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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Hoorah! OK, now what..., May 16, 2006
Hoorah! OK, now what...
Path of Blood is the conclusion of a trilogy (Path of Faith, Path of Honor). Although Faith is my favorite of the trilogy, Blood is a much smoother read that Honor was. Where Honor was a bit choppy with the plot and characters, Blood reads more like Faith did. We have a bit of everything going on here: plague, feudalism, naughty reagents, at least three love stories, magic, magically transformed creatures and humans, gods, the evil enigma, overwhelming sense of honor, destiny, hostages, rape, pillage, murder, raiders, and an Aztec-based culture that includes Reisil's love interest, Yohuac. Now, that is a bit much for a 452 page book. In fact, things end a little to quickly and conveniently. I wouldn't be surprised to see a sequel-trilogy or at least a fourth book pop up with some of these characters or in this world sometimes in the future.
If you like these books, try Anne Bishop's Tir Alainn Trilogy (romantic magic) Trilogy or David B Coe's Winds of the Forelands set of 4 books (magical fighting, etc)
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superbly woven- fast paced, rich characterization, May 6, 2006
This intricate plot is suberbly woven into a book that stands faithfully on its own, while concluding the Path trilogy. Reisil, the main character, has matured into her calling much the way Diana Francis has matured in her writing. Francis has managed to create a world with intricate characters and relationships, much the way the magical rinda weave a spell in Kodu Riik.
I worried how the final book would pull together and I think Francis pulled it off. The ending is not a fairy tale "happily ever after" one. Is it a moralisitic, "We must all accept change and make the best of it" ending? I don't think so. It speaks to a deeper element. We all change, grow, mutate if you will, and those changes can warp us, break us or make us stronger. Accept those changes, or not. It is about choices.
Reisil, Soka, Juhrnus,Yohuac- each of the characters in Path evolved from a two dimensional figure into a three dimensional "person" for me. It was this evolution of characters and build up of plot into the final chapters that kept me riveted to the pages. Well done. If you haven't already, go buy it.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Mediocre conclusion, February 6, 2008
This is the third book of a trilogy, and if you've already sunk the cost of reading the first two, there's no compelling reason to stop.
Francis has a fair number of new-author problems, and we've seen them in past books. The heroine, Reisil, switches from Thomas Covenant-like whining and dithering to Spenser-like action and gritty determination. Frankly, if this were a SF novel I'd expect to read that she was on some kind of bipolar treatment. I would like to think that this is just padding to meet some kind of minimum length agreement, but there are so many places where the words could have been better used that I know that's not it. I'm inclined to believe that it stems from her attempt to write "girl-friendly" fantasy. I'm not a girl, so I don't know how well she's succeeded, but I've seen the approach before: make it action-packed and adventurous, for the boys, and then mix in some dithering and emotional angst for the girls.
Other problems include the tendency to spend 75% of the book on 25% of the story. If you're pressed for time, you can safely read the first 40 or so pages to get the new character names, and then skip to about page 300 to find out what happens. The rest is dithering and miserable self-doubt.
To be fair, this third book did include a significant sub-plot that helped the middle reaches go by quicker than Path of Honor. But there are quite a few sub-plots stretched between POHonor and POBlood. They point to yet another problem, one that Francis can't really be blamed for. Apparently, she isn't getting very good editorial support from whoever is working with her at RoC. There are spelling errors, grammatical errors, and some significant editorial failures. The subplotting is a good example of this. The books are long, meaty books, but subplots and minor characters are relegated to a few pages each. Many of them fade into one dimensionality as a result.
Other reviews have talked about the irritating skip past the climactic scenes. Less discussed has been the change in narrative structure. The series changes from basically Reislin-only to some kind of Clancy-esque fanta-thriller, alternating updates among nearly every character whose name the readers can remember. This certainly moves the story along, but it's part of the poor editorial support I mentioned earlier that the entire writing style is allowed (required?) to shift suddenly. This is part of what makes Path of Blood an "uncomfortable" read for those following the series.
Path of Blood does a decent job of tying up the loose ends of the series, and there are enough surprises that it's worth reading. But there are a few loose ends that definitely weren't tied up, and the book will be a bit jarring to those reading the series straight through. For myself, I think I would have rather lent my copy of POFate to my buddy, and encouraged him to buy the next two books. If this was a movie, I'd say wait for it on cable.
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