuvered everybody into their proper positions. He places the various leaders at the head of their armies, has the expedition to the northlands put together, and makes sure everything's set. Unfortunately, this takes up half the book and I had trouble keeping my eyes open.

The main problem is that the prose is very wooden, much more so then I remember the previous books being. Most of the characterization and the dialogue felt forced and unreal. Stackpole, both in his dialogue and in his narrative voice, uses a very annoying technique that just started getting on my nerves, especially when it happened in almost every chapter. He starts to list things. "But he had acquiesced for two reasons." Then, he goes on to talk about those two reasons. Stackpole does it. His characters do it. I see Stackpole ticking off his fingers as he's writing, if that weren't a physical impossibility requiring three hands. It's a symptom of the entire book, where he's constantly setting things up, describing everything without actually doing anything.

It gets worse as Stackpole sets up the battles. Action is one of the things that Stackpole excels at. He can be quite bloody in his descriptions (and when he gets to the battles in The Grand Crusade, he is still quite graphic, so be warned), but everything has a pace and intensity that I just marvel at. He puts the reader down in the middle of the action and you almost find yourself looking behind you to make sure somebody's not coming up to you with a sword ready to skewer you. It's quite effective, and the book has a lot of energy when he writes the combat scenes. However, every time it looks like the battles are about to start, Stackpole starts setting them up again. He shows us countless strategy sessions between the generals, and he has those same generals brood on those strategies some more before finally executing them (many times listing the various things that could go wrong).

Don't get me wrong. I'm not an action junkie, needing the blood and guts to make a book good. However, the non-combat part of the book has to be interesting, or give me the battles! I found that I barely cared about any of the characters, including characters who I had cared about in the previous books. On the positive side, I didn't find any of the characters annoying, which is a step up for a couple of them (Kerrigan and Isaura). Ultimately, I found that the battles were the only interesting things in the book, and I found myself getting annoyed when each battle would end and more strategizing happened.

While the battles themselves were wonderfully done, I found that the results of them too often had convenient resolutions, as somebody comes in and saves the day. One battle has General Adrogans come from very far away and arrive at the perfect time to do what's necessary to turn the tide. While he knows that the war is happening there, he has no idea what the exact situation is. He's just going to help as best he can, and he just happens to get there where he can make the biggest difference. So many of the battles begin with our heroes acknowledging that they are in an almost impossible situation, and that even if they prevail they're going to lose a lot of soldiers. However, most of the time they don't have to deal with that because something else happens.

Ultimately, if it wasn't for the battle scenes, this book would be the bottom of the barrel. As it is, it's close. I've seen so much better from Stackpole, and the series started out so wonderfully. I didn't realize that I was already at the top when I started it. If this wasn't the final book of the series, there's no way I would have finished it. Avoid it if at all possible.

David Roy

'The Grand Crusade' is the last book of DragonCrown War series. I loved the pace of the book, because it is as fast-paced as the other reviewers have mentioned. Still, the whole nature of the Norrington prophecy was not fully explained to my liking. Nor was Kerrigan Reese esteemed even half as much as Will. I did not feel as drawn to Will as I was to the character of Kerrigan Reese throughout the whole series. We see Will having a one night fling with the Princess, and people considered that to be love. Yet, there was love and that was solely found with Alexia and Crow. Plus, a more thorough explanation and psychological profile of Chytrine would have thoroughly boosted the book. So, these are my main criticisms about the series in general and the book in specific.

Wow, yet another powerful effort from Michael Stackpole. I have read every one of his books, and this easily stands at or near the top in terms of quality.

The Dragoncrown war continues to rage, with all the devious machinations and backbiting and infighting that Stackpole is so adept at writing. Secret societies, clandestine meetings and political posturing contribute significantly to this book, as in the previous three in this world of Stackpole's creation.

In the north, a gifted general, Adrogans, had won a great but surprisingly easy victory in the previous book. Now, some of the results of that swift conquest conspire to turn the assembled nobles of the many kingdoms against him due to fostered suspicion. In the south, the gifted young woman, Alexia, who from birth was trained to lead armies, is forced to confront experienced leaders in a concerted effort to drive the enemies from the southland. She is accompanied by a number of remarkable companions, including her lover, Tarrant Hawkins, a disgraced hero of old, are the champions united to lead the forces of the south. The young wizard, Kerrigan, who had been as much a liability as a boon comes into his own, facing and passing a number of challenges beyond the ken of any but him. The determined Vorquelf, Resolute, leads a separate band to the north to infiltrate the lair of the evil queen of the north and end her threat forever. Paramount among his goals is the redemption of his homeland, conquered and defaced by the queen and her minions for over a century.

