Customer Reviews

Steelflower (Steelflower Chronicles, Book 1)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I bought this on a lark when looking for something to read while out of town not expecting too much. I must say I was pleasantly surprised! The book is narrated by the protagonist; an outcast elf cast adrift in a hostile world. The females of her race are gifted with Power and are "twinned" with a male partner. Kaia was born without Power and has made her way as a mercenary, thief, assassin or a combination thereof. Things get sticky when she picks the wrong pocket...
The story kept my interest and I polished it off in record time! The story moves along briskly with nary a lag while finishing up the plot. Some weaknesses exist however; there are too many confusing terms presented in the "elvish" language, the culture is ill defined in the beginning, but does eventually get developed. There looks to be more in this series and I look forward to reading them despite some minor drawbacks.

I bought this book right after it hit Amazon and then I put it on my TBR pile because I was nervous about reading it. From the back cover blurb, it's the kind of sword and sorcery novel that can either be good or bad, no middle ground. Now, I am a fan of Ms. Saintcrow's work so I had high hopes, but still I hated to disappointed. Even a good author can have off books, and I was too nervous to immdiately take the risk.

I should have been brave and waded right in because I was not disappointed in the least. There are all the elements that I have come to expect from Ms. Saintcrow's books: characters I care about, a vivid and well developed world, and a twisty plot that is tightly built.

One thing I found particularly interesting was her use of language ideas from her heroine's native tongue. So often when dealing with sword and sorcery novels, foreign names and words are thrown around as some sort of exotic spice with no thought to linguistic intergrity. Apostrophes are plunked into the middle of words just to make them look a little foreign. I usully find this particularly annoying and was very happy to see that Ms. Saintcrow's apostrophes were used correctly from a linguistic standpoint and like the rest of her novel, the details of language were well thought out.

Now, obviously for most people language use and developement are not going to be critical elements of the story, but this is all to say that her non-English words will not detract from anyone's enjoyment. What details she adds, whether they are about language or hair styling, are all important to the characters and story. Each new detail adds to the overall richness. Frankly, once I started this book, it was so well written and developed that I simply could not put it down. To fans of sword and sorcery style fantasty, I can highly recommend this novel.

Here's the deal with this book as I see it. If you're looking for epic fantasy, high brow world building (which I thoroughly enjoy)...look elsewhere. There's not a lot of depth here.

If you're looking for a quick read that won't task your brain much, this book is ideal and the reason I picked it up. I would read this while commuting or just to kill some time without a lot of mental commitment.

You've got your standard skillful but emotionally stunted heroine and her dark brooding partner (very similar to Dante Valentine and her demon) but it's set in a regular fantasy world instead of the semi-techy one of the Dante series.

I enjoyed most of the characters in the book but they ARE broadly drawn. And I have to agree with reviewers who did not like the illustrations in the book. They are not very good. These drawings reminded me of the ones my friends and I used to draw in Jr High!

The language parts weren't that big of deal for me as I didn't dwell too much on it. I enjoyed it overall and would read the next book in the series if there is one, but please no more illustrations.

What a disappointment. I was sort of used to Ms. Saintcrow's inconsistency in the quality of her writing, but in this case the three pictures in the book (WHY?????????????) really put me off. It turned out to be an okay story, but those pictures looked like they were drawn by a five-year old who had watched a marathon of bad Star Trek episodes. They really interferred with imagining attractive and interesting characters.

This book also suffered from the same bad editing that afflicts most of Ms. Saintcrow's books.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I opened Steelflower. The cover art looked like your standard urban fantasy cover: a feisty female with an exotic looking sword, shot from the back. The plot description on the back cover sounded like someone's novelization of a roleplaying game -- elvish sellsword meets crude barbarian and they join up to defeat the evil badguy -- but what I found inside was a fun sword and sorcery style romp with interesting main characters and non-stop action.

The thief and assassin known as Steelflower is actually Kaia, a G'mai (elf) who leaves her home country after being shunned by her people for ten years because she lacks Power. The G'mai are bred to possess power, and can only operate it in twinned pairs, a female adai and a male starei. The female works magic, and the starei protects her, both from herself as well as others. The G'mai are paired off fairly young in their lives, and these pairings are permanent, and function as marriages as the children age. If they are separated from each other, either because of distance or death of one of the pairing, they sicken and die. Kaia is orphaned as a five year old when her mother dies of an illness, and her father dies shortly thereafter from the loss. Because Kaia doesn't have Power, she doesn't have a function in G'mai society, and ends up leaving to find her fortune in other lands. But when a G'mai male appears in her life, insisting that she is his adai, it changes her entire life.

The plot of Steelflower isn't particularly original or innovative, though I do particularly like the paired magic system of the G'mai, but where Steelflower shines is in the relationship between Kaia and her would-be starei Darik. Kaia has been away from her people for years, and when this handsome G'mai shows up to tell her new and interesting details about her past, she doesn't automatically accept him and his story. Steelflower manages to have a lot of action while most of the conflict is actually character driven, as Kaia struggles to decide what to do with Darik and his claims about her relationship with him. The ongoing internal conflict provides most of the tension in the book. For all the action, there really isn't a villain until almost the last 50 pages of the book.

Steelflower does have some weaknesses. Outside of the two main characters, the supporting cast is really underdeveloped. I kept getting characters confused as more people were added to the story. The prose at times was awkward and poorly edited, and there were times I had to stop and read the same sentence multiple times to figure out what was being said. The most egregious flaw, however, was the abysmal artwork in the book. These drawings look like something Napoleon Dynamite did with a number two pencil in math class. They actually threw me out of the narrative flow of the story as I would try to reconcile what was in the drawing with the mental picture in my head. This book is the start of a series, and I am begging the powers that be to not include artwork in the future.

Steelflower is not great fiction, but it's a fun light read with interesting main characters. I'm interested in seeing where the story will go from here, since it was left with many possible courses of action for the protagonist to follow. Steelflower is a great choice for reading with a cold drink at the beach or by the pool this summer.

I really enjoyed this book. I purchased it on the Kindle as a fill-in until the next Jill Kismet novel came out. I really, really liked this book. Kaia essentially comes from the school of hard knocks - her life has not been what one would call a bowl of cherries! As a child, Kaia lost her mother and the loss settled a silence over her (later revealed). As a result, when she came of age for the testing of power amongst the young females, she did not demonstrate any power. This singular event irrevocably changed the direction of her life and is critical to who she becomes. A series of events occurred leading her to believe she was outcast and she left her homeland to make her own way in the world, again as a child. We enter her life as an adult and she is an accomplished thief, female Robin Hood type, assassin, and warrior living by her wits and her sword arm. Enter the Barbarian - a great character surrounded by no little mystery himself. Great opportunity for future development there ... Kaia picks his pocket and this starts a series of events shaping the rest of the story. Enter Darik ... a somewhat dashing but dangerous and dark elf from her homeland who also has a secret. Everything goes to Hell in a hand basket for Kaia. Her nicely ordered and understood life on the road and of adventure and (yes) hardship, etc., as well as her complete understanding of herself, etc., changes in an instant. The hows and whys are engrossing and interesting and to say more would spoil the experience. The cast of characters who comprise Kaia's band of misfits is intriguing and character development leading to future stories involving them in lots of potentially interesting ways. Suffice to say, this is a really good book and I am sorry to see that additional books in this series have not been written (this was written in 2007). I can only hope this changes. I really liked this book - as much as the Jill Kismet books - they are just different. I highly recommend the book to everyone - especially if you are already a fan of Lilith Saintcrow's other books. Its a bargain and an engrossing read to boot - just buy it!

I really enjoyed reading this novel. It has a strong, yet vulnerable female protagonist...who overcomes diversity (even within herself and others)while managing to become heroic. If you enjoy reading works from Patricia Briggs, or from Anne Bishop, J.D.Robb, etc...then you will truly have a great time reading this novel! I hope that there is a sequel in the works, that will get published really soon!

This is the first of Lilith Saintcrow's books that I have read, and I enjoyed it very much.
I really liked the character development that it contained and was able to identify with the main character's strong, independent personality. Even with the independence, the writer was right on the money with the emotional insecurity that it often hides.Yes, the main character was too often in denial after some very significant events, but that didn't ruin the story.

A great book and I can't wait for the follow-up.

I thought this book was OK. The premise was fascinating. In Elf culture women have power and are twinned to a male who acts as their bodyguard. Their society is matriarchal and girls are valued.

I enjoyed the tension between our heroine and her long lost male twin. I agree with other reviewrs that the elevn gibberish was confusing. If you are going to make up a language, please give us a guide ta the back of the book to reference. I was confused the first one third of the book regarding the male-female twinning concept. Also it would have been nice to have a map.

This is not great literature but it was a quick and fun way to pass the time. It seems like then ending leaves room for a sequel, although I wonder if book sales will be high enough to justify it.

It is a lot of money to spend on something that leaves you cold.
Some of this author's work is great and most of it is not. Even without the illustrations the character has nothing in common with the cover model. The cover is just wrong. The story is slow, the characters pop up with no background information, and as one reviewer remarked there are a ton of made up words and no information on what they mean. You spend a lot of time trying to figure that out in hopes that it will help with the story.

These books are just not worth the price. This is another author that will go on the list of library requests instead of purchasing.