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Prisoner of the Iron Tower (The Tears of Artamon, Book 2)
 
 
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Prisoner of the Iron Tower (The Tears of Artamon, Book 2) [Hardcover]

Sarah Ash (Author)
3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)

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Book Description

Tears of Artamon August 3, 2004
A weaver of tales, a caster of spells, and a writer of rare imagination, Sarah Ash lends her unique vision to epic fantasy. In this captivating continuation to her story, the author of Lord of Snow and Shadows revisits a realm filled with spirits and singers, daemons and kings.

Gavril Nagarian has finally cast out the dragon-daemon from deep within himself. The Drakhaoul is gone—and with it all
of Gavril’s fearsome powers. Though no longer besieged by the Drakhaoul’s unnatural lusts and desires, Gavril has betrayed his birthright and his people. He has put the ice-bound princedom of Azhkendir at risk and lost.

Emerging from his battle with the Lord Drakhaon scarred but victorious, Eugene of Tielen exacts a terrible price. He arrests the renegade warlord Gavril Nagarian for crimes against the Rossiyan Empire and sentences him to life in an insane asylum—for the absence of the Drakhaoul is slowly driving Gavril mad. But Eugene has another motive as well. He longs to possess the Drakhaoul—at any cost to his kingdom and his humanity. With Gavril locked inside the Iron Tower, three women keep his memory alive. His mother returns to the warmer climes of her homeland, where she foments the seeds of rebellion. A young scullery maid whose heart is broken by Gavril’s arrest sends her spirit out to the Ways Beyond. And even the emperor’s new wife is haunted by her remembrances of the handsome young painter who once captured her soul.

The five princedoms of a shattered empire are reunited. The last of Artamon’s ruby tears adorns Eugene’s crown. But peace is as fragile as a rebel’s whisper—and a captive’s wish to be free.

Glowing with the powers of light and darkness, Prisoner of the Iron Tower will astonish and enthrall you, as courtly intrigue collides with the fantastic—and good and evil become as nebulous as the outlines of a dream.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In the second installment of British author Ash’s Tears of Artamon trilogy, a skillful mix of horror and romantic fantasy, vampiric dragons soar against a wonderfully gothic backdrop straight out of Tolstoy by way of Stoker, Dumas and Tolkien. At the conclusion of Lord of Snow and Shadows (2003), Gavril Nagarian, Lord Drakhaon of Azhkendir (a princedom in the Rossiyan Empire), succeeded in casting off the Drakhaoul, the dragon-daemon that possessed him. Now Gavril; his mother, Elysia; and his new love, Kiukiu, a gifted "spirit singer," face the wrath of Prince Eugene of Tielen, whose forces Gavril prevented from taking Ashkendir in book one. Eugene returns to defeat Gavril and send the former portrait painter to a mental institution where his brain becomes the subject of mad experimentation (shades of Shelley!). Ash’s playful, tongue-in-cheek brew of Russian history, folklore and myth explores age-old moral dilemmas in a plot as tricky and unpredictable as a Gypsy tarot reading. Fans will look forward to the ultimate confrontation between blood-sucking firebirds and humans in book three.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

After nearly killing the woman he loves, Gavril Nagarian succeeds in extricating himself from the bond that has tied him, body and soul, to a dragon-daemon. But in so doing, he betrays his countrymen, for without the daemon, Gavril is just an ordinary man, lacking magical powers and unable to defend his small holding against Eugene, would-be emperor of the five princedoms. Eugene wants more than a crown, however; he wants power and revenge, and when he unlocks the fabled Serpent's Gate, he gets all that he desires and, perhaps, a bit more than he can handle. He quickly learns that the power of the Drakhaoul can destroy not only his enemies but also his new empress and unborn child, his adored and badly crippled daughter--in short, everything he cares for. Even his own life is imperiled. But as the daemon gains strength and power, becoming one with its host, Eugene begins to lose sight of his most precious gift, his own human heart. Solid, wonderful fantasy, sparkling and imaginative! Paula Luedtke
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 480 pages
  • Publisher: Spectra; 1ST edition (August 3, 2004)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 055338211X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0553382112
  • Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,056,431 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

7 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.6 out of 5 stars (7 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars This series continues to improve as the story gains depth, September 13, 2004
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This review is from: Prisoner of the Iron Tower (The Tears of Artamon, Book 2) (Hardcover)
I enjoyed this novel more than I did the first book in this series, and read it quite quickly. The story moves along at a brisk pace with a steady character development for all the main players in the story with no noticeable slow patches in the plot pacing.

