Customer Reviews

The Warrior's Tale

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

 

 

"The Warrior's Tale" is one of those extremely rare sequels that outdoes the original. For longtime fantasy fans, it's a real breath of fresh air. The narrator and main character, Rali Anterro of the Maranon Guard, is a lot more likeable than Amalric from "The Far Kingdoms", since she has a real personality and some actually feelings, as well as more interesting relationships with other people. Perhaps more importantly, the plot has some real unpredictability to it, with the heroes facing a number of different villains and dangerous situations, and sometimes having to use more than just random luck to survive. Also, the authors include at least a little bit of humor, something that was sorely absent in "The Far Kingdoms", and in general they simply manage to give the story more life this time around.

I rate this book with 5 stars in the category of adventure. This tale is filled with magic, aventure, sword fighting and all that good stuff. It's your basic book on good vs. evil. The city Orissa is in grave danger... the Archon has evil powers that could destroy the whole city! So one of Orissa's guard is sent to follow the Archon and to kill him. Oh and did I happen to mention that this guard is made up of all women? That's right! Who else goes on the quest? Well there is an old powerful wizard who decides to go and some pirates who are more after the gold and loot than destroying evil.

Much do they know that there is more than the Archon and his evil that they will have to face. They travel in boats and see more of the world than anyone in Orissa. They face betrayal, evil, depression, lack of food, and at the end there is a twist.

Romily is their only hope... their last hope. She will have to face things that go beyond all... the death of her beloved friends, she has no support except her Guard; her family does not accept her for who she is and.... she will have to forge into the magic she's always refused and denied in order to save herself and her companions.

The Good: The story is full of imagination and zest; something that seems to be worked out of most authors as they're driven to write faster than they can actually *create* and dream. Even as a hard-core, well-traveled Fantasy fan, I was pleasantly surprised with the locations, twists and turns, and the story in general; the author walked a path less traveled, so to speak, and it shows.

The Bad: This novel reeks of a self-indulgent fantasy put to paper. I can tolerate a rabid feminist/lesbian point of view, but only if she is professional enough to write a story for the readers, and not for herself. Without spoiling the story, there are several points where the cool-under-fire, seasoned veteran protagonist acts in the most brain-dead, illogical manner, simply to further the self-indulgent plot, which ultimately consists of meeting and then killing males of any species, because all males are evil, and greedy, and lustful, and foolish, and prideful, and inept. And if they're not, they're harmless old men, who may escape with mere disfigurement if they're lucky. There's a story here, and it tries to shine through the writer's soap-boxing and daydreams, but it fails.

So, if you're a lesbian and/or a man hater, you should give this a look. If you're a lesbian man hater that loves Fantasy, then you NEED this book. If, however, you're one of the many people who simply loves Fantasy, I can't suggest it, simply because author intervention is so frequent that it destroys any spell the imaginative story tries to create.

This book tells the tale of Rali, captain of the Maranonon (or something like that) guards, who is sent on a mission to wipe out an evil wizard. On the way, she and her soldiers (all female) have a series of pretty entertaining adventures. Rali is a pretty solid character, and the action is pretty much nonstop. Nothing brilliant about this book, but I would say it's probably above average fantasy stuff, which kept me reading till the end. It starts off with a war and keeps going. Lots of demons, gore soaked swords, nubile maidens, and pyrotechnic wizardry. As a warning I might point out, it has a good deal of same-sex relationships going on, which some readers might find distracting (and some might find titillating). All in all, it ain't highbrow lit-ra-ture, but it's fun to read.

Length:: 3:59 Mins

A video review of a really enjoyable fantasy adventure.

This book has a "general Jinnah" and a wizard called "Gamelan" in a town called "Orissa", so if you know anything at all about the world, you will probably not be able to appreaciate it or even get through it.

It's like reading about "President George Bush" and the wizard "Trumpet" battling it out in the town of "Scotland". It reads like a bad joke. Regardless of what happens on the page, it's impossible to take it seriously with all these silly names drawn from real life. I suspect the book is better than these three names - in fact it pretty much has to be - so it's too bad that no editor stepped in to fix this MAJOR FLAW; sadly, I couldn't keep reading it.

This is one of those average fantasy books that one picks up to get away from the heavy prose, thick character development, and ongoing sagas of authors such as Martin, Goodkind, and Jordan. It's a pretty straightforward story with light character development. The world is vividly imaginative and interesting. This will never be on a MUST READ list, but it's an enjoyable read.

As a general rule, men don't write female protagonists very well. From my brother's comments on some of my favorite books, the converse is also true - women don't write male protagonists very well. That said, this is the first such case that I couldn't even finish the first chapter.

The prose is awkward, but I can handle that. I waded through several volumes of Terry Goodkind's series beginning with Wizard's First Rule (Sword of Truth); he's got plodding prose but an interesting story, until you find that every book is the same basic plot. So, stilted prose and dialogue could have been okay.

It's not that it's lesbians, either. Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series, which began with Arrows of the Queen ( The Heralds of Valdemar, Book 1), is bluntly (and often irritatingly preachy) in favor of GLBT relationships, and it still manages to be fun. I'd flipped through before settling down to read and found references to being in love with the Princess, so I was prepared for that. The problem started when I opened the front and found a bizarrely belligerent introduction as if from the heroine via scribe (which makes one wonder why the scribe didn't just put in the elements he thought belonged there - if she needs someone else to write it, she's not going to know he wrote it differently). "I am woman hear me roar." Okay, I deal with men who treat me like I'm stupid for being female, so I can almost understand, but that screed was overkill. Frankly, such things only make the listener (reader) defensive. If you start out treating someone like a bigot, they're more likely to be rude back, even if they wouldn't have in the first place.

Next we find Rali waking in the barracks with a hangover, having been swinging from the water tower the night before, shouting about being dumped by her lesbian lover. While giving herself a ridiculously detailed once-over (with a sexual focus) in the mirror, she grouses with her sister Guards about the fact that, as city guards, they're expected to remain behind to - get this - guard the city. Obviously, she needs to pull every string and call in every favor to get the city guards sent out to war (and I suppose bring back the army to guard the city?)

I couldn't take it anymore. This is not a woman, it's a man pretending to be a woman. I am a woman, I know a lot of other women, both straight and lesbian, and this is not us. Any of us. You want to see a female character written well by a male author, try Mistborn : Final Empire Series (Book #1) (Mistborn, Book 1) by Brandon Sanderson. She's not lesbian, but she's 100% female.