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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
decent but anticlimatic close to trilogy, March 14, 2005
The Shadow Roads bring the Swans' War to a somewhat satisfying close, but its many weaknesses lessen the impact it might have had. The strength is the backstory--the sense of myth surrounding the three children of Wyrr, Death walled away into his own world, stories of loss and transformation. When Russell spends time in this area, whether in detail or just tangentially, it lends a sad sense of grandeur and depth to the work as a whole. Unfortunately, this strength is negated by too many weaknesses.
One is that the characters become more pallid as we come to the end of the story, rather than more intense as should be the case after having spent three books' worth of time with them. Shadow Roads follows the by-now-familiar multi-stranded structure of most fantasy, with frequent shifts of perspective and setting. But none of them really catch fire. There are so many characters that the individual impact of any one is diluted, and we are all too often too quickly whisked away from one to the other. It isn't that the story is too complex (except one area to be discussed), but that it's too thinly spread. We simply don't spend enough time with any of them to care much about them. And some characters are simply dragged along with little to say or do, so that one wonders why the editor didn't tell Russell to either kill them off or send them home with a message.
The plot is mostly two-fold: the quest to beat Hafydd to a place where he can set in motion the release of Death and the quest to resolve the ongoing and more mundane war between the Renne's and the Wills. The first story is pretty straightforward though it suffers from a somewhat plodding pace (too much time describing river travel that is too similar to previously described river travel), some superfluous characters and plot-lines that are mostly just dropped in and forgotten (perhaps setting up future works?), and an abrupt close with a deus ex machina resolution that is very anti-climatic. The second story, dealing with the more mundane war, suffers from complexity for complexity's sake, where too many people with the same last names have double-crossed or pretended to double-cross too many other people with the same last names who also double-crossed . . . and so on. It's unnecessarily complex and simply slows the pace and lessens the impact. And here again, the ending is a bit too pat.
All the way through this series, it felt as if it had greater potential than it was actually achieving, with strong prose and at times strong character/myth creation lifting it up out of the sense of average fantasy one often had while reading it, just in time to keep the reader going. The Shadow Roads keeps the strong descriptive prose (too much so at times) and the myth-sense is as strong as ever or even stronger, but it can't save the book from its other flaws. It isn't a bad book, but one certainly feels it could have been much better. Something I'd say about the series as a whole.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An atonement of sorts?, October 19, 2004
Have you ever read a book where the author is so vivid in describing a setting that it affects your mood while reading it? Say you're reading about a festival and the author is so good that you not only feel like you're there, but you feel your spirits rise as the author describes the surroundings? Sean Russell is that kind of author. Unfortunately, it can work against him, too. In The Isle of Battle, a large part of the action takes place in an oppressive swamp, so dank and dreary that it affects the reader as well. That's the only explanation I can think of for why I disliked that book so much. Perhaps I was a bit too harsh on it. I still stand by the review, but perhaps the tone was a bit too critical.
What can account for this change? I just finished The Shadow Roads, the final volume in The Swans' War. With one book, Russell has made up for everything that was wrong with The Isle of Battle. The prose is still evocative, but this time the story keeps up with it. While Russell still doesn't give us the story motif that I so loved in The One Kingdom, he also doesn't just pay it lip service as he did in the second book. I was amazed at how good this book was, and it seems all Russell had to do was get the story out of the swamp.
War between the Renne and the Wills has exploded with an invasion of the Isle of Battle. While this conflict simmers, however, a war of a different kind is taking place. A war to prevent the specter of Death from washing over the One Kingdom. Three ancient sorcerers, their spirits inhabiting new bodies, have awoken and vie for the power over Death itself in a war that goes back thousands of years, to the formation of the One Kingdom itself. Hafydd, dark knight and the new host for the evil Caibre, is trying to awaken Caibre's father and open the gateway to Death's domain. Caibre's brother and sister, inhabiting bodies of their own, race through the shadowy lands to stop him. If they can't, it won't matter what happens between the two families. There won't be anybody left in the world to worry about it.
There are so many things to recommend about The Shadow Roads, but the best thing is still the prose. Russell has a way with description that I have only seen matched by Barbara Hambly, but in a much different way. Hambly describes the everyday surroundings of her characters. Russell concentrates more on the world itself.
Russell doesn't just evoke the setting, though. His descriptions of battle scenes are vivid, too. They make you feel like you are there, experiencing everything the character is.
The characters are another strong point in The Shadow Roads. They all grow to some extent, and all have three dimensions. The Valemen, who were innocents in The One Kingdom, have grown hardened to the violence that they have been forced into, yet they still contain that kernel of their former selves, sickened by what it is they must do to survive. None of them come through this crucible the same as they went in. It affects them in logical ways, with some tragic consequences as well. Cynddl, the Fael storyfinder, is also extremely well done. As they journey through the shadows, he is almost overcome with the horrible stories that he can feel emanating from the ground that has been host to many atrocities through the ages. His final act in the book is extremely touching and fitting the character that we've seen throughout the series, a final gift that is logical in hindsight but one I never saw coming. There are too many characters to name, but not one of them is a cardboard cutout.
The only mild complaint I have about The Shadow Roads is the climax of the story, which is comes a little out of left field. I didn't think it was necessary for the character who commits the final act to have done so, as I found the character's arc interesting by itself without having to have been involved in the ultimate resolution. Also, while I think the story motif came full circle in this book, it still felt a little detached. In The One Kingdom, the motif was as much a part of Russell's narration as it was a part of the story. This time, it's an element of the story but Russell doesn't really get the reader involved in it. There's no message to it like there was in the first book, where Russell appeared to be saying that life is a series of personal stories that sometimes interact with others' stories. This time, Cynddl's storyfinding is just part of the plot.
Sean Russell has saved his Swans' War series with this conclusion, making it well worth getting through the second book to get to it. His world-building is wonderful, his descriptions of the various lands our heroes travel through put you into the story, and the politics in the "real world" make an interesting contrast to the mystical elements that everybody else is dealing with. I was reading a discussion of George R.R. Martin and his Song of Ice & Fire series, and somebody said that The Swans' War series took some good influences from Martin. I can't help but agree. Go out and get this series now. You'll be glad you did.
David Roy
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sean Russell hits a grand slam with Shadow Roads, November 1, 2004
The Shadow Roads, Sean Russell's conclusion to his first trilogy is truly wonderful. I was so sad when the book ended, even though I ripped through the last 100 pages in one sitting. I am not going to describe what happens in this story - you can find a summary in lots of places. Instead I will tell you why this is such a great story.
Other's have mentioned Russell's incredible prose and ability to describe the world and write believable characters. I agree with this completely and would add how much I love his ability to create such intricate and convoluted plots. Just when you think the story is going to go one direction, it turns on a dime and heads off down another path. For example, at the end of the second book (Isle of Battle), Hafydd, a sorcerer, gets a magical jewel that starts to change him. I was sure this was going to develop into a major change in his character and affect the plot. Instead, Hafydd realizes that this jewel is affecting him and he gives it to another character to study its affects on that character. This is just one example. This book meanders like the river that runs through the story. There is nothing sentimental about the characters and their relationships, just real camaraderie, real anger, real love, real danger, and lots of real action!
I only have a few complaints about this particular book. One is that it seems not quite done. I am sure the efforts it takes to make a deadline are difficult, but it is clear to me that this book needed some more work. There are places where the wrong character's name is written by accident (Tam for Carl), and their are places where the plot skips in a jarring way - like there was a sequence that Russell intended to write, but then never did. In spite of these minor annoyances, I am glad the book was released as is. I have been waiting for it for the last two years and when I saw that it was to be released two days after my birthday, I jumped for joy. What a great birthday present!
Another complaint I have, is that this book - this series really, has so many characters and so many complicated plot twists, Russell fails to develop them all to a satisfying degree. The first book (The One Kingdom) is most in control, and the most well developed. The second book introduces and/or develops a whole different group of characters, which continue into the third book. There are even few more characters added in this book. Russell has done an amazing job tying it all together. Particularly the end I thought was amazingly successful. However, there is a lot here that feels unresolved, or too simply resolved. It seems like he just bit off more than he could chew, or he needed to chew it a bit longer. I am sure the publishing industry has no patience for that, but I would love to see him refine these books more - especially the second one, but this one too as an extension of the second one. If he could improve the stories at little bit- bring it up one notch, I would say this trilogy would rival Tolkiens.
In spite of these few complaints, I loved this series. The books thoroughly engaged me and I am depressed that they are over and I have read all of Sean Russell's other books. It is mind boggling how he conceived and developed such an amazing, complicated, character rich, magical, epic story. Go Sean Russell!
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