By ridding himself of the Drakhaon Gavril Nagarian appears to have gained personal freedom for himself. However, he has left his country fatally weakened to Prince Eugene's ambition. Gavril and those he loves will pay a price higher than he ever imagined for his freedom from his daemon and by the end of this novel the whole world will stand on the brink of disaster as old secrets and their promise of power become unravelled.

I'm looking forward to book 3 of this series, which I assume is the final volume. It will be interesting to see how these storylines resolve as these characters grow on you as you are alternatively appreciative and appalled by their actions.

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderfully Unpredictable!, September 9, 2004
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This review is from: Prisoner of the Iron Tower (The Tears of Artamon, Book 2) (Hardcover)
This was an excellent follow-up to the Lord of Snow and Shadows. I expected this book to be fairly linear in plot, however I was pleasantly surprised at the many twists and turns the author led us through in this adventure. I found myself being constantly surprised at the increasingly complicated plot and Sarah Ash has done a wonderful job of letting us understand how each character feels. The Drakhoul is less demon and more tortured soul in this book. We learn more about its origins and history; I hope Sarah goes into this in more detail in the next volume.
The end was very dramatic and the cliffhanger ending will definitely have me coming back for the third installment.
I recommend this book to all fantasy lovers, although do keep in mind that there are many characters and different points of view and it can sometimes be difficult to keep everyone's story straight. Excellent adventure!
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars A bit of a muddle, May 8, 2005
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This review is from: Prisoner of the Iron Tower (The Tears of Artamon, Book 2) (Hardcover)
I finished this book feeling a bit bemused. That came as no real surprise, as I remember having the same reaction to the first book in the series. It's not bad fantasy, by any means, but it seems to me that the characters are so shallow and erratic that bemusement is a reasonable response to the story.

Gavril, the hero of the novel, can always be counted on to do the right thing for others, unless he's too busy reacting to events and just can't find the time. After escaping from the tower, he goes home to rest and instead ends up overexerting himself in the cause of Smarnan independence. He then messes around for days in the company of the rebels, leaving his druzhina (to whom he owes greater loyalty, one would think) to the tender mercies of the Tielens until his men nearly get crushed in a mine collapse. He's similarly uninterested, at first, in his lady love Kiukiu, having been instantly smitten by one of the Smarnan rebels. And Gavril seems strangely incapable of planning for the predictable results of his transformations into the dragon; he knows he'll need to drink blood afterward, but he just lets the need build up until he goes wild, rather than nipping a bit here and there so that he'll be able to control himself better. It's not consistent with his good guy persona that he'd *still* be in denial and handle his physical needs so badly.

Then there's Kiukiu, who also spends all of her time reacting to events. In the first book, Gavril's mother got herself into trouble by trusting everyone she ran across; in this book, it's Kiukiu's turn to exhibit this irritating personality trait. For reasons that are never explained, she implicitly trusts the Magus, in spite of the fact that he's been working for the Emperor (Gavril's archenemy) for years. Thus he is able to dupe her over and over again, until she needs some serious rescuing. When she's not in need of rescue, however, she's a Spirit Singer of enormous power who can do nearly anything even though she's only been in training for a brief time.

The Emperor Eugene doesn't make any better sense. While he's busy opening primary schools and generally behaving like an enlightened monarch, he keeps a wizard as his closest advisor (think Napoleon meets Rasputin), and he's trying to get himself possessed by a demon of his own. There seems to be a contradiction here, one that would make a person with more than two thoughts in his head pause for a moment to try to figure out what kind of empire he's really trying to create. Eugene doesn't pause, however; he leaps into the life of the demon-possessed with gusto, never reflecting on possible consequences. That's just silly.

Then there are the small illogicalities and inconsistencies that detract from the plot: after Gavril returns to human form, his clothes are always shredded and he loses his shoes. Nevertheless, he can wander without being noticed through the imperial palace afterward, where such attire (or lack thereof) would be likely to draw some attention. And how to explain the fact that the 'new' demon who possesses Eugene is actually more powerful than Gavril's? Does it make sense that an old saint would be able to banish a more powerful demon, but find himself incapable of defeating a lesser one? I suspect the point here is to portray Gavril as the underdog in the ensuing fight, which makes sense from an emotional point of view. It just makes no logical sense.

Reading these books is ultimately a frustrating experience, and will probably remain so unless you have a deep and abiding interest in matters sartorial. If you don't care what people are wearing, and like your characters to make sense, I can't recommend this series. It might be worth checking out from the library, but you ought to spend your money elsewhere.
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