Customer Reviews

Raven Warrior

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

 

 

Lurid, disjointed, unfulfilling...Her Wolf books are interesting and Dragon Queen was written well enough that I bought Raven in hardback, but this book is a bit offensive. She uses sex as filler and her use of modern language sets the wrong tone and jangles the nerves. Some sequences in the book are interesting, but most are too dreamlike to make sense or just plain stupid, ie the big cat talking and licking himself, etc...

I loved The Dragon Queen, but this book has really confused me, there are so many different people with all different adventures that it gets really muddled up. Sometimes, I don't even know how the character got to a certain place and I thought I had missed something, so I go back and check, but still if confuses me. Some of the things like the "War Song" I have no idea what it is.... maybe more decription in parts of the story and less in others? That may help!

After reading Dragon Queen, I was disappointed by this book. There's some awesome parts, but like in her other books, I notice that she has the tendency to sometimes focus and expand unimportant scenes (or scenes which don't really have anything to do with the main plot) while briefly describing more important and relevant ones.

I found Guinevere's journey to the other world to be boring and unneccessary. Sure, she's supposed to gain allies and stuff, but this part of the book would have been more enjoyable if Ms. Borchardt spent as much time fleshing out her relevant scenes as she did the filler scenes. I mean, this book honestly was more filler than plot, so by the end of the book I felt terribly let down and disappointed, since it didn't really feel as if anything was resolved. Yeah, the scenes were beautifully described and it was easy to imagine the surroundings, but at times, I found myself growing very impatient with the plodding and disorganized plot.

Sadly, we will never know what happens, because Ms. Borchardt died before she could finish the third book. Given the disjointed quality of the first two books of this Guinevere trilogy, perhaps we're better off drawing our own conclusions as to what happens to Arthur and Guinevere.

This was an incredibly disappointing and silly book! I recently picked up "The Dragon Queen" at the library and found it to be a nice addition to all the Guinevere-Arthur-Merlin genre (which - I have to admit - I am a real sucker for - and hence why I continued to read this book after the first 50 pages). Unfortunately, I have to agree with most of the other reviews about "The Raven Warrior" - this book is choppy, confusing, filled w/ ridiculous fantastical events and over-the-top silly sex scenes, not to mention bland language & meandering stories. Because she skipped around so much from character to character, and because she was following too many characters, it was easy to get lost as to the many story lines. If you're expecting a continuation of The Dragon Queen, this book does not provide it. Instead, the writing seems to be almost totally unrelated to the stories/characters in that book. I've never read a Harlequin romance, but I would imagine some scenes to be comparable in depth and substance. There were times when I felt embarrassed both for (a) myself for actually reading the book & (b) for the author for putting pen to paper!!!! I can't help but wonder why Borchardt felt she had to embellish this novel so outrageously. Perhaps she decided to follow her sister's writing style (Rice's Vampire Chronicles - which I've never read)? Whatever she was thinking, it was really a failure. Where were her editors?

I found The Dragon Queen at my local library and enjoyed reading it very much. I then picked up The Raven Warrior and although I made it through the book, I was disappointed in the modern dialogue that permeated the book. I will probably read the third book when it comes out, but hope she focuses on the action rather than the attempts to be witty, which are totally inappropriate for this genre of book.

Usually when I read Alice Borchardt's books I read them within a day or two unable to put the book down. This book took over a week for me to read. The story was interesting but poor writing with unnecessary details at times, not enough details at other times and many, many misspelled words hindered it. The author frequently gave details about the main characters, environments, and backdrop characters that did not pertain to the plot of the story, character development or scenery. This ultimately hindered my comprehension of the story.

This story tells five peoples' tales at once (Guinevere, Arthur, Lancelot, Uther and Igrane). Each person's story had transitions I was unable to follow. For example, a person would leave one place and go to the next. It was difficult at times to figure out how and when the person went to the next place and how they got to that place. So, I would logically conclude I had skipped something and go back and read it over again finding that I didn't miss one thing. Alice Borchardt didn't inform us how the transition occurred.

I have read all of Alice Borchardt's works and I enjoyed each one. This book makes me wonder. I wonder if there was an editor for this book. I wonder if Alice Borchadt was under a time crunch or had a personal misfortune occur while writing this book. I wonder if all her other books were as poorly written as this one. While I have given plenty of negative feedback, I believe the actual story once you get past the bad writing was excellent. I was sad that it was such a difficult read.

I have just read both of the Gwynhwyfar books and am very pleased with the departure from traditional roles for the characters. I did greatly enjoy reading them both and will anxiously await the next one in the trilogy. However, I do agree with a couple of reviews I had read that cite the difficult, quick and awkward transitions from one idea to the next. BAM, and you're in another world and you're not really sure who is speaking. I think the author could have made these changes more obvious and easier to comprehend without losing the intelligent tone of the work. It's worth reading, but one must pay attention.

Alice Borchardt continues to prove her skill in this book, weaving the threads of much-told legend into an epic tale entirely her own.

Loosely based on the mythos of King Arthur, hardly recognizable in the first, this starts to bring the story into focus. Gwenevere leads raids upon Saxon pirate strongholds, proving herself a worthry queen, before escaping into another world, with a fantastic city-state kept alive and partly made out of an immense tree. Black Leg, wolf/man shapeshifter, travels with an immortal lover, the Lady of the Rivers, to his own new worlds, taming evil ravens and teaching them humanity, before coming back to his own world to become a warrior, the new Lancelot. Uther narrowly escapes death in his quest to reunite Britain under his kingship, wresting control in the process from the southern lords. Arthur heals his subjects in the land of the dark King Bade, braving magical attempts on his life in his slow quest to the tower.

