Customer Reviews

Saber and Shadow

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

 

 

This is one of the best books in the Fifth Millenium series. The budding romance theme is different from a lot of stories, being about two women.The city of Fehinna is realistic and vivid, from the sewers to the Sun Temple. I was a bit confused about the God-King, but I think that was the idea. I liked the pace of the book, fast but not so fast it's hard to understand; it was fun reading about such thoroughly human characters; they were never goody-goody idealists, particularly Shkai'ra. I wish the authors would write more about the Fifth Millenium.

Saber and Shadow is remarkable in its plot and setting as well, but I found the characters to be its main strongpoint. Megan and Shkai'ra are very well-developed characters, and the authors did not give in to the trend of making the main characters disgustingly idealistic. This book, as someone once said of the Illiad, "embodies all the ethical untidiness of living people." Three cheers for realistic characterization!

I first read this book when I was a teenager back in the early-mid nineties. I just recently read it again, and I found things that I didn't understand the first time. Things like plot details and names.

The fight scenes are really cool, in fact this book and books by author Elizabeth Moon has inspired me to write my own fantasy novels (not published, but in the process) I love reading fantasy stories where the female is a strong character who can hold her own. It gives girls a chance to fantasize about being a warrior for once and not just the boys.

However, the plot took me a while to digest, even the second time around. I found myself having to back track to find out what was going on. And even now there are still instances where I don't know the exact details of what is going on. For example, not to give away too much of the plot, the female general's plans for war. I don't know the exact details and it wasn't explained clearly in the book, so I just accepted the fact that she's declaring war, but not entirely for the reasons she claims. It's little things like these that tend to get in the way of the entire plot. So it's easier to just accept the gist of what's going on and try to figure out everything else. I'd give more examples, but that would give away too much of the plot.

Also when I first read this, I was a teenager in high school, and the idea of a love affair between two women was new to me. I fact the whole IDEA of sex was new to me. Now, about eight years later, I kinda understand it a little more, and find it interesting that the authors would take the relationship of the two main characters to this level. It's not easy to imagine that sort of relationship, but that doesn't mean it can't happen. I'm not shocked, just impressed that they did that.

On the whole, not a bad book, but be prepared to read it a few times if you want to get all the nitty gritty details to really understand stuff. But if you don't, there's enough basic info to give you the general idea

This book has some of the best fight scenes I've read in quite a while; both coherent and quick. That, plus two likeable characters and plenty of baddies to test their mettle made this book fun to read. The descriptions were wonderful and really gave the impression that the story's world a life outside the story, and an ongoing humorous mini-plot didn't detract at all from the more serious goings-on it was only tangentally related to.

I first read this book when I was a teenager back in the early-mid nineties. I just recently read it again, and I found things that I didn't understand the first time. Things like plot details and names.

The fight scenes are really cool, in fact this book and books by author Elizabeth Moon has inspired me to write my own fantasy novels (not published, but in the process) I love reading fantasy stories where the female is a strong character who can hold her own. It gives girls a chance to fantasize about being a warrior for once and not just the boys.

However, the plot took me a while to digest, even the second time around. I found myself having to back track to find out what was going on. And even now there are still instances where I don't know the exact details of what is going on. For example, not to give away too much of the plot, the female general's plans for war. I don't know the exact details and it wasn't explained clearly in the book, so I just accepted the fact that she's declaring war, but not entirely for the reasons she claims. It's little things like these that tend to get in the way of the entire plot. So it's easier to just accept the gist of what's going on and try to figure out everything else. I'd give more examples, but that would give away too much of the plot.

Also when I first read this, I was a teenager in high school, and the idea of a love affair between two women was new to me. I fact the whole IDEA of sex was new to me. Now, about eight years later, I kinda understand it a little more, and find it interesting that the authors would take the relationship of the two main characters to this level. It's not easy to imagine that sort of relationship, but that doesn't mean it can't happen. I'm not shocked, just impressed that they did that.

On the whole, not a bad book, but be prepared to read it a few times if you want to get all the nitty gritty details to really understand stuff. But if you don't, there's enough basic info to give you the general idea

The first book in this series "Shadows Daughter" was excellent, this book however is not. But it also, except for the name of the main character, has almost no relation to the first book at all. The break in characterisation and culture from the first is completely jarring. This is an action book from start to finish and Stirlings heavy hand is all over it. Not that I dislike Stirling, when he is on form he is a good writer, but this book shows him almost at his worst. It was, I think, supposed to be a collaboration with Meier, but ended up being just another Stirling battle and gore fest. As a stand alone Conan with a sex change type novel it is only bearable. As a sequel to an excellent beginning novel it is simply trashy.

I had high hopes for this novel, since it continues the story of the "ethical thief" created by Shirley Meier in Shadow's Daughter. Shadow's Daughter portrayed the development and maturation of Megan Whitlock, a girl making the best of her life when trapped by poverty and subject to the whims of uncaring royalty. However, Saber & Shadow takes a complex character and turns her into a typical moral-free warrior, gleefully maiming or murdering every innocent that crosses her path. This book creates an adventure story interchangeable with that of hundreds of others, composed primarily of bloody chases, "political maneuvering" notable only for its unreadability, and enemies who could have stepped right out of the pages of an "Encyclopedia of Fantasy bad guys." I would classify this book as yet another example of why talented writers should not turn their creations over to authors unable to measure up.

S.M. Sterling is one of my favorite authors...sometimes. He wrote one of the best series of books that I have ever read (the Raj Whitehall series) but he has also written some of the biggest stinkers that I have ever read. He is a very talented author who has a real gift for writing military fiction. Unfortunately he also sometimes has a "gift" for adding unnecessary and disgusting elements to his stories.

This book seemed pretty promising at first. But I was only able to make it to about page 40 before I had to stop reading. At that point in the story is is revealed that the two main characters are lesbians and wouldn't be averse to having sex with each other. I don't know if they consummated their relationship or not because I stopped reading it right there.

Stirling is a very talented author so I really don't see why he has to add these immoral and titillating (pun intended) elements to some of his stories. Some no talent hacks add gratuitous sex to their books to make them sell better but I just don't think Stirling needs to do this. And I am very disappointed because when he has stuff like this in his books I am unable to finish them.