Sovereign: Keys Of Power #3 [Paperback]

Simon Brown (Author)

Book Description

Series: Keys of Power | Publication Date: October 5, 2004

Prince Lynan was ignored by his family until he inherited the magical Key of Union. Betrayed and driven from his rightful position at court, he was forced into exile. But after war and hardship, Lynan is no longer that callow prince-he will allow nothing to stand between him and his return to the capital...and the throne.

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: DAW (October 5, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 075640200X
• ISBN-13: 978-0756402006
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 3.9 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,387,490 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The end of a fabulous, disarmingly dark fantasy trilogy, May 20, 2005

By 

Daniel Jolley "darkgenius" (Shelby, North Carolina USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sovereign: Keys Of Power #3 (Paperback)

In Sovereign, Simon Brown closes out his Keys of Power trilogy, and I have to say it is one of the most intense, absorbing fantasy series I have ever read, evolving from an entertaining but seemingly pedestrian fantasy adventure about an exiled prince into a shockingly dark tale that left me wondering up through the very last page just how things could possibly turn out in the end. In Inheritance, we first met young Prince Lynan, a youth looked down upon by his royal siblings and largely ignored by his mother the queen because he was the son of a commoner (albeit the greatest general Grenda Lear had ever produced). Framed for regicide, he fled the kingdom in the company of Kumul, his mentor and ex-captain of the palace guard; Ager, a crookbacked soldier who fought alongside Lynan's father in the Slaver War; and a young female magicker named Jenrosa Alucar - and the Key of Unity, one of the four Keys of Power that were distributed among Queen Usharna's four children at the time of her death.

Lynan was young and naïve, but he gradually grew into the true son of his father, a military leader determined to return to Grenda Lear and reclaim what had been stolen from him. Back home, his half-sister Areava, having succeeded to the throne after the murder of her older brother, committed herself to destroying the half-brother she believed guilty of the crime - never realizing that a most treacherous conspiracy involving a neighboring kingdom raged underneath her very nose. In the distant Oceans of Grass, Lynan united the nomadic Chetts and began a civil war that would eventually involve every province across the land of Theare. For the first half of the series, I worked under the assumption that every thing would work out in the end - Lynan was innocent of the crime that sent him into exile, after all. Then, in the latter half of Fire and Sword, Brown hit me with the literary equivalent of a one-two punch that left me reeling in absolute shock at the tragedy and horror unleashed upon all sides of this epic conflict.

Naturally, I could not wait to see how the storyline would evolve in this third and final novel of the trilogy. Even with my blinders now off, I really had no idea how this epic saga would end. Sovereign is filled with both the thrills and visceral horrors of battle. Bloodied by his first encounter with the army of Grenda Lear, Lynan and his Chett allies not only regroup, they expand their war plans diplomatically as well as militarily. Lynan himself is greatly changed, devolving into something both more than and less than human as the life-saving blood of a vicious wood vampire haunts and transforms him into a frightening spectre that fills his enemies - and eventually even his friends - with dread. The once-noble young hero becomes a bloodthirsty killer who displays no mercy to those who stand in his way. His closest friends and allies are powerless to contain him in his madness - not so long as he is prey to the torments of Silona the vampire.

One of the most compelling aspects of this story is the nebulous quality of good and evil on both sides of the conflict. One finds it hard to pull against Queen Areava and the noble prince Olio back in Grenda Lear, for they, like Lynan, are really just victims of the treachery that set the horrors of war in motion. Then there is Primate Powl, who attained his position by murdering the former primate. Despite the man's great sin, he becomes a tragic figure in these pages as he suffers the guilt of knowing he is not the religious leader he should be and searches earnestly for knowledge of his God. In the end, there are only a handful of truly guilty men, and the story finally comes full circle. As Lynan's army nears Kendra, the very capital of Grenda Lear, I honestly had no clue as to how Brown would resolve a story filled with so much pain and sorrow on all sides. Keys of Power is not just another fantasy series - far from it, with its incredibly complex characters, shocking plot twists, and powerfully emotional final showdown.

I only wish this series could have been expanded to some degree. Far too many fantasy series are stretched beyond their means over the course of multiple volumes, but the Keys of Power series only brushes the surface of several fascinating subplots, especially one concerning the true history of the land of Theare, and leaves the reader wanting more. I for one hope Simon Brown returns to Grenda Lear at some point, as I would love to see how a land so decimated by such a tragic and bloody war makes the difficult transition to the future.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A bloodbath of epic proportions, July 15, 2005

By 

not4prophet (North Carolina) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sovereign: Keys Of Power #3 (Paperback)

I thoroughly enjoyed the first two novels in the Keys of Power series, "Inheritance" and "Fire and Sword". But Simon Brown apparently suffered something of a breakdown while rounding out the trilogy with "Sovereign". "Sovereign" is not a bad book so much as a very sloppy one. In the end I didn't feel like writing a negative review. I felt like marking up the book with a red pen and sending it back to Mr. Brown so that he could write a second draft.

For starters the book is rife with spelling and grammer errors. That may be a trivial complaint, but it's hard to get caught up in the story when you have to jump over sentences like:

"Eynon put his ear to the ground but was unable to here the approaching enemy."

Professional authors need professional editors, not just the MS Word spell checker. Moreover, the story is created in a sloppy way. Characters do things that don't make sense, huge stretches of time flow by with nothing happening, and there's no explanation for flawed strategic thinking from just about every side.

The book's biggest problem is the fighting. In fact that's almost the only problem, since the book barely contains anything other than fighting. This book has more raw carnage that anything I've ever read; it makes "Titus Andronicus" look pleasant by comparison. Moreover, the carnage is gratuitous, repetitive, predictable, and often flat-out dumb. For instance:

"The Chett front line crashed into the infantry, hacking off heads and limbs."

"The cavalry rode in among the front line, hacking off heads and limbs until the field was soaked with blood."

And so forth. In truth the entire trilogy was bloody, but "Inheritance" and "Fire and Sword" mixed the battles in with touching personal moments featuring all the main characters. In "Sovereign", the personal side is just plain gone, replaced by yet more lopped limbs and grotesque injuries. A book needs more than just bloodshed to succeed.