Customer Reviews

Windrider's Oath

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'll come right out and say it--I was disappointed by Wind Rider's Oath. I had been looking forward to it ever since I heard there would be a new Norfressa book (I have just about worn the cover off of Oath of Swords) and jumped at the chance to read the e-book (at the publisher's website) before the pulp version appeared in stores.

IF YOU ARE AFRAID OF SPOILERS STOP READING NOW.

Granted, the main "surprise" was telegraphed several books in advance. Much has always been made of the fact that Bahzell is so tall he can't ride a normal horse. And that the Sothoii have sentient horses that are very large. And now Bahzell is traveling to the Sothoii, where they have big horses. And he's traveling on foot because he's too big for a normal horse. Hmm, do you think maybe he's going to end up with one of these horses? What a shock! Not really a problem, though. It gave me something to anticipate, and the scene where he finally meets his courser is one of the less execrable of the book.

Which brings me to the rest of the story. The whole thing seemed choppy and hurried. There was a great deal of blah-blah-blah exposition introducing new characters and building them up, then... nothing. Leeana just drops out of the book 3/4 of the way through, with her story unfinished. The evil priest whatshisname likewise steps out of a room and never re-enters the story. Was this a longer book that got chopped down? Is there supposed to be a sequel to tie up the numerous loose ends?

Also, the story seemed to change gears somewhere in the middle. At first it was full of political intrigue, infighting, and secret plotting. By the time the 3/4 mark rolled around, though, it turned into a hack-and-slash adventure. All the bad guys get systematically slaughtered, one after another after another. A couple of good guys who didn't have a single line of dialogue appear just in time to die in glorious contrived sacrifice. None of the political storylines are resolved, even though it was clearly explained that violence would worsen the situation and give the political bad guys the advantage. After nodding wisely every time this was explained, the heroes then blithely slaughtered everyone without regard to consequences. And everyone applauds. Why?

What irritated more than anything else, though, was the ending. Kaeritha had just fought her way through a temple of evil priests, and was staggering with exhaustion and pain. Then once Bahzell appeared and made a stupid joke, suddenly she felt she must chase him around pelting him with small rocks while a bunch of people she'd never met stood around laughing heartily. It's the sort of ending that might be mildly funny if done tongue-in-cheek. Played seriously, it's just stupid. Not funny, not ironic, just stupid. When did this turn into an episode of Scooby-Doo?

You know what's even more stupid? I'll be buying this book when it comes out in my local bookstore, so I can get the free Baen CD that comes with it. Because I am a sucker for the thought that I might get some of Weber's backlist titles free. And it was just good enough that it didn't completely disillusion me. I will buy it in hopes that the next book, whenever it appears, is better.

In WRO Weber took the fresh and original invention of the two prequels and left them out in the sun for a month. What was his editor thinking?

The first in the series, Oath of Swords, was great (5 stars) because of its character development, clashes between original (and differentiated) cultures, believable action, and witty repartee throughout. My paperback copy of Oath of Swords is absolutely tattered.

The second in the series, TWGO, wasn't quite as good (3 1/2 stars) as Oath, but had some re-readable scenes. I enjoyed: the taming of the geek (Vaijon), meeting Bahzell's family and culture, and the battles. I also liked the hint of great things in store for Brandark who was beginning to be less witty, in fact little more than a sounding board for Bahzell. My problems with the second book center around too much exposition. The order was described in painful, multi-worded detail, as was dwarvenhome. Even more annoyingly, the introduction of Kerry was immature stylistically as well as boring, and a huge detraction from the book's merits. Mature character development is a slow exposure of a person, each revelation related to plot tensions; actions depending upon and revealing the character's past history, present motives, and future dreams. Inexplicably, Kerry vomits forth her entire life history to Bahzell and a large crowd of other strangers at the moment of meeting him. Worse, it's the trite "I was raped and hated all men until saved by love" pablum. Being set, Kerry's character did not learn or change throughout this or the third book.

