Customer Reviews

The Swordsman's Oath: The Second Tale of Einarinn

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The Swordsman's Oath picks up the tale of trying to deal with the Elietimm from the Ice Islands, in the Spring after the action in The Thief's Gamble. This book centres on Ryshad, a sworn man for one of the mainland Lords, who first appeared about half way through The Thief's Gamble.

Juliet McKenna has an unusual style in this series, the 'focus character' is told in the first person, and the surrounding characters in the third person. In The Thief's Gamble the first person viewpoint was Livak, a thief and gambler, but in the Swordsman's Oath the viewpoint has switched to Ryshad. This is initially disconcerting, especially in scenes with Livak, but I soon settled into enjoying this book. While The Thief's Gamble was good, The Swordsman's Oath is better and Juliet McKenna has clearly matured as a writer.

In The Swordsman's Oath the reason why some old family treasures have some strange properties are fully explored in a very entertaining story, which has its roots hundreds of years in the past. More is also learnt about the Ice Islanders strengths and about possible methods for combating them, but there is definitely no easy answer.

Juliet McKenna writes some very convincing characters, and then puts them in some truly testing situations. Some of the things she does to Ryshad really shouldn't happen to any self respecting warrior. I was also pleased to notice that a secondary character, who first appears in Thief's Gamble, happens to be gay. It doesn't have any bearing on the story, it is just the way he is. This is a pleasing matter for the fantasy genre, where gay characters are relatively rare, and where gayness is far too often the signal for villainy.

She also draws an interesting picture of slavery, and the differences in reactions between that of a lifelong slave and of someone who is enslaved as an adult. This is no sentimental picture supporting slavery, as the effects of the lack of individual rights and freedom is made all too plain, as is the terror of casually applied brutality. However, neither is it an antislavery diatribe with all the slave owners as cardboard cut-out villains, in fact some (but not all) are likeable people. As ever she draws a vivid picture which shows all the sides of a situation. Well written Juliet, more power to your keyboard.

After orienting myself with the switch in the first person character, I found this book thoroughly engrossing. My attention was captured and retained in the first book, The Theif's Gamble, and I was definitely entertained with the strong character of Livak. However, I found this book even more riveting than the first and look forward to what McKenna will do if there indeed is another book in this series as it seems was set up. These books are entertaining and not too far fetched, given the allowance of magic in her world. McKenna has created an avid and thorough history and proves her forethought into this with the multiple letters and passages she provides at the start of each chapter. I highly recommend both books and, if you have only read the first, urge continuance into the intricacies woven in the next chapter of the series.

Having just finished this book about 1/2 an hour ago....I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was disconcerting at first to get used to the main voice being Ryshad instead of Livak, but once I was accustomed to it, I was fine. I enjoyed the glance into the Archepelago culture and Hadrumal. I thought the characters evolved nicely as well...not too quickly and not too wildly. As there is apparently a third book coming out, I hope we find out just WHY the Elietimm are so crazy. I suppose it could be their solitary climate, but I hope there's a better reason in store for us. Nice to see Artifice users on OUR side now :) Still a great world with a great history...meaning that it seems well developed. A truly fantastic author and a wonderful read. I would recommend reading the Thief's Gamble first however.

the book was rather intriguing,and i liked the characters ecspecially the heroine!!! She was great, extremely well-developed character. This book wasn't a bad buy. I'd reccomend it to my friends for some light reading!!!

The Swordsman's Oath, the second tale set in McKenna's world of Einarinn, is every bit as rich and colorful as her debut. The core conflict-driver-the urgent need to understand and neutralize the ancient magic of the blond strangers known alternately as Elietimm, Ice Men, or Ice Islanders-has ratcheted the main action up a notch. Still, for some readers, this book may fall a little short of the standard that McKenna established in The Thief's Gamble.

First-person narration of the central storyline has shifted from gambler and thief Livak to professional swordsman Ryshad. Unfortunately, he has only limited opportunity to apply his swordsmanship toward the actual advancement of the story, though his recently acquired Old Empire blade plays a key role. He's very like Livak in some ways: smart, courageous, cool-headed, with a strong sense of honor. Born to a rather higher station in life than she, his more respectable upbringing and twelve years in service to his patron prince have given him better-polished speech and behavior, despite his rough-and-tumble profession. His occasional ruminations on a possible future with Livak are among several minor details that sometimes make him seem more girlish than she's ever been.