At no point in this book did the story seem to slow. Stackpole weaves romance, humor, action, and intrigue so well that I simply could not put down the book, and it was done before I realized it! There are many developments which were foreshadowed, though the manifestation of some events was unexpected. The characterization is excellent, with some characters being truly respectable, and others simply deserving hatred. Stackpole has really come into his own in the creation and development of his own world. You will not be disappointed in reading this book! Even the population of spelling and punctuation errors typically so rife in first editions these days is a vast improvement over other recent books.

I went through this book in less than 24 hours, which is faster than I went through the trilogy's second book, When Dragons Rage. This book was an excellent read -- I found it very hard to put down. I was connected so deeply with the characters in the whole trilogy, it was very important to me to find out what happens to them in the end, which was extraordinary. I would recommend this series to anyone who likes fantasy at all -- or anyone who has recently seen the Lord of the Rings films. The tale of adventure and love and loss and courage and dedication and loyalty and devotion is just so universal -- it is rare that you find a series that explores all of these things at once, in addition to larger issues. Destiny is at play here, and this book takes a good, hard look at what prophecy really may be, what destiny really might mean. Never have I read a book that deals with the concepts of destiny and prophecy better than this one. Additionally, woven into it all is a love story, and the story of one man who has spent his entire adult life fighting -- and finally finds happiness. The tale is just so rich, I cannot say enough good things about it. It has to be one of the best books -- and the best series -- I've read in my life.

Fair warning to everyone, though -- if you thought that the family tree was convoluted to begin with, just wait. It gets even more mixed up. All you can do is sit back and enjoy the ride -- I certainly did.

The Grand Crusade by Michael Stackpole is the final book in the DragonCrown War Cycle. The first book, which is actually a prelude, is The Dark Glory War (A Prelude to the DragonCrown War Cycle). The first book in the actual trilogy is Fortress Draconis (The DragonCrown War Cycle, Book 1) and then is followed by When Dragons Rage (The Dragoncrown War Cycle, Book 2). I stumbled upon this series based on a recommendation by a friend. After reading The Dark Glory War I immediately ordered the rest of the novels. After finishing the previous three books I was looking forward to reading this novel and seeing how things end up.

The plot of this book carries over from the previous book. Chytrine is still terrorizing the lands seeking to rule. The Norrington prophecy is still being bandied about. Kerrigan Reese is still adding knowledge to his already impressive magical repertoire. The political element, and political subterfuge is still present. Added to the mix is the possibility of another Norrington not being born yet and how that affects the prophecy as well as a few unexpected surprises. While I expected most of the plot elements that were included in this novel, I was also expecting to be, at least a little, surprised, at some of them as well. However, when all was said and done and I had finished the novel I realized that the disappointment I felt was not because of the writing itself, but rather that the plot became flat. There was nothing new to really grab my interest. In fact, there seemed to be quite a bit of fluff with this book. From reading the previous books, it's evident that there will be a major war. Yet, the build-up tot hat war and the battles that follow as so long and drawn-out that the battle doesn't matter because the book was barely holding my interest any longer. It pains me to say that, because I did enjoy this series up until this book.

The characters, what to say about the characters. If you have read the previous books, you know exactly what you will get from the characters in this book. The only character that really has any significant development is Alexia other than that it seemed as though I was re-reading the previous books. Sure, there are returning characters such as, Kerrigan, Sayce, Resolute, Scrainwood, Chytrine etc, but there is nothing really new about them. Furthermore, they don't really feel as though they are contributing to the story too much. Rather they feel as though they are being dragged around by the story. There are a few instances that it seems that Mr. Stackpole wanted to develop the characters a little, but it comes off as somewhat contrived and uninteresting. The characters that I had come to really enjoy have become uninteresting and two-dimensional cut outs of what they once were and could have been. Some of the dialogue that the characters say left me slack-jawed wondering not only why they said it, but at times what they meant. Unlike previous books, I felt disconnected with the characters and that is disappointing considering all the time I invested in reading this story.

Some criticisms about this novel:

1 - The build-up to the climatic ending is so long and drawn-out that when it does get to the battle I simply wanted it to be over so I could know what happened. When the end `battle' did arrive it was so anti-climatic that it almost seemed a mockery of the entire story.

