Customer Reviews

Perilous Seas

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

 

 

Perilous Seas picks up right were Faery Lands Forlorn left us with Queen Inos still stuck in Zark, land of the Djinns, captive of the Sorceress Rasha. Inos is about to despair of ever escaping the sorceress and she still doesn't know if she should accept the Sultan Azak's marriage proposal or not. The gods told her long ago to trust in love - but what does that mean! Surely it must mean to trust in Azak's love for her, even though she doesn't love him, or does it? When Inos and Azak make a desperate bid for freedom, Inos drags her beloved Aunt Kade all across the desert in strange disguises. She will do anything to make it to the Imperor to plead her case for her beloved people in her shabby little kingdom of Krasnegar. Along the way, she is stunned to see Rap's image appear in the middle of the desert. Surely he must be a demon come to torment her for leaving him to die in the tower long ago. But how could Rap be that cruel...

Rap is anything but dead. After escaping the land of Faerie in a Jotunn boat, captained by Gathmore, Rap is all but imprisoned on the island of Durthing. He was bought as a slave to work on the boat, but earned his freedom, however, his gift of farsight makes him far too valuable to risk losing. When the vicious Jotunn raider, Kalkor, arrives on Durthing, he slaughters every man, woman and child he finds - but he takes Rap and Gathmore on board his ship. For the first time Rap gets to see what the power of multiple words turns a person into. Kalkor no longer has a heart and Rap wonders if he even has a soul left. Desperate to get to Inos and restore her to her throne, Rap finds himself playing a cat and mouse game with Kalkor, playing his magical powers off of Kalkor's. But even if Rap finds an opportunity to escape, how can he find Inos in time to stop her from making a terrible mistake?

Perilous Seas is the third book in A Man of His Word series by David Duncan and it is the weakest of the quartet, but it is still superbly written and I still loved most of the characters. It is true that Inos is kind of grating in this book and that I found myself rushing through her misadventures to get to the better story with Rap, but I like to think that Inos is growing as a character and getting to be more likeable. Still, it would be great if she dropped that whole I-am-a-princess-and-can't-believe-this-is-happening-to-me attitude. On the other hand, Rap is a great character who is still humble and completely oblivious to the fact that he doesn't live anything approaching a normal life anymore. Again, the host of secondary characters are superb and give additional life and sparkle to the third book of the series. I can't wait to see how it ends! If you like fantasy books that are just a bit different with clearly defined magical rules and different races set in an intriguing world, don't miss this set of 4 books!

This book was full of excitement and adventure. Not a boring get-it-over-with bridge at all, I quite enjoyed the ride.

This book continues the series following an unoriginal rote. It is OK, but at times seems like things happen without reason.

<Spoilers?>
One of the major problems is that the magic system is not well defined. Sorcerers have unlimited power (a problem by itself, since they can make you think or love or whatever). And yet they can be destroyed by telling them a single word. And yet no one has ever done this. And yet their prisoners can escape whenever they feel like it. And they never pry other people's thoughts. They send the hero to do stuff cause they do not want to interfere, but they use magic to send them there.

The character's character is at points incoherent.

The books does not just end in a hangover, but the most major one.

It is however a well written book with beautiful descriptions and nice prose.

All in all, I will borrow the next book to skim just for principle to see how thing go (they seem to be completely predictable, but one can always hope) I wish I had not started this series.

This is book 3 of Dave Duncan's 4-book, "A Man of His Word", series. The characters are enjoyable, but the situations are even better! Read! A note of caution though, Don't read Mr. Duncan's sequel series, "A Handful of Men". It is simply terrible!

"Perilous Seas" is the third volume of "A Man of his Word" which itself is the first of two marvellous fantasy quartets.

The first quartet, "A man of his word" has titles taken from Keats' "Ode to a nightingale" and the titles perfectly match the themes of the books.

The lines which inspired the titles are as follows -

"The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days, by Emperor and Clown ....

... The same that oft-times hath
Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam
of perilous seas, in Faery lands forlorn"

The four books of this quartet are

The Magic Casement
Faery Lands Forlorn
Perilous Seas
Emperor and Clown

These four books tell one complete story and are best read in this order.

There is a sequel quartet, set 15 years later in the same universe, which is called "A handful of men" and has its titles taken from Masefield's poem, "Tomorrow." The four books in that story are

The Cutting Edge
Upland Outlaws
The Stricken Field
The Living God

All eight books are set in a world of Gods and Sorcerers, where magic abilities are conferred by the knowledge of words of power. The descriptions of magic powers and how they work are far more effectively and consistently thought through than in the typical fantasy novel, and as the hero and heroine travel through a strange and diverse world a picture both of that world and the serious threat which it faces gradualy takes shape.

