Customer Reviews

Traitors' Gate (Crossroads (Tor))

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've been a fan of Kate Elliott since Jaran and the Crown of Stars series. I enjoyed her latest series as well. This review is really a review of the series, and I put the review in the last novel to minimize spoilers.

The good includes:
- well-realized characters who behave rationally. I enjoyed Keshad's story and the other characters' reactions to him; it's a tribute to her character building that you could empathize with his story and with other people's dislike of him.
- solid world-building.
- risk-taking with the plot and the characters, including the murder of a major character early in the first novel.
- a complex, well-thought-through mythology. For example, she makes the story-telling hand gestures everyone uses feel natural to the reader, and I liked how Shai discovers their origin. It's a minor point but it shows the level of thought she put into creating the Hundred.
- characters who act consistently even though they seem to change. Anji's ruthlessness is clear all along, but it was easy to miss because we saw him in large part through Mai. The ending of the book surprised me but shouldn't have. And that's a tribute to her writing as well.
- a conclusion to a trilogy, which is not a given these days. She does leave some issues open for further books, but not so open that the ending doesn't feel definitive.
- and, gratuitously but enjoyably, a visit to Jaran! Sort of.

The bad includes an unsatisfying explanation for what motivated the bad guardians to be so bad. Elliott goes into this a little bit: it's clear from the first volume that the laws are not being applied fairly, that there are grievances that aren't being addressed, that the power structures were ineffective or corrupt, and that the society was ripe for revolution. What she didn't establish in a satisfying manner was why the Guardians were so horrible (cleansing, rape of children, etc.) or why they were able to successfully recruit an army that committed those atrocities. I was also frustrated by Elliott's pacing. She would often have a character say something really important, follow it up with a long-ish paragraph on what they were wearing, and then drop the plot point for a few chapters. The "plot point + description" pattern continues through the series, and makes for a stop-and-start read. To be fair, I think she has always written this way, but my preferences as a reader have changed over the last twenty years and I would enjoy a smoother flow to her writing.

On the whole, the good far outweighs the bad. This is a well-written fully-imagined fantasy series. I enjoyed this series and recommend it.

After being intrigued enough to read through both Shadow Gate and Spirit Gate, despite the irritating problems I had with both novels, I decided to see about reading Traitors' Gate (if only to be the annoying lukewarm reviewer for all three). Alas, but my track record has been shattered. Well... Sort of.

Traitors' Gate continues the conflict between the corrupted Guardians of the Hundred and nearly everyone else. Most of the forces against the villains have realized that they do actually have to fight and the book follows the currents of that trek all the way down to the last little eddy.

I am quite happy to report that quite a few of the threads that I felt didn't budge in the last book actually did get rolling at a much better pace than anything in the previous two books. It still doesn't quite get to that "can't put book down or clowns will eat me" pace (which would cost me sleep), but it does get trundling along at a decent clip. Considering the complexity of the plotlines and the plethora of characters to love or loathe, it could have easily bogged down to a crawl, epic battles and back stabbing not withstanding. In any case, it ties up quite a few of the the loose ends in this interesting tapestry of a tale and I felt that there were enough loose ends left over to keep me wondering about what came next without losing the sense of closure that the book had.

As seems to be the norm for this series, there were even more supporting characters introduced. I would start complaining at length, but there was enough characterization and enough context surrounding them (particularly Arras and his cohort) that their inclusion made sense. Indeed, most of the characters that were carried over from the previous novels had a new dimension added on to them. Since there are a very large number of characters, this is no mean feat.

Anji, the Qin captain, certainly springs to mind when speaking of character change, development and cycles. Particularly the cycle part. It was very interesting to see how his reactions to any perceived threats to the things he thought he possessed became more and more apparent as the story progressed. It also highlighted the way that what he perceived as "his" expanded. I thought it ironic that he is indeed exactly what he shows himself in the first book, a conquerer who hates losing, despite the family time with Mai. I also found it intriguing that he would selectively adapt to parts of the culture of the Hundred and get stuck on some of the customs, particularly his misunderstanding of Zubaidit from the temple of Ushara at the end. His mother is of a piece with him, except more ruthless.

Mai unexpectedly was one of the more layered characters through the trilogy, but it became most apparent in Traitors' Gate. It was made very obvious that nearly all of the Qin's success sat firmly on her successes and her reputation in the Hundred. This realization made me really start to wonder what would happen at the end of the book and beyond.She also acted as a wonderful contrast to Anji by seeking to adapt and fit in to life in the Hundred and actively not getting upset or shocked from the differences between her home and her new place, both as wife and outlander.

I also liked how Shai's part in this came to an end. I thought that his reward for deeds done was fitting and that the way he gained the courage to do so was very well done. I loved the later scenes with him and Tohon.

And then there's Joss and Marit. How I love them both, from Marit's determination and adaptability to Joss's dedication to doing the right thing and not worry about everyone else's opinion of him. They were very much one of the reasons I kept reading on despite my ambivalence with the other two books. I loved how their side of things ended.

