Customer Reviews

Out of This World (Three World Triology)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

What does an Evil Overlord/Necromancer/Dark Lord do when he has conquered his world? He begins searching for new worlds to conquer. Shadow has swallowed his entire world, and found an alternate reality, where a space-going Galactic Empire holds sway. The Galactic Empire is looking for allies and finds another reality, our Earth. And so, Pellinore Brown and some others from Earth, Captain Joshua Cahn and the crew of the ISS Ruthless of the Galactic Empire, and Raven of Stormcrack Keep and some other resisters of Shadow begin their trek across three realities. But, their journey will take them where they never expected to go.

For many years now, I have been a great fan of Lawrence Watt-Evans' wonderful Ethshar and Lords of Dus series. Having finished all of the Ethshar and Dus books currently available, I have moved on to his Three Worlds series. This book is another great read; one that shows off the author's writing ability. I loved the author's three, mutually exclusive worlds, finding each one fascinating.

If it's so great, then why did I only give it four stars? Frankly, towards the end of the book, the storyline turns to images of rape, brutality and murder, and became just a little too intense for me. This is definitely not a book for younger or more sensitive readers.

But, that said, I did enjoy this book, and look forward to reading the next book in the series. Lawrence Watt-Evans is a great author, and this book is another shining example of his abilities. I highly recommend this book!

I'll start this review by stating the Lawrence Watt Evans is my favourite author. Sadly, I can not recommend this trilogy. I heartily enjoyed ALL his books save this series. Other reviewers have pointed out that characters they cared about were killed for no reason, sadly, I wasn't drawn to any of the characters enough to care about their deaths.

If you have read another Lawrence Watt Evans book, and are looking to read more of his work, don't make this trilogy it. Read ALL his other books first, then wait for new books to come out as you will be disappointed by this work.

The main reason i gave this book five stars is because it isn't the normal clap trap where no one gets hurt because they are good guys. The author is to be applauded because he brings a certain amount of realism to the fantasy genre. People are injured and killed not because they are inherently bad but because generally this sort of thing happens to people who don't have the power to defend themselves. If you are the kind of person who believes the tooth fairy should beat the Incredible Hulk just because she has a nice smile and a dimple then this is not the book for you.

I read this book expecting it to be a light-hearted fantasy story but I was sorely disappointed. The only other book I had read by Watt-Evans was "Split Heirs" co-written with Esther Friesner which is an hilarious fantasy and a great read. Friesner's books are all excellent (bar none) fantasy novels with a great sense of humor. Maybe I was expecting too much, but I thought this book would be the same: a good romp, but essentially light-hearted.
Boy was I mistaken!
It is a grim, dismal story with an enormous (unnecessary) amount of violence, especially rape and child molestation.
It takes place in three realities: the "real" world, a fantasy world with magic and fairies, and a hard sci-fi world.
As soon as the characters from the first two-worlds travel to the sci-fi world, the story gets pessimistic and extremely mean spirited. Major characters you have come to know and care about are horribly murdered and also tortured and raped.

I don't mind gritty and even dark sci-fi stories, but this one seemed to be mean-spirited for no reason at all. Characters are hurt and killed, it seems like, only to make the protagonist unhappy.
As a woman, all the violence towards women and children in this novel deeply disturbed me. I thought most, if not all, of it was unnecessary. The same ending for the protagonist could have been achieved by leaving some characters in their home world, or sending them back home once they had arrived in the sci-fi world.
Once I came to the end of the story, it was obvious that this book was just the build-up of the story and a sequel was on its way.
I read this book a few years ago, but I have absolutely no plans to read the sequel. After reading just this first one I have had enough of this author. I came away from this book with a very bad taste in my mouth.

The book waited till the last quarter to pick up and start to become interesting. Overall the book was OK.. just Ok.

The characters developed well but then sort of stalled and fell into their own 'little worlds' and didn't do much else.

I will read the next book, in hopes it does get better, but am in no hurry to rush out and get it.

I picked up this book and the third one in the series awhile ago at a used book store and I just got around to reading it. This is the second book by Lawrence Watt Evans that I have read, and I picked it up because I really enjoyed his collection of short stories, Crosstime Traffic. This book starts out as a fun and innocent fantasy novel, and there are several amusing passages towards the beginning. However, the book takes a drastic turn towards the dark side near the end. Two likable characters are killed off in a rather sudden manner. However I still enjoyed the novel, and I'm looking for a copy of the second book.

The story starts out as a light novel, then, in a surprising and shocking turn of events, turns very dark with the brutal ending of some very sympathetic characters. I suspect that even Mr. Watt-Evans musthavebeen surprised to find his characters developing tragic depths. I doubt if he intentionally started out for this to happen. It was like falling off a cliff while on a pleasure hike...I had to reread some parts a few times until it sunk in that this was somehow developing into a major saga (such as The Hobbitt developed into the Lord of the Rings). I have not yet read the sequels, but will soon. What a rare event in (usually) predictable fantasy!

Dear 'A Reader'.

The violence towards women being 'unnesacary'? Man, are you ever out of touch. This series is brutal. It's nasty. Scary, evil horrible, awful stuff happens because that's the kind of place The Empire IS.

Anywho, it's a book. I enjoyed it in my own way but it is NOT reality.