The Lion of Senet (Second Sons Trilogy) [Kindle Edition]

Jennifer Fallon (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

On the world Ranadon there is no night as both suns shine brightly. The intervention of Belagren, High Priestess of the Shadowdancers, and the sacrifice of a child of royal blood, has banished the Age of Shadows from the skies. Belagren's position is unquestioned . . . until circumstances begin to tip political rivalries into a deadlier game altogether.

A volcanic eruption rocks the seas separating the Kingdom of Dhevyn and the mainland Kingdom of Senet, and a mysterious sailor is shipwrecked on the island of Elcast. Badly wounded, his arrival stirs up old hatreds and unravels old secrets. His presence is enough to even bring Antonov, the powerful Lion of Senet, to the island and fear to the Keep of the Duke of Elcast.

A strong friendship develops between Dirk, second son of the Duke, and Kirshov Latanya, second son of the Lion of Senet. But will they, and their friendship, survive the chain of events set in motion by the ambitions of the ruthless High Priestess of the Shadowdancers and the domineering Lion of Senet?

This first book of the Second Sons Trilogy establishes Jennifer Fallon as one of the most unique voices in fantasy fiction, as she creates full characters, and takes intelligent plotting to a whole new level in order to establish unparalleled complexity and tension.?


From the Paperback edition.

From the Inside Flap

On the world Ranadon there is no night as both suns shine brightly. The intervention of Belagren, High Priestess of the Shadowdancers, and the sacrifice of a child of royal blood, has banished the Age of Shadows from the skies. Belagren's position is unquestioned . . . until circumstances begin to tip political rivalries into a deadlier game altogether.

A volcanic eruption rocks the seas separating the Kingdom of Dhevyn and the mainland Kingdom of Senet, and a mysterious sailor is shipwrecked on the island of Elcast. Badly wounded, his arrival stirs up old hatreds and unravels old secrets. His presence is enough to even bring Antonov, the powerful Lion of Senet, to the island and fear to the Keep of the Duke of Elcast.

A strong friendship develops between Dirk, second son of the Duke, and Kirshov Latanya, second son of the Lion of Senet. But will they, and their friendship, survive the chain of events set in motion by the ambitions of the ruthless High Priestess of the Shadowdancers and the domineering Lion of Senet?

This first book of the Second Sons Trilogy establishes Jennifer Fallon as one of the most unique voices in fantasy fiction, as she creates full characters, and takes intelligent plotting to a whole new level in order to establish unparalleled complexity and tension.?

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 941 KB
• Print Length: 578 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0553586688
• Publisher: Spectra; Reprint edition (December 18, 2007)
• Sold by: Random House Digital, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00122HF1M
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #128,460 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

More About the Author

Jennifer Fallon was born in Melbourne, Australia, and lived in there until she was 11 when her father, a senior public servant, was transferred to the national capital, Canberra. She lived in and around Canberra for about 8 years and went to school at Catholic Girls High School (now Mercy College) in Braddon. She is the ninth child in a family of 13 girls.
The author lived in the Northern Territory from 1980 to 2010.
Jennifer has two daughters and a son. She has had over 50 foster children and friends refer to her home as "the ashram" due to the large number of strays people that still inhabit her house at irregular intervals.
Jennifer has worked as a youth worker, a store detective, shop assistant, an advertising sales rep and executive secretary, among other things. She has managed 2 hire car companies, an ISP, a video shop, been a state manager for an international cosmetics company and worked as a project manager for Territory Health Services. Jennifer is an accredited workplace trainer and has a Masters of Arts in Research and also the regular movie reviewer for ABC Radio in regional Western Australia.
In 1995, after her late husband famously advised her to 'quit writing and be a better housewife, because you're never going to get published', Jennifer decided to either get published by the year 2000 or give up writing and get a real job. Significantly, being a better housewife did not factor into her plans.
Her first series, The Demon Child Trilogy, was released in August 2000 in Australia and hit the bestseller list the first week it was released and was shortlisted for the 2000 Aurealis Awards as the best Fantasy of 2000.
She has since been shortlisted for another Aurealis, the David Gemmell Legends of Fantasy award and the Romantic Times Best Fantasy award.
Her books are released all over the world and translated into a number of different languages.
Jennifer now lives in New Zealand where she writes full time and runs up the Reynox International Writers Centre.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant new fantasy trilogy, March 30, 2004

By 

Sebastian Fernandez (Tampa, Florida United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Lion of Senet (The Second Sons Trilogy, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

Many consider Tolkien's masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, the benchmark to which every other epic fantasy work is compared. The first book in The Second Sons Trilogy leaves the reader with the impression that this series will receive top marks in that scale. Jennifer Fallon creates a craftily depicted world with characters the reader will love or hate with passion. I became so engrossed in the story that I could not put this book down until I finished it.

Ranadon once again has two suns surging through its sky, but its inhabitants have suffered greatly in the past when one of the suns disappeared and the Age of Shadows began. The High Priestess, Belagren, with the help of a great mathematician, Neris, discovered the secrets about the Age of Shadows, which is a natural phenomenon that depends on the orbits of the suns. In her eagerness for power, Belagren used this information to her advantage and claimed that the Goddess spoke to her and told her exactly were the sun would return, granted that certain sacrifices were made. It all worked out, and Belagren gained considerable power through this stratagem. However, Neris sealed the secrets inside a deadly Labyrinth, and threw himself off a cliff, presumably dying.