2 - There are multiple instances in this novel where the editor was obviously asleep. Missing words, repeated words, phrases that make absolutely no sense and bad dialogue. For a book that is the final installment of a trilogy that has spanned well over 2,000 pages to have this type of mediocrity was disappointing and took something away from the magic of the previous books.

3 - The characters. The characters that I had grown rather fond of in the previous books suddenly became uninteresting and flat. Their dialogue was severely lacking any type of emotion; in fact it felt as though they were just going through the motions.

4 - The many loose ends and mysteries that had been building up through the previous books were sloppily explained and dealt with. A few of them I was very disappointed in, and a few others I simply could care less about. Regardless, I was disappointed that the ones I did care about were haphazardly tied up and explained.

Some things I did enjoy about this novel:

1 - The world, as with the previous books, is interesting and detailed perfectly. The layout of the land made sense and the `rules' of the world also seemed appropriate.

2 - I still like Mr. Stackpole's descriptions. He toes the fine line between explaining just enough to the reader so the reader can see his vision, but not too much that the reader is only allowed to see one thing and not use their imagination.

As a series, I would most likely recommend these books to fantasy fans who are well versed in the genre and can understand the good and the not so good of this trilogy and take it in stride. In the previous novels, Mr. Stackpole has proven he can write interesting and engaging novels however I would call this novel neither of those things. Besides the things I listed above, I am not really sure what `went wrong' with this novel, but I can not say I enjoyed it nearly as much as I did the previous books. I was expecting great things from this novel, answering all the questions from the previous books etc. Sadly it simply didn't deliver what I was hoping for. I would not suggest this book to any except those who have read the first three books and really want to know what happens.

This book should be a lesson to all authors. If you try to do something clever while writing your trilogy, like killing off the most interesting character in the whole book, then you better replace this character with someone or something even MORE interesting. Unfortunately, Michael Stackpole did nothing of the kind in the final installment of his DragonCrown series and the whole epic falls flat in the end.

This was very unfortunate, as I really did enjoy the first two books and the third one appeared to be a promising endeavor. Stackpole, however, just went through the motions with this one. Stackpole took a big chance killing off the lead character in the second book and while at the time I thought this was very clever and exciting, it took the whole heart and soul right out of the ensuing novel. This book had nothing to make it the least bit original, interesting or exciting. The final battle scenes were dull, the final confrontation with the ultimate ice queen, who for some unknown reason wishes to rule the whole world, were entirely predictable. The other characters in the novel lost their edge about one-third of the way through and never got it back. Characters such as Kerrigan never fully developed. The whole romance/relationship between Alexia and Crow was not only unbelievable, but repetitive and boring. (Way too many little, "I love you!!", "No, I love you more!!" scenes which were very annoying and added nothing to the book.)

I was very disappointed in this effort, which seemed to be thrown together in a rush to just get the job done. I know this author can do better. In all fairness to Stackpole, at least he ENDED his fantasy series. Unlike a few authors out there I can mention. That's the reason he gets three stars instead of two. I hope that his future novels fare better.

I think this is about the best Stackpole book I've yet read. And that's saying quite a lot.

For starters, I didn't go back and reread any of the earlier books in the trilogy that this one concludes, so it had been about a year since I last visited the world and characters of the story, but this final book pulled me back into the story pretty well from the start. There were certain events from earlier in the series that were alluded to from time to time, in which I couldn't quite recall all the details of what had happened, but that didn't detract much at all from the new progress of the story in this book. Much more frequent were the events from the last book alluded to in this one, which came quite completely back to memory when they were mentioned, making my enjoyment of this book all the greater by drawing on remembered enjoyment of the previous one.

The characters in this DragonCrown trilogy are wonderful, so many different types of people, so well developed, both the heroes and the villains. The plot is great too; the Norrington prophecy and all the developments from it, which drove a large part of the plot, had me making all sorts of guesses of what could happen, yet there were still surprises for me in how it all worked out. And it was a satisfying ending...actually more so the further I get from finishing it. Will's ultimate fate was kind of bittersweet, but maybe better than the various other guesses I'd been making. And as for the "Hawkins Secret" from the prequel, The Dark Glory War, well, it wasn't exactly what I was expecting, though similar, but was cool nonetheless, and it was worked into this final book of the series very well. Stackpole's writing style is wonderful to read, the storyline is engaging, the characters and themes were excellent, and overall, I'm very happy with the book and with the series that it concludes. I'd love to see more from the world of this story!