Customer Reviews

Venom of Luxur (Anok, Heretic of Stygia Volume III) (Age of Conan Hyborian Adventure)

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

 

 

The final book of the trilogy was barely good. The character development that occured in the second
book kind of stalled and one of the characters became very cardboard and uninteresting.

Another character that could have been very interesting was not developed to full potential and kind of left a disappointing hole in the story for me.

The plot twists that I have been reading the novels to resolve came to a conclusion to quickly and without much fanfare. What he did write was average. I just thought it could have been so much better.

It just seemed so generic. The first two books were better and seemed less rushed to me. This one felt like it was written on a deadline, especially toward the end. The trilogy as a whole suffers as a result.

If this last book had been as good as the first two I would have given the trilogy a confident recommendation but now I can only recommend it if you are really into heroic fantasy and can make more of the characters in your mind than the author makes of them in the final book.

The book over-relies on recaps of prior events. Basically the structure is thus: Anok does something. Anok's friends worry about what Anok has done (recapping in the process). Anok's enemies ruminate about what Anok has done (giving yet another recap). Anok worries about what he has done in the past (any guesses what this provides? Yes, another recap), then Anok does something else, and the cycle goes on - recap after recap.

The structure of the trilogy, being so filled with constant recaps and reminders of what was read in the last chapter, gave the entire series the feeling of being "padded" in order to achieve a certain length.

This structure was evident in the prior books as well, but it seemed this one added another twist to the structure: In the midst of the recaps, the side characters all pondered their relative uselessness - as if the author suddenly realized his characters had no point and that he needed to get on the ball and give them something to do! Teferi actually is given magical powers from out of nowhere in order to make sure he could contribute in some way.

Magic does underly and solve everything in this series. Magic weapons, magic spells, magic items, magic gods and so on, good and evil. There are anti-magic serums and locations, "simple" spells (why are deflection spells always referred to as a "simple" spell in fantasy novels?), magic swords and magic dream-sticks. Even Fallon asks for a magic weapon at one point, realising she is useless to Anok (other than for sex) if she doesn't have magic.

The storylines are concluded by contrivance instead of by natural consequence of the characters' actions. Every plot line was tied up very neatly and without much effort on Anok's part. Instead of plots resoved by natural consequence of a charater's actions, the plots are resolved by the author in strings of nifty coincidences and revelations.

The novel would have been MUCH better if Anok had truly fallen into corruption. Sure he killed some cannibals and was guilty of arrogance, but he still was pretty nice to his friends.

His descriptions of the setting, however, are excellent. He excels at description. It is easy to visualize what he writes, and that holds true for the third book as well as the other two. I do like the character of Ramsa, even though in this book he did a lot of stupid things - ultimately he was not brought low by Anok's greatness - he was brought down because he made a lot of blunders that allowed Anok to win.

'Venom of Luxur' - Anok, Heretic of Stygia trilogy - book 3

Anok book 1 was quite good and promising - rating=7 /10.
book 2 was going downhill and very disappointing - rating=5.
But This 3rd book is not much like the other 2 books.
this is NOW undisguised farce fully revealed in all it's ridiculous silliness!

If you like to dis-engage your brain and let HIGH FANTASY herd you along like a helpless sheep then you may enjoy this book?
Overall, this book is the worst kind of pointless, very silly and corny high fantasy where fate and gods pull all the strings till it strangles your brain and you have to 'laugh out loud' [LOL] to remain sane. [ but i like high fantasy when it is well done.]

It's like watching a cartoon-comic for teen fans of 'Buffy' and 'Hercules' on prime-time tv..with no integrity, VERY silly and LOL corny.
there are so many 'CHEESY-CORNY-ABSURD-SILLY' [CCAS] things in this i have a long list in my notes. the fate-dominated plot is full of CCAS very convenient, instant solutions, events and help 'served on a plate' for all the dummy-hero-puppets.

May the 'real' SET take all the editors and publishers responsible for 'stealing' my money and further insulting REHoward's original creations with this wimpy puerile nonsense?!
[ hyborian publishers still seem to be more corrupted by insanity than the most powerful stygian sorcerers?!] ;)

this is my frank and honest reaction to a VERY disappointing, frustrating, and very silly book. [ a shockingly pathetic final book which ruined a slightly promising new series]
Rating = 2 /10. 1 of the worst fantasy books ever and a stupid waste of time and paper..
..and with a very cheesy-corny 'happy ending' worthy of a disney film!