9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good follow up novel, January 6, 2005
This review is from: The Rite (Forgotten Realms: The Year of the Rogue Dragons, Book 2) (Mass Market Paperback)
This novel doesn't differ too much from the first novel.
Lots of dragons, action, and good storytelling.
The storyline flows fairly well and the characters
become more defined. Easy, entertaining read.
What i didn't like:
Would have been more realistic
to have seen 1 or 2 main characters bite the dust
when you consider some of the situations involved in the novel.
It almost boggles the mind how some of them survived or how
some actions taken were even possible.
ex. The snow dwarf getting on a silver dragon w/o some kind
of saddle/mount and then being able to shoot arrows while
in midst of aerial combat. Possibly using game mechanics, it
might be explained but it's not very feasible. Small things
like this distracted me from time to time.
Overall, a very solid read. A can't miss forgotten realms novel
thats integral to the timeline.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Byers keeps the story moving, August 14, 2005
This review is from: The Rite (Forgotten Realms: The Year of the Rogue Dragons, Book 2) (Mass Market Paperback)
This is the middle book of the Year of the Rogue Dragons trilogy. As such parts of the story need to be moved along and things set up for what will surely be a great final installment.
Byers follows through on all accounts and does a fantastic job of keeping the story going without recycling things used in the first book. As you read this one you can sense things coming to a head in the next book. You can almost anticipate what is going to happen in book three, the the second you do there is a twist that makes you rethink all that you thought before.
All-in-all this is a very good middle book and makes me eagerly anticipate the third in this very good trilogy.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
It's also what you don't read that makes it interesting., May 14, 2011
In preparation / while waiting for
The Spectral Blaze: Brotherhood of the Griffon, Book III to come out, I decided to reread The Year of Rogue Dragons series (since some characters from The Year of Rogue Dragons are in the series and others referenced).
I originally read through the series when it was first published and essentially remembered how the story went but forgot a lot of the key details. I like how Byers splits up the characters in this installment and develops a series of stories that converge near the end. I found the twists within the stories creative (especially what the ogre does to Pavel) and also enjoyed how he works in so many "unique" types of dragons. One thing that may take away from the book as a whole is that Taegan's story can get a bit slow at parts. However, it does serve to better define him as a character and add depth to his character; still, I could have done with one less chapter in the midst of his story.
As always, I respect the broad vocabulary Byers has (which is another reason I was glad to reread the series on my Kindle). Likewise, as he's careful to use words with Old English etymology, even that helps set and define the world around the characters.
One aspect of this book - and the series on a whole - that I really admire is how little we see the antagonist. I think this is quite clever and also adds to humanize him (which I realize is a totally ironic statement). Byers respects the reader to realize what the antagonist is up to and fill in the rest on our own. As we see in the epilogue from the previous book, the antagonist is a very flawed character and almost a "tragic villain" - if there can be such a thing.
I like this series and its characters so much that I know it won't be too long before I read it through again.
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