Customer Reviews

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

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

 

 

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.

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!

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.

The Prisoner of the Iron Tower shares some flaws with its predecessor, Lord of Snow and Shadows. The characterization remains uneven, with some characters more developed than others and some actions seeming abrupt or out of character. The plot still moves a bit jerkily from scene to scene, lacking full context or a sense of dramatic depth in many places. Despite these shared flaws, though, Prisoner is a deeper, smoother, and overall better book.
One of the reasons I think is that in this book we get a fuller sense of the Drakhaoul, its history, its vulnerability, its longing. There is an added sense of pathos as well as a deeper complexity if the creature is made more "human", as is done in this sequel.
The focus remains on Gavril, no longer possessed by the Drakhaoul but also not quite free of it. Its loss has cost him and his country and one of the questions throughout the book is was the price too high and will Gavril reconsider paying it? The ethics involved are not simple, and they are made more complex by the reader's more intimate knowledge of the creature.
Other characters and events are somewhat familiar, at times too much so. Eugene still seeks to create and hold an empire, still seeks power and revenge, still has a personal grudge against Gavril. As in the first book, he is a tantalizing character in that he should be more fully-formed and more complex than presented; the author still hasn't quite mined his potential. Other characters, Gavrils' mother Elysia, his love Kiukiu, Eugene's bride of conquest Astasia and her believed-to-be-dead brother are all painted a bit too shallowly to do much more than move the plot along. Kiukiu especially is a disappointment, too passive and naive by far. One hopes she strengthens as a character in book three. As in the first book, there are some lost dramatic opportunities due to weak characterization, abrupt shifts, or scenes that just come and go too quickly. She should trust herself to linger a bit more. Also, the physical atmosphere/tone isn't as pronounced as in book one, which is too bad since it added so much to that first book's mood and sense of originality.
If the end is a bit anti-climatic and a bit predictable, it does set up what promises to be a much more interesting third book. Based on the improvement from book one to book two, I'll certainly continue on in the series, more from interest than from, as sometimes happens, the perfunctory need to "complete" a series. Recommended.

It was a OK book but I thought the army sizes could have been larger to be more believable for defending a realm.

The second of the three volumes in the Tears of Artamon series shows some improvement over the first volume. This series is set against a higher tech level than most fantasies, being based roughly on Eastern Europe circa 1700, and the relatively unusual setting should be one of its strengths, but the society was so vaguely described as to negate that strength. The setting is more filled in this time, although still not as realized as it should be.

The characters were entirely one dimensional in the first volume. That's not quite as bad here - some characters, especially Prince Eugene, whose ambition to become emperor over all the five nations of Rossiya drives the plot, are much better realized in the sequel. Unfortunately, Gavril, the central character, isn't as strong as he should be. Some reviewers complain that Kiukiu, his love interest, is too easily manipulated by other characters. That didn't really bother me; since she is described as young and inexperienced it's consistent for the character. But Gavril's mother, who is portrayed as mature, smart, and widely traveled, is equally easily gulled.

In this book, Gavril has been defeated and is imprisoned in an asylum and forced to undergo brutal 'treatments'. Kiukiu is desperate to find Gavril, and her hope of finding him leads her to foolishly trust the villain Kaspar Linnaeus. At the end, Gavril and Kiukiu are reunited, but the prices both have paid may make the reunion meaningless. Meanwhile, Eugene is searching for both a guarantee of his new empire's security and a miracle cure for his beloved daughter, which drives him to a desperate attempt that endangers not only him but the whole world.

This book ends with more of a cliffhanger than a resolution. The books in this trilogy are intended to be read as a unit, and don't work at all as standalones.

Because of the human blood drank by the dragon-daemon Drakhaoul that possesses him, Prince Gavril Nagarian of Azhkendir defeated the invaders led by Prince Eugene of Tielen (see LORD OF SNOW AND SHADOWS). However, to keep his soul human, Gavril rids himself of Drakhaol. The consequence of purging himself of the dragon-daemon is the loss of the power that enabled his country to vanquish the Tielen forces.

Eugene, still dreaming of uniting the entire Rossiyan people under his rule, leads a counterattack, but this time without the dragon, Gavril fails to drive back the enemy. Gavril is locked away at the remote high security Iron Tower, permanent home for the criminal crazies. The obsessed Prince now possesses five of the "tears" ripped from the giant ruby eye of the sculptured dragon that guards the entrance between two worlds. Drakhaoul returns with the uniting of the tears in the eye of the dragon being the only way to send him back to his realm, but the likely person to accomplish this deed remains locked away in a tower of lunatics.

The second tale of the Tears of Artamon trilogy is a fantastic epic fantasy that contains several strong subplots. The key element is that readers will believe the cast is real to include Drakhaoul and the seesawing emotions inundating Gavril as he goes from hero and free to despondent and prisoner. Eugene is also a delightful individual as the audience observes his fixation through the eyes of his disgruntled spouse and others, but believes he is destined to unite the principalities while human cost does not matter to him. Readers will cherish this excellent tale.

Harriet Klausner