And in the end, the three fated ones come together - Arthur, Lancelot, Gwenevere - imbued with awesome strength, magic, and intelligence, to lead their people to salvation.

The first thing I noticed about the book was that I was immediately drawn in, almost forced to continue reading page by page no matter what pressing needs were on me. Borchardt uses highly descriptive language, painting a sensory landscape even amidst the harshest of battles. There's always a confident mixture of description, thought, movement, words, and emotion, to keep the story moving, rarely faltering. Perhaps, at points, it moves too fast, important events left without detail, inviting confusion.

The language her characters use may be more formal than commonly seen now, but speeches are rare, and works well in the setting. The only noticable problem is that different areas and worlds never seem to have different dialects or mannerisms; instead all seem to share a common tongue. And none the major characters seem to have a consistent style of speech, but shift back and forth. The only truly distinct voices were the Lady, because hers was so modern and sardonic, and Ure, so reticent.

Although Arthur is almost painfully underdeveloped (from destined warrior-king to destined warrior-king), featured in only a few scenes, other characters are given time to grow and mature, and there are few enough threads that the plot mostly stays cohesive and nuanced. Until magic takes over and all becomes psychadelic, scenes shifting in unpredictable ways, flowing from thought to reality, leaving you wondering if a line was accidentally deleted somewhere. Each of them explore fantastic worlds, learning to harness powerful magic and weapons, gathering allies, and learning the deepest secrets of the world. Gwenevere defeats more and more powerful foes. Black Leg gathers all the knowledge of the ancients. His other explorations into the past, especially with the dead, are quite interesting.

This being Gwenevere's story, her segments are always from her point of view, the others third, an interesting way to point out the true focus. The other important characters - Arthur and Lancelot - are focused on getting back to her, more than anything. Her quest is definitely the most exciting, the most difficult, and the most winding.

Perhaps my biggest tiff with the book is the sex. I'm no prude, and I understand that an earthy author like Borchardt is willing to portray quite lustful people. But the book is drenched in sex, from beginning almost to end. It finally starts to leave once the violence takes its place. Black Leg and the Lady spend most of their time rolling, sex becomes the most important transfer of magical power, the most important way to defeat someone, and even a source of endless violent pasttime for some. The emphasis on Gwenevere's virginity, both her need to keep it for Arthur and others' need to despoil her, can be a bit much at points. Along with the long and silly references to fiery groins, burning need, and the future of the world springing from the queen's loins. Ranging from only obliquely stated to graphically described, the sex is simply overwelming at times, and I'd have liked it toned down.

But it is still a book well worth reading, as long as one isn't squeamish. There is magic, horror, and salvation, and a grand quest leading all toward certain doom or lasting triumph. Trials, uncertainties, desire, and adrenaline. Pick it up if you can.

Alice Borchardt is one of my favourite authors, one of my top ten, actually my top five to be honest. This book however, knocked her down a few notches. I can usually read her books in a day or two, usually a day since i'm so excited to be reading her newest novel, and they're all so well written usually. With this one however I struggled through it for over a week, I found that I had to actually force myself to finish reading it. The problems:

~ She jumped around way to much, with this novel she was telling the tales of a ton of people and the transitions from one part to another was just awful in my opinion. i foudn taht there were just some parts of this novel i simply could not follow no matter how much I tried, and i was forced to just make my own guess as to how they ended up some where or why there were doing some particular activity. Characters seemed to just simply disappear, it would mention them going somewhere to go and get something and they would just disappear never be heard from again, and they weren't minor characters even.
~Minor parts of the story were overdeveloped and then the important parts were so underdeveloped that you have no clue what's going on. A prime example of this is when Black Leg is in the garden with the lady of the lake. The flowers and the gardens are explained with such exquisite detail that I could probably draw the flowers with my eyes closed, but beyond what the flowers looked and sounded like I had absolutely no clue what was going on.

Now don't get me wrong, I still liked this book, or atleast the general plot of this book. I just feel that in general she stretched herself really thin with all the different story lines at once. I think if she had simplified some parts or even cut out a character or two it would have been a million times better. Acutally by best idea of what she could do is to have different novels telling the entire story from their point of view, instead of shoving them all in the one novel. It feels as though borchardt was rushed in writing this which way may account for the rushed and choppy feel of the book, or maybe this is simply the way she writes and the editor was slacking off on the job. Whatever the reason I hope this is just a one time failure and her next book lives up to the expectations she set up with her previous novels.

In the Highlands, the Queen of the Dragon People Guinevere believes she must attack the Saxons before they overwhelm her country though she expects little help from her subordinate chiefs. She knows that only her childhood friend Black Leg would truly support her. However, to prove that he deserves to sit along side his beloved, Black Leg continues his quest somewhere in the south where he meets the Lady of the Lake. The queen receives exactly what she anticipated when her subordinate chiefs sham loyalty by giving her a force of losers that have no chance of success. Still Guinevere realizes that doing nothing concedes control of the North Sea and the land to their enemy.

Guinevere's first excursion as a warrior queen is against experienced pirates who have the home court advantage. Knowing that her motley crew has no chance, she dives into the realm of dark magic to enlist the spirits to abet her force though Guinevere knows she may being a high cost by being tainted by the power of dark magic.

Alice Borchardt is earning the reputation as the twenty-first century Arthurian bard with tales like THE DRAGON QUEEN and now THE RAVEN WARRIOR. The action-packed story line is mostly told from the perspective of Guinevere though readers also follow the adventures of the shapeshifter Black Leg. Other key charcaters from Camelot play pivotal roles. Though it is better to read the previous tale to gain greater understanding of Guinevere and Black Leg, this book stands alone as a fresh novel filled with many fantasy elements yet much of the same magic that makes the Round Table still a legend to the Harry Potter crowd.

Harriet Klausner