Although I complain about TWGO, my copy is, if not tattered, at least unkempt because whenever I reread Oath, I skim my favorite parts of TWGO for dessert. The 3rd in the series is different.

Wind Rider's Oath:
Be warned that the book does not stand alone. You have to have read the prequels to give a damn about a single character.

Other reviewers have mentioned the staleness of the sisterhood of chicks-in-chainmail plot. I would only add that the original version (the wholly and brutally male chauvinistic world that allows an unbelievable level of freedom to a very few chicks in bikini chainmail if they will only insist on it with swords!) was created decades ago and described almost identically by Marion Zimmer Bradley who called them Renunciates. Weber has added little to the concept while subtracting a believable cultural or personal backstory. I'm still wondering why Leana would do such a stupid thing, or why anyone would take her seriously. Or why half of the book followed her boring and unbelievable story which suddenly switched off without a conclusion. If it was merely to give Kerry notice of something she already knew, it was clumsy; if it was to lead to a further book about Leana, please spare me.

Like other reviewers, I was unsurprised by the outcome of Bazell's first meeting with an unattached courser. Talk about foreshadowing!

It is not, however, details that make the book fail. It is the lack of originality in the action, the characters, or the cultures they move through. The evil characters are without believable motivation; we are merely told they are evil and that explains them. The sinister plots of the bad guys are simplistic and clumsy, and always fail. The conversations are stilted throughout and exist solely to impart information. Worst of all flaws, there is no humor! (Don't remind me of the pitiful slapstick ending. That is not humor!)

I have been waiting for this sequel for years, but I am only grateful that I saw Wind Rider's Oath in the library before I bothered to buy it because it's not worth rereading.

On the strength of many of his latest books, the answer to the above question would have to be "Yes!".

The plot has been summarised elsewhere, so I won't rehash it.

If you have not read the earlier 2 novels in this series then don't start here. The (small) pleasures of reading Wind Rider's Oath are mainly for those of us who are already big fans of Oath of Swords and The War God's Own. Even there, don't expect much about Brandark or any character development for Bahzell (the story's principal character).

Multiple sub-plots are in desperate need of editing out(has David Weber become too successful for his publisher to dare?), especially the poorly thought out sub-plot of the runaway Leena. Why would the intelligent Leena think running away to join a group of people despised by her father's peers will help her father's political situation? Does she also think pigs fly?

The book didn't develop the personalities of the principal characters to help us care about them or succeed in generating any previous tension as to the likely outcome of the battles. As a result, the battle scenes, where Mr Weber often excells, were totally unexciting to read. Also, while I enjoy some of Eric Flint's books, I fear his variety of humor (ie. childish slapstick or childish insults, identical in tone each time irrespective of the characters involved) may be contaminating David Weber's writing, who co-writes some books with Mr Flint. The ending is just corny.

If I wasn't such a huge fan of most of Mr Weber's earlier works, I may have been less disappointed with some of his latest efforts.

So long as we keep buying this and other recent mediocre Weber books (eg. March to the Stars, Shiva Option, War of Honor), an otherwise excellent author will probably keep churning them out. I suggest you go to the library if you want to read it.

First, let me say that I love almost everything that David Weber writes (I only qualify as almost because although I've enjoyed everything of his that I've read I'm sure I've missed something), but I wouldn't put this at the top of his books.

As some readers have pointed out, you definitely want to read this after the first two in the series - Oath of Swords (vol. 1) and War God's Own (vol. 2). It's also fair to say that quite a bit of this story was about Leana (a whole lot of the story). Now she's an okay character, but if you've been reading this story since the beginning - you're really looking for Bazhell and Brandark (Brandark in particular gets short shrift in this story).

So why did I give it four stars? I still read it cover to cover in one sitting (I do that alot so that doesn't mean that a book is phenomenal, but at least means its good and engrossing). Weber has great fight scenes (although there's not a ton of them). His characters are also usually very interