Customer Reviews

Path of Blood (Path of Fate)

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

 

 

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)

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.

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.

I read this whole series, and it had its moments of greatness as well as its moments of difficulty. This last book was going great until the author decided she had met her page quota and ended it just as the climax was coming into its own... save your self some trouble and avoid this one, and rejoice that you still have that time to read a good book.

While I've certainly enjoyed reading the previous books for this series the final book left me feeling flat. While there is a great deal of lead up to the final conflict the conflict itself is skipped over with few details given in the epilogue. Characters change and, again, little information is given to the reader. Another book might help in this regard, perhaps following some of these other characters, but as this world now stands the conclusion has left me less than impressed with the prior books which, on their own, I really enjoyed. Over all, if you've read `Path of Fate' and `Path of Honor' you'll want to read this book just to see where these characters are brought, however if you haven't yet read the books you might want to skip them unless you like feeling unfulfilled at the end of a series.

What can I say, five stars says it all. I bought this book more than three times then traded it at a used book store. This time I got all three of the series and then started at the beginning and read them from first to last. Then I placed them on the bottom of all my books, I got to quit wasting my money rebuying this series so I'll just keep them this time.

I'd say that Diana Pharoah Francis's Path Trilogy isn't one of the best fantasies in the entire world, but they were certainly a good read. There aren't many flaws when it comes to characters and settings, though the plot does contain a hell of a lot of cliches. But the story does contain countless adult issues: murder, mythology, bloodshed, war, betrayal, execution, etc. Not very "HBO" material, but it's not a total loss.

What makes these three novels are the characters and their distinctive personalities. Reisil, Yohuac, Jurhnus, Metyein, Soka, Aare, Emelovi, Kedisam-Metira, Sodur, and many others are what make the entire story entertaining. Plus, the ahalad-kaaslane are a fascinating bunch; sure, I'm an animal lover, but not that much of an animal lover. Reisil being an anti-hero really works here, and Yohuac's Native American/Aztec culture is something that probably no other fantasy novel has created. I'd say it's a bold move from Francis. Kebonsat, Metyein, and Soka are typically attractive for female readers, but I didn't mind when reading. Speaking of female readers, Francis has given some wild descriptions of human penises. THAT irritated me very much. Oh well, I guess that's what I get for reading female fantasy.

Anyway, "Path of Blood" does have its moments. The war kept my interest, and Reisil's journey to an Aztec-like land really is something new. But the end seemed a bit rushed, and it became slightly anti-climactic. But again, the characters and their personalities are what make these three novels. So I'd say that the characters are the strong points for the "Path" Trilogy.

B+

Full of magic and fighting, this is a tense, multi-threaded book that brings Reisil, a young healer with strong magic powers into an even greater responsibility. A magical peril threatens everything, and while Reisil tries to fix it, her friends and allies battle with ambitious and ruthless enemies.

The magic, characters and conflict are all interesting, but the view-hopping and rushed pacing toward the end put a strain on the reader. Still, all the threads are finally resolved, and the book is a satisfying and suspenseful ending to a good trilogy.

This book doesn't hold up as well as the first one, but is still decent, and closes off the story.

I really loved the first two books and was excited to read the last one. I enjoyed the book until the end. It was rushed and much of the violence was pointless. Another reviewer suggested a fourth book. I think it is too late to save this series.