Some months after the end of the previous book, by special request of Archmage Planir, Ryshad's patron loans him to the Hadrumal wizards for the duration of the Elietimm crisis. Having sworn to avenge the death of his friend Aiten, in addition to his basic oath of service, this arrangement suits Ryshad well enough. He's to join wizard Shivvalan, sent to retrieve a cache of Old Empire artifacts from retired wizard Viltred. A band of Elietimm raid Viltred's home and claim the artifacts. Ryshad and the wizards take off in pursuit, detouring only to collect a very reluctant Livak after Viltred casts an augury suggesting she still has a role to play against the Elietimm. From there on, they get swept up in events over which they have little or no control.

There are two substantial chunks of storyline in The Swordsman's Oath that pretty much bring the main action to a dead halt as they unfold. Ryshad's little side trip into slavery strains readers' belief at several points, and skirts perilously close to plain silliness at certain moments, though at others it makes fairly gripping reading. The history of the Old Empire's lost colony is more germane and generally more compelling, but takes an unnecessarily long time to get to the important parts, and raises assorted storyline issues on some of the finer details.

Such quibbles aside, the tale McKenna tells here is an absorbing one, with a satisfying ending that sets up interesting possibilities for future installments. Solving the mystery of the lost colony yields important information about the ancient magic the wizards have been struggling to understand, and the Elietimm themselves are beginning to emerge from the shadows in which their activities have been cloaked. They're shaping up to be wicked fun bad guys.

This book is full of suspence. I found myself staying up late into the night because i just couldn't put this book down. If you are a person who like to read about magic and sorcery than this is the book for you. It has love, mystery, action, and is full of much more. I'm not much of a reader because i can never find books that really intest me but boy did this one keep me up. I found myself thinking about this book all the time. I have nothing but good things to say about this book and this whole wonderful serious.
If you haven't read the first book than you won't get most of the story so i suggest pick them up first. Once you read one i garentee you will be forced to keep reading the rest of the series. I just pray that Juliet E. McKenna will NEVER stop adding sequels to this story because i just have to know what happens to these characters who i feel so closely to.
Not just this book but the whole series is the very best. and this book is just as good as the first, maybe even better. I advise ALL to read this series.
I am now trying to buy the 3rd and 4th installment to the series, and hope that i will soon be picking up the 5th, 6th, 7th, and all the rest up to the 100th. I hope the author is up to the challenge.

Juliet McKenna manages to improve on her first book with another based on the same characters, although with a different main character this time around. When she concentrates on Ryshad's story, everything comes together very well, especially his adventures in the Aldabreshi islands. The Aldabreshi society (which was not described in the first book) seems much more internally complex than that of the countries/regions where the characters live. The story of Temar is a little distracting in the beginning since it's hard to tell what's going on, but once the two storylines link up first in Aldabreshi then in Kel Ar'Ayen, things move along much better. I don't care for the inclusion of old manuscripts that have only marginal bearing on the story, though. They would be better shortened to chapter headings rather than multipage introductions. I'm definitely looking forward to the third book.

I've had this book for over a year and after several stops and starts, finally finished. The bottom line is "The Swordsman's Oath" is just not as good as the previous novel in the series. I liked the story and the characters, who really seem to live and breathe, but Juliet McKenna really has overwritten the narrative this time around. The 500+ page book would have been greatly improved by the editing of 50-75 pages of unnessary detail. On the positive side, the author really knows how to write for character, especially Ryshad this time around. Every one appearing along the way is fully realized and three dimensional. It seems this book has introduced more than a few characters who may be major players in future volumes. So, not as good does not mean bad, only more...challenging than what has past. Recommended.

I love Juliet's books. Especially the fact that if you know a bit of history, and you really get into the book, you'll realize it's like what happened with The Lost Colony. Her books are based in something like a parrallel dimension. Actually, Mid 17th century Europe. I mean, the clothes, the food, even the currency corresponds with that time period. If you don't believe me then do some of yer own research!

~Plague2032

This book was kind of tough to get through. There are way too many characters, including ones in flashbacks that are hard to recognize as flashbacks. It's just a not-very-exciting continuation of the previous book for the first 100 pages or so, before it finally begins to get interesting. If you didn't read the first book, you won't get much out of this one.