At the start of "Perilous Seas", Inos, rightful Queen of Krasnegar, is in exile in the desert land of Zark, where the local sultan, Azak, is seeking her hand in marriage. Inos was told by a God when she was a child that she must "trust in love" and is wondering if this means Azak's love for her. Meanwhile the stableboy and her childhood friend, Rap, who was sent to the other side of the world from Inos by the Magic Casement, is in bondage as a galley slave. But he is still seeking to cross the world to rescue Inos and put her back on the throne. Can he reach her before she makes a terrible mistake ?

The original editions of the "A man of his word" quartet had beautiful covers painted by Don Maitz, and the books would almost have been worth buying for these covers if they had not also comprised a beautiful story

Dave Duncan is one of the best scifi/fantasy writers there are every story is original and fresh he builds characters you love to see succeed and vilans you can't wait to see die a horible death. This is the third book of one of the best series ever written; Rap the lost stable boy with slowly emerging magical powers wonders the world in search of his love and his queen, Inos. Facing pirates and worse he tries to reach a distant waste land to save Inos from a barbarian king.

Duncan's series gets increasingly complex, and increasingly entertaining. This is probably the best book in this series. Major revelations about several characters, and further adventures across the intricate world Duncan has invited us into.

Rap's travels and travails show us more of the world of Pandemia; Inos struggles to stay afloat in Zark's male-chauvinist culture.

Gathmore and Rap are captured by the mad Jotunn raider, Kalkor, and meet up on his ship with old "friend" Darad.

In a sequence that is equally sad and lovely and horrifying, we see just what kind of power sorcerors weild -- and how after a while they become rather casual and capricious about how they treat mere mundanes, even mundanes close to them.

Duncan's version of dragons is neat, i must say, and the gnome sorceror who is Warden of the Dragon Reaches is one of the most interesting and sympathetic characters in the series -- gnomes are considered disgusting and sub-human by the other races, but they have feelings -- they can hurt and love and hate, too.

Captured by one of the Four -- the four witches and warlocks who regulate the use of magic under the Compact, who have been using Rap and Inos as gaming pieces in their own internal and global intrigues -- Rap and Gathmore and Jalon are given one possible chance to rescue Inos from marriage to Azak.

It's a race against time...

And Time almost always wins in the end.

Will Rap and Gathmore arrive in time to Stop The Wedding?

(Three stars this time because this one is primarily a bridge, though it contains important elements of the story as a whole; also, we get to see something about the Elves, this time.)

In this the third book of "A Man Of His Word" we continue the story of Rap's quest to rescue Queen Inus and incedently Queen Inus's attempts to survive the Zark Court. We meet some more of humanity's diverse races and Rap lerns a new WORD. all in all a veary good read filed with high adventure and political intrigue.

One of the problems with this series is that it has two protagonists, separated except for the male's love and devotion to the female, and that although I find the male protagonists' adventures rather interesting, I am expected to put up with the female's tiresome circumstances as well. By the end of this volume, which I finished reading back in '99, I was no longer interested in reading about "Queen Inos." Her sorry plight was an old cliche to begin with: can the high-born, well-bred princess overcome the "stuffiness" of her training to become a successful queen without losing her sense of humanity and connection with the masses? Puleeez!!! The answer is only of concern if we truly felt she was one of "the masses" (that includes US, the readers) to begin with. For this sort of thing, done in a real and thus more interesting setting, pull some volumes of Charles Dickens off the shelf. Books like these are what gives fantasy a bad name in the minds of many... There is no indication so far that ANY of this will resolve in a way that was worth devoting nearly 2,000 pages to! Although I suppose that I will eventually read the third book in the series, given enough time... no one should hold their breath waiting for my review of it. For those who actually enjoyed this series, I recommend the numerous series of David Eddings that dealt with the same sort of scenarios, but did it with a lot more gusto, humor, variety, and INTERESTING CHARACTERS! Still, it should surprise no one that the genre is dominated by formulaic adventures in which authors seem to be paid by the word. I would steer readers away from THIS Duncan series and back toward some of the better ones. To me it looks like Duncan is merely churning out more of the same. My tastes have turned toward the more humorous vein of fantasy. For ponderous outings like this, it is far better to read ACTUAL historical fiction where there is at least some educational benefit for the time that is spent. These sorts of formulaic meanderings are no longer of interest to me, or (I suspect) many fantasy readers who have already read the same sort of thing but in a different package (and probably, using far fewer words to relate the same content!!!)