Customer Reviews

The Wild Hunt, Vengeance Moon

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

 

 

This book was a pleasant surprise. The two women who wrote it under a psuedonymn (see copyright page) did an amazingly credible job of portraying a reasonably accurate view of damaged veterans. A few incidents reminded me of David Drake characters. This is a decent read if you are in the mood for a self contained, and reasonably absorbing, fantasy novel. Some of the characters are a little flat, but many scenes are worth while.

This is a superb, fast-paced, enticing tale. I loved it from the beggining to the end. There are lots of stories of the Wild Hunt, but this is no copycat, and no Irish redundance streams through it. The characters are all interesting and a bit mysterious, and I got swept in their mission against time to fulfill a godly ordained task or face complete destruction.
The only escape possible from the Hunt being a great enough love, to counteract the great hatred that sent the Huntsman there, one could expect at least some dramatic struggles - but the love stories are beautifully simple and the whole book is refreshing. A must read.

This is a story with LOTS of characters, and not quite enough plot to develop them all thoroughly. But it is pretty gripping; I often found myself wishing my commute were a little longer so I wouldn't have to put the book away!

The flavor of the story is dark--13 men doomed for their past misdeeds--but not full of whiny, brooding anti-heroes. There is a quest-y feeling, but it isn't a world-shattering "We must stop the forces of Evil!" kind of quest. Thank goodness!

Yet I still found myself longing for a little more intricacy. The plot was corkscrewy enough to keep me guessing most of the way through, but the last two chapters were entirely predictable. And in the end, the plot was largely linear: Heroine wishes vengeance, vengeance is granted, with not too many side-plots interfering.

There were lots of characters (13 Huntsmen, the heroine, her archenemy and his 5 relatives, and his main henchman), and of necessity it seems, most of them were flat. I would have preferred the archenemy to have some redeeming quality instead of being unremittingly rotten. The author did a good thing by concentrating on just a few members of the Hunt and relegating the rest to "background color" status, but still I felt the main characters were also rather stock: the tormented leader with a dark past, the disguised prince (several of them, in fact), the selfish glutton prince, and so on. There weren't any characters I felt couldn't be described in a single sentence. There were brief glimpses of potential depth, but this potential was largely unfulfilled. I desperately wanted to know more.

I do look forward to another book about the Hunt, where perhaps we will get to learn more about these characters and their world than was shown here.

Read it when it first came out. Snatched up the second as soon as it was available. Watching for more.

Hats off to these authors. They manage a complex world: over a thousand years of history - which can't be ignored because the main characters, together and singly, played important parts throughout; a score of major characters whose gradual development and personalities make you want to know more about their pasts and their future; a dangerous and devious plot which must be fulfilled in the space of one month; even geography and visual details that let you see it as it happens...and they manage it all in just 300 pages!

I thought this was a fascinating book. Plenty of adventure, the pace never slowed down. I loved the mythology of it, that the men of the Wild Hunt were cursed by goddesses for their earthly misdeeds. I think it is a great touch that a strong and unswerving love from a woman is the only thing that could redeem them from their curse. It seems very fitting.

I read this a while ago but seeing how few reviews it's got I thought I'd make the effort to let people know it's a really good read with lots of potential. There's intrigue, tension, relationship developments and enough action to satisfy in a story about 13 men cursed by godesses, for causing the death or destruction of a woman, to a life in limbo until called on by rightous mortals to avenge an injustice against a woman.

I love stories with ensemble casts where there are lots of interesting and different characters. The only fault I found with this book was that it wasn't long enough to allow development of the many characters and the whole story seemed constrained to a certain degree. However, I know there's another book being released, in December I think, so I'm expecting more development there. The idea itself is a novel perspective on an old myth and hopefully the writers will continue to write books for a series as I think they're on a winner here. Congratulations to the authors and I have my order in at my local bookstore for the new one - hope to have it to read over Christmas.

I thought that the story would be flawed by having people with super human abilities: hardly fair. No - these guys still are as they were when they were cursed. They may fail! Gradually you find out why they were cursed and follow them through this latest task - wondering if they'll make it. A thinking person's fantasy and not to be missed.

Very enjoyable and somewhat out of the ordinary