The other things that kept me reading this series was the awesome setting. I loved the level of detailing that went into making the land and its cultures every bit as interesting (and occasionally more interesting) as the plot and the characters. It was almost as if it were a character itself in some ways, especially in this book.

Overall I thought that this book was a better read than the other two and I will be watching for more stories set in the Hundred from here on out.

This is a great conclusion to a great trilogy and stands as one the best fantasy series around. Period. Elliott's characters are complex and real. The plot moves along at just the right pace, that is if you like epic fantasy and this is a great epic.

Three long volumes is perfect for this type of series, and Traitors' Gate is an excellent book to end up on. Unlike her previous series that went on too long, the Crossroads story ends at just the right time. This was a wonderfully realized world, complex, coherent and fascinating. But beyond the grand themes, the people who inhabit the book face believable dilemmas in which they sometimes exceed themselves and sometimes fall short, making them all the more human. I treasure it. Kate Elliott has now firmly established herself in the top tier of fantasy and I eagerly await her next venture.

Traitors' Gate is >500 pages of the smallest print I've seen in a new book for a while. It would have to be long to give space for all the open plot threads from the previous books. I was wondered how easy it would be to remember what had happened, and who all the characters were. I shouldn't have worried, as each plot thread was started, there were enough hints for me to think, 'oh yes, I remember this.'

For me to like a book, there has to be sympathetic characters. I've never been able to make it through Elliott's Crown of Stars series because I don't like most of characters. I wanted to know what was going to happen next to the people in the Crossroads trilogy like Joss, Mai, and Anji.

I enjoyed this series immensely. It's wonderfully intricate. We have the Hundred with a complex mythology--can you call it mythology when the 'myths' exist?--and at least four other societies (not including the nonhuman ones) complete with different religions and cultural mores. The cultural shifts occurring in the Hundred due to the war could lead to some interesting problems in future stories. With luck, the series will sell well enough that Kate Elliott will be able to publish more books. I, for one, look forward eagerly to that day.

I enjoyed the first two books, but this one blew me away; a solid 4.5 stars. At this point, everything has been set up, the tension is high, and the increasingly ominous foreshadowing had me finishing this book more quickly than either of the others, even though it is longer. Obviously more action here, and there's a new POV character on the "evil" side who does a good bit to dispel the notion that this is traditional good-vs-evil fantasy. The ending, although well-foreshadowed, was unexpectedly bittersweet and brilliant. I don't know why more people don't read Elliott, and have to assume they're turned off by the slow beginnings and cheesy covers. And they shouldn't be, because neither is representative of how good this trilogy really is.

A spoiler-free review of the trilogy:

STORYLINE/PACING: Like many an epic fantasy, this could be summarized as "a defensive war against evil." But being a character-driven book, the plot is as much about each character's individual arcs and subplots, and being toward the realistic end of the fantasy spectrum, good and evil aren't clear-cut. There's much more character interaction than swordfighting, and the pacing is maybe a bit on the slow side, but once it gets going midway through the first book, the plot is compelling and something is always happening.

While there are logical ending points for the first and second books, like most fantasy trilogies this one is of the "three-volume novel" variety, and I rushed through them all back-to-back. But although more novels are planned in this world, there's a solid resolution at the end.

CHARACTERS: The character development overall is quite good, and most of the main characters are sympathetic and likable if at times frustrating. Elliott is a rare epic fantasy writer in that she uses the multi-book format to actually further develop the characters, and I found my opinions on several of them changing book by book.

A few things that stand out: One, the characters have actual interests, like carpentry, gardening, etc., beyond fulfilling their plot-related goals (these books made me realize how rare that is in fantasy). Two, they're products of their cultures, and have baggage and prejudices that they never shed. I was expecting the main characters by the end to repudiate slavery and realize there's no such thing as demons.... but most of them never did, and that made it better. Three, I liked the way sexual relationships are handled. There's romance (surprisingly little of it), and there's meaningless sex, and there's attraction that never turns into relationships. Characters (women included!) can be attracted to and have sex with more than one person in the series. Speaking of which: there are a lot of strong female characters, but more in a realistic way than a wish-fulfillment kind of way; it's good stuff.

For the first two books I did feel that personal morality aligns rather too closely with which side of the war a character is on, and wished for more moral ambiguity. To a large degree that's subverted in the final volume, though.

WORLDBUILDING: A highlight of this trilogy. There are multiple highly-detailed cultures. I loved the amount of thought Elliott clearly put into the customs, religions, and so forth, and the fact that the inspiration was non-European. I see some Pacific Islander, Chinese, Mongol, Muslim and Zoroastrian influences, and undoubtedly didn't recognize many more. The world is increasingly well-developed in subsequent volumes.

The Hundred, where most of the action takes place, is a bit idealized, but every culture has its strengths and weaknesses. The Hundred does very well (especially compared to the other countries in this world) in women's rights and accepting homosexuality, and has been peaceful for generations despite no strong central government. But slavery is widespread, arranged/forced marriages are normal, and there's corruption, xenophobia and disenfranchisement of religious minorities. Meanwhile, the only group in the entire world that opposes slavery also forces its women to wear something burqa-ish, and virtually imprisons them in the home.

The introduction to the world is handled well. Customs aren't explained so much as mentioned in passing, allowing the readers to deduce cultural practices and background from context. Sometimes a custom will be alluded to and never mentioned again, hinting at hidden depths. So, thank you Ms. Elliott for treating readers like adults here.

THEMATICS: You can tell Elliott thinks about what her books are saying, and epic fantasy still being a somewhat conservative and male-dominated genre, I love reading good fantasy books informed by a progressive and feminist ethos. The trilogy examines how power affects people, how cultures interact and change and has a fascinating take on the myth of the fantasy hero and the good-vs-evil dichotomy.

I did think that the "good" side (with very different, conflicting ideas of what's "good") was better drawn than the "evil" side. It's great that the "evil" army is human, comes from within the Hundred itself and that the problem was at least partially caused by actual corruption and ignored problems--but in my judgment Elliott didn't do enough with that, and there's no apparent reason why many of the people on the evil side are quite as evil as they are, and why there are so many of them. One has to read between the lines to figure it out, where the author should probably have explored the reasons for this more or else not had so much cruelty on the one side and so little on the other.

WRITING: The prose is average. Not bad, but workmanlike. It's true there's a lot of description, which I mostly liked but isn't for everyone. There are several POV characters, but dealt with in a disciplined way; we don't get into everybody's head, the POVs are well-developed and there's no head-hopping.

MAGIC: Not much of it, thankfully. No sorcerers, although a very limited number of people have very limited magical powers. The supernatural elements are mostly in the worldbuilding, while the real focus here is on people, as it should be.

OTHER THINGS I LIKED:
1) Groups that are usually either evil or two-dimensional in fantasy are neither here: merchants, conquering horsemen, people who wear headscarves or turbans, and most notably, non-white people (which describes almost everyone in the trilogy). Even slave traders aren't automatically written off.
2) Elliott allows main characters to be illiterate. Most authors do cortortions to avoid this even where it's realistic.

OTHER THINGS I DISLIKED:
1) Being told halfway through the second book that "week," "month" and "year" don't mean what I thought they meant. What do you mean a year has 432 days? Couldn't another word have been used to clue me in to this sooner? Do I have to recalculate everyone's ages now? Blargh.
2) Characters coincidentally meet rather too frequently.

I would recommend this trilogy to fantasy lovers who don't demand constant action; the character development and worldbuilding more than make up for the slow spots.

Over all the story telling in this book is top notch. The ending is not a predictable fantasy ending, something that I find satisfying. An observant reader can see most it coming, but that is because the characters are fully fleshed out and the story telling does not deviate from its path merely for a cheep trick. The examination of changing cultures was interesting, and the book makes we want to see what happens in about 100 years, or whenever... ah, but I don't want to ruin the end. So the possibilities hinted at in the end-- I want to know how they play out.

The only complaint I have about the writing is the author's need to add characters to the last part of this Trilogy. The characters who were added could have easily been done with out, the stories incorporated more cleanly into existing characters stories. What couldn't be included in existing characters was rather extraneous and didn't do much for the story.

Over all, this was definitely worth reading.

The Jaran series was so satisfying, but Ms. Elliot stumbled a little with the conclusion of Crown of Stars--some plot endings were snipped in ways that left you feeling anti-climatic, or that the good guys lost. But with the Crossroads books, at least the trilogy, she does a great job with finishing up each story and not summarily ending a plot line. But, she leaves a lot of the story open ended, and I am in great anticipation for the next set of installments. Of course, I don't envy her, writing is one of those original yet repeat performance endeavors ... hard to make anyone completely happy, let alone a long list of fans. Good luck and good joo joo on the next batch Ms. Elliott. I am waiting patiently, because I have no other choice. :)

I found myself struggling to get through the first 100 or so pages in this book - a problem I didn't have with the previous two books. Part of it was the fact that the characters I was most interested in, Joss, Marit, and Mai, were not in the early book as I would have liked.

That being said - the book was not bad - just disappointing. I didn't like how one Captain Anji changed in the course of the book and the ending was unsatisfying to me (since it doesn't appear that there will be a book four). I still think it was worth reading but wasn't as good as I was expecting for the conclusion.

I have enjoyed all the books this author has written.
The book came to me in a timely fashion and in the condition promised.

After spending so much time with so many characters and building suspense, I could not believe that this was the conclusion to this series. Lead characters ended off camera, bad guys dispatched in a sneeze, ultimate conclusion a bit like an episode of Desparate Housewives. The author is obviously not opposed to writing about the nuances of love, duty, conflict and violence, but absolutly wimped out when it came to finishing up this series. Where is the justice she kept yammering about? I suppose she left the door open to yet more books, but I will not be suckered into investing so much time into reading what could be another leaky tire of a series. By the end, I could feel all the bumps in the road, but wasn't getting anywhere. I expect more from Tor.