The Seer King [Import] [Paperback]

Chris Bunch (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Orbit; paperback / softback edition (1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1857234898
• ISBN-13: 978-1857234893
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.3 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Energetic with flaws: a mixxxed bag, May 15, 2000

By 

Peter A. Kimball (Chicago) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Seer King (Mass Market Paperback)

This is the opening volume of a war-with-swords-and-magic trilogy, taking place in a somewhat stripped-down world with Roman-empire military technology and also magic and demons.

Let me take care of the sex scenes issue up front. An earlier reviewer was right on the mark when he compared them to "Letters to Penthouse", except, to be precise, they're more like "Letters to Penthouse Variations" in their systematic kinkiness. And they're not there to develop the character or the plot, either. You go along for 50 pages of plot, and then you get a ten page kinky sex scene, sort of like beer commercials in the middle of a football game. I've never seen anything quite like it. It's weird. Well, you can take that as a plus or a minus, it's up to you.

Basically this trilogy is all about war, civil and otherwise. The protagonist, Damastes a Cimabue, is discovered in prison at the beginning of Volume I, expecting to die, penning his reflections on the rise and fall of his career as the friend, tool, and dupe of Tenedos, mage-emperor of Numantia. (Don't get too discouraged, though, that isn't really how the trilogy ends.)

Numantia is an empire which has no emperor, is ruled by a committee, and is unraveling into its component kingdoms. Or so it is when Damastes encounters the Seer (really mage) Tenedos, who has some big ideas but no batallions. Since the book is called "The Seer King", I don't think I'm giving anyway any deep secrets by telling you that through his tactical and strategic abilities Damastes is able to help Tenedos realize some or all of these ideas.

Bunch maintains a lot of energy and is mostly convincing when he is writing about military campaigns, relationships among officers and men, victories, defeats, miserable retreats through lousy terrain, the effects of war on the civilian populace, and so on.

On the minus side, the social-science side of things is pretty weak. In essence this is a world with two empires in it (and some border terrain). There are supposedly some other kingdoms somewhere, but you never find out anything about them. A lot of subject areas just haven't been explored well, such as oceanic trade, supplying the capital city with food, the economic system, the religious infrastructure (you learn about some of the gods, but are there scriptures? disputes? etc.), history, political philosophy, and intellectual pursuits in general. The level of civilization is somewhere between imperial Rome and 17th-century London, but nobody ever reads or writes a book (or scroll).

A huge and powerful secret society of assassins appears, being a sect of demon-worshipers in volume 1, a worker-artisan-peasant alliance in volume 2, and millenarians of some kind in volume 3. And they manage to do this without any aboveground propaganda, organization, etc. Take it from me, it's not that easy to organize even an ordinary secret society, let alone one in which all the thousands of members are fanatical assassins! Of course this is a reflection of Bunch's Viet Nam experience, but it suggests that he never really understood Viet Nam. People don't become VC-style militants just out of mob instinct, without the effects of the social, political, and cultural context.

These things may seem nitpicky, but in my book you have to at least think about these things some to get more than 3 stars.

Then there is the magic. Now, some of it is pretty cool. I kind of like the incantations, with their vague and suggestive wording. And there is some interesting use of substances, like expanding skillets, one boat turned into many boats, that sort of thing.

But when you sit down and try to make sense of it, you start to realize that Bunch has sort of skated over some of the problems. For example, how come nobody else has figured out how to do the stuff that Tenedos does? Is it just that he has more "mana" than anyone ever had in the history of the world before? Or fewer scruples? How come he doesn't use one good spell over and over again, instead of having to create something original for each battle? Although it is crystal clear by the end of Volume 1 that "Great Spells" and the use of demons are as powerful as tactical nukes, how come this has no effect on the organization of armies, states, etc.? How come everyone just organizes for battle the same way as "always", sort of hoping the enemy's next Great Spell won't kill too many thousand? Doesn't technological development induce social change?

Well, that's the sort of thing Bunch would have to address better than he does before he would get top marks from me. Furthermore, since you're going to want to read all 3 books, I think it makes sense to rate the trilogy as a unit. This means that the whole trilogy suffers from the fact that Damastes is so willfully ignorant throughout Volume 2, which I consider to be another defect. However, three stars is not a bad rating in my book.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good start, then..., March 29, 2001

By 

Sparrowhawk (Rio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Seer King (Mass Market Paperback)

Let's tackle this head on: Very graphic sex and fantasy is definitely not your standard bread-and-butter combination. Should you have problem with the former, you don't need to read on & simply forget this book (series) - because there's plenty of it, treading a very fine line between feeling weirdly out of place and actually cutting the edge.

However, if you don't mind, you will be treated to a very deftly written yarn - a young military officer and an equally young wizard that set out to find their destiny, face uncountable dangers & conquer a realm. Not a very innovative plotline - but always very welcome, especially if well written. Chris Bunch does a really neat job here; very down-to- earth, fast-paced, nitty-gritty, blood&sweat&tears, no-frills action garnished with very solid military lore. (I think it's the earthiness of this book that actually let's the sex fit in without feeling too awkward). Bunch succeeds in instilling his protagonists with an unerring sense of urgency, especially Tenedos, on their quest to glory, while far on the horizon dark clouds start to build up (BTW, not a very smooth trick to give THAT away in the prologue of the book). Definitely worth a try ! (i.e. a very solid 4 stars effort).

Unfortunately, that's the good news. If Bunch had slapped on another 150, 200 (tops) pages to tie down all the loose ends, he would have created a very nifty & tight epos. As is, the series starts to nosedive in subsequent volumes. Volume 2 (The Demon King) is basically Napoleon's Russia disaster revisited, with the two main protagonists going jaded or plain nuts and the graphic sex now actually feeling completely out of place. Emotionally a real downer of a book with a downer-ending. Still, by sheer fascinating grimness, close to 3 stars. The final instalment (The Warrior King) got me p...ed off. Somebody from the publishing house must have reminded Chris that there still was a final volume to write and sure enough Chris went ahead and churned out `them pages'. Sloppy plot, uninspired writing, cop-out solutions, tired, programmatic action & finale. So much more could have been done with this. All in all, I think the sex was the most interesting thing this time around. `Nough said ? 1-star effort.

So what do I recommend ? Stick to the first volume - and simply imagine the story ends there. It's not that bad a breaking point, actually...

Sparrowhawk

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hey Reviewers! You say..., March 4, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Seer King (Mass Market Paperback)

Flawed but made up with it's intensity. I read this two years ago and have yet to find a book with the same great combo of sword, sorcery, passion and yes, sex scenes. Hey if I am going to fantasize about swordsmanship and battles, I may as well have the fantasy sex along for the ride as well. Bunch scores big in my book. My only complaint is that his next two books fall short maybe due to my "high" expectations. If you are a guy that can enjoy Maxim magazine for a few laughs without apology, but also have rudimentary reading skills (that eliminates 50% of their subscribers), you'll enjoy this book.