In her need to know when the next Age of Shadows will return, so as to prove her communication with the Goddess, Belagren convinced the Lion of Senet, ruthless ruler of the strongest kingdom in Ranadon, to search for Neris because she suspects the genius is still alive. Meanwhile, in the kingdom of Dhevyn, which is "controlled" by Senet, the second son of Duchess Mirna of Elcast is being trained to be a physician. He is a bright boy and is thrown in the middle of the action when the Lion of Senet and Belagren arrive to Elcast looking for a very special prisoner, who was left unconscious in the coast after a tidal wave made his vessel the victim of a shipwreck.

The plot is complex but easy to understand, with religion and politics cleverly intertwined in a mix that achieves a similar effect on the reader to the one "Dune" accomplishes. There are many characters, but with the help of the character list and the masterful descriptions the author elaborates, it is reasonably easy to keep track of them. I would recommend following the story closely with the map provided, at least until the reader gets a clear idea of the geographical location of the different places mentioned. This will make the book a lot more enjoyable and easy to follow. Finally, an extra benefit in this trilogy is that it is already written in its entirety, thus, there is no need to wait a long time for the next two installments, which have already been published in Australia and New Zealand. If you like epic fantasy I highly recommend you read this book and discover what Fallon has to offer.

28 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Difficult to Rate, March 15, 2006

By 

Dragon Quill "DQ" (CA, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Lion of Senet (The Second Sons Trilogy, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

Normally, when I finish a novel, it is never hard to say "Okay, 2 stars" or "Wow, 5 stars" or anything else along those lines. However, Lion of Senet was incredibly hard to place because while it rocketed off the enjoyment scale, it was lacking in some other sections of my grading criteria.

Usually my five-star books are not only keeping me up at very late hours, but also literarily great. In fact, in most books that I rate poorly, the quality of the writing keeps me from enjoying the story. Lion of Senet was not like most books though. I swear on a copy of LOTR, the story had me breathing, sleeping, eating Lion of Senet. When I finished it, I launched on here to Amazon to read up on the sequel. I stayed up to 4 reading this impossible-to-put down novel. I do not say that often.

On normal circumstances, 4 am is five-star quality (2 am is 4 stars!) Yet throughout those blissful hours, a variety of issues irked me enough to give this book only 4 stars. Some of them were simply pet peeves of mine, but Ms. Fallon has one big ugly flaw in her writing: she cannot make characters act/sound their age.

Her adult characters are fantastic. Incredible. Realistic. Sadly, most of the main characters are, well, teenagers, and Ms. Fallon I'm afraid makes all of them (so therefore not a character flaw of one) sound easily three years younger than they really are.

The worst of it is in her two youngest important characters: Eryk and Mellie. They are both 13 and act and sound as if they were 9. This kept annoying me the entire read. Until I was actually told that Eryk and Mellie were indeed 13, I believed they were 8 and 9 and couldn't get the image out of my head. There was not a signal scrap of information to back up their age, and they weren't the only ones who suffered from this. Dirk only seemed his age because he was supposed to seem older than he really was, meaning that he was supposed to appear 17 when he is really 15. Tia (the first character you meet) is probably the only one who came across (of the teenage characters) as her given age.

That matter out of the way, here are a few pet-peevish occurrences throughout The Lion of Senet:

Modern dialogue, phrasing, and clichés: I do not know what role they play in a science fiction fantasy novel.

Let-the-reader-figure-it-out-on-their-own: At first, I really liked this part of Ms. Fallon's style. She doesn't pile you with information and doesn't leave it out. She also doesn't spell everything out, which I like. I enjoy using my brain while reading to connect information and draw my own conclusions. Sometimes she took it too far, however, and her clever style got in the way. I read half the book not knowing if Dirk was 15 or 16, minor, but annoying (read and you'll see why.)

Portrayal of evil: This is another thing authors commonly annoy me with. They simply toss the word 'evil' into the mix and give me a few things to back it up. Yes, those things are very corrupted, twisted, and wrong, but still a long way from evil. Evil is like hate. Both are words that should not be used lightly, and Ms. Fallon does add a few 'evils' in the mix in a rather preachy way.

You are probably reading this review and wondering how this novel only got 4 stars when those four things were the only bad dirt I could dig up off the top of my head. Well, if the story had not been so gripping, captivating, and downright amazing, those four things would have landed this novel at 2 or 3 stars...

Do not get me wrong, though. I'm harsh when it comes to rating novels, so a four in my book is about a 6 in the average reviewer's. This novel was one of my best purchases in who knows how long and I cannot wait to receive the sequel. (Just a few more days!)

DQ

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Second Sons Trilogy review, June 11, 2004

By 

Thalion (indianapolis, in. United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Lion of Senet (The Second Sons Trilogy, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

Wow! I have just finished the Second Sons Trilogy and I am thoroughly impressed. This first book is very well written and becomes quite complex as the characters develop more and more. Whats even better is that the second book is better than the first and the third book is better than the second. These three books are the best that I have read since George R.R. Martins "A Game of Thrones" series.

This book starts out relatively slowly with a simple ship wreck and a lone survivor that eventually sets a complex story in motion. I found it refreshing in the fact that there is no sorcery to speak of, which is typical of a fantasy book. There are no easy magical solutions to any of the problems that come up. Everything is accomplished way of Dirk Provin's intelligence and ruthless manipulations. This series is a great case study of Machiavellian tactics.

I personally think that Bantam Books really dropped the ball by not issuing these books in hardback. I would truly love to have this series in a hardbound, signed, first edition form.

One last note, I would not recomend reading these books out of order. The second and third books pick up right where the previous book ends and there is little background given.

Read and enjoy.