Customer Reviews

The Vacant Throne

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The King's Curse kept Aglirta in a constant state of civil war as barons fought their friends and foes without a central monarch to rein them in. However, the chaos seems over because the "Band of Four" (Hawrdil the warrior, Craer the thief, Sarasper the healer, and Embra the sorceress) combined their talents with that of the magical Dwaerindim Stones to remove the curse and awakens the long time sleeping monarch King Kelgrael.

The initial success of the Band of Four does not mean the restoration of the King. The barons refuse to give up their autonomy to Kelgrael. However, that threat pales when compared to the malevolent beings who plot to bring Kelgrael back under their control with only the Band of Four between them and a repeat of their earlier success of putting the King to sleep.

Ed Greenwood escorts his fans back to the Land of the Band of Four with an exciting fantasy tale. The story line stands alone while adding to the mythos established by the previous novel (see THE KINGLESS LAND). The tale works because of the deep characterizations of the Band of Four and their interrelationships, often amusing and competitive yet supportive when needed. The personalities shine through the entertaining plot so fantasy fans will enjoy THE VACANT THRONE; a realm filled with the unbelievable that it feels like Mr. Greenwood cast a believable spell on his audience.

Harriet Klausner

Althought the writing is decent, the story doesn't seem to go anywhere. Chat, Flirt, Hack, Die, Chat, Flirt, Hack, Die. Sorry, I hope I didn't spoil anything for anyone. If your looking for a bunch of sensational fights, you'll enjoy the book. If you want a little more depth, try one of his other books.

I've read almost all of Ed Greenwoods works and I really have to say that this series wins the cake on the worst one yet. It starts out with promise but the further you get in the book the more it seems to insult your intelligence. The main characters mainly go through the last one and the this one as well just fighting an endless host of people with swords and magic. Through pure luck they continually win and if they get beat someone comes along and saves them at the last minute. There is really no plot development and it gets way too mind numbing. I made the mistake of reading the next two out of boredom and kept hoping that something would happen. IT NEVER DID!!! Even if you love Ed Greenwood please avoid this series.

Well, Greenwood continues to disappoint with THE VACANT THRONE, the second book in his mostly-ignored series staring "The Band of Four". Even knowing what I was getting into this time (a shallow, silly, and ridiculous distraction), I still found myself let down by this book. Other reviewers have commented on the annoyingness of the characters, the inaneness of the plot, and the over-abundance of (evil) characters, but there is much more than these general complaints to gripe about with this book. Through most of the book, I can't really tell whether Greenwood is trying to be funny by being WAY overly dramatic, or whether he's trying to be dramatic really, which is what I suspect. Completely unexplained groups such as the Faceless Ones or the Melted Ones periodically show up to change the direction of the story for unknown reasons, evil characters that had been previously completely destroyed keep re-appearing, bards and flute-players are a constant annoyance, and the arbitrary use of Thee's and Thou's drives one up the wall. Who does this guy think he is??

While I actually did find myself starting to enjoy this book at about the half-way point, as the minimal plot started coming together and I felt the flow of the story begin to be established, that feeling quickly disappeared as I reached the long climax and realized just how irritating and pointless the story had become. When the heroes' plan to attract all of their enemies (plus some) to a extremely dangerous place with no escape route finally begins to work, in comes the totally predictable Dues Ex Machina and the realm is saved again. Wow. Bad.

Greenwood did tone down the sluttiness of his only good character here, but honestly, if she's already established as being whorey, why not just run with it? Not Recommended if you've ever read anything decent before in your life.

This is a great novel. very suspenceful and adventurous. One of the best band of four novels that he has written. This one is defonetly better then the Kingless Land. It is solid combination of horror,suspence,and fantisy. A very good novel if you love fantisy.

I thought the Vacant Throne was a outstanding book. The way it picked up from the Kingless Land was most impressive. It even brought back old foes that made it even harder to put down. It became more darker in it's plot and showed a closer view of the barons in the land that made really interesting. The way the he had Embra and Hawkril coming closer together really got me excited. After all i would have to say this was a great sequel.

Even in lowbrow fantasy, there are some ground rules: you need to like the good guys, dislike the bad guys, and enjoy reading about the heroes using their strength, cleverness and/or innate goodness to triumph in the end. It also helps if there's a finite number of evil schemes going on--say, five. And if you're going to have over forty characters, you need to make sure they're very distinctive so that readers don't get confused and overwhelmed. In this book, on the other hand, the good guys are annoying, the bad guys are annoying, and the heroes go through each fight looking like Bill Gates in the boxing ring with Mike Tyson. It's hard to believe they could rescue a barn from an upset cow, let alone restore a kingdom...and apart from the fact that they're snarky with each other, why should we care about them at all? Maybe if we had more time to get to know them we'd care more, but the 'Dramatis Personae' (at the end of the book, and full of information and backstory that would've made this book less confusing if it'd been placed better) lists 96 characters. In a 319-page book, that works out to a new character every 3.32 pages. Why, why, why??? Oh, and the word 'whelm'? Get used to seeing it a LOT. It's as if the author gets a check from the Whelm Boosters of America every time he slips it in. This author's done better work--maybe it was because of a different editor, or maybe it was because he actually cared about the characters. This book feels to me like someone sitting down with the old notes of a D&D campaign he never actually took part in, and trying to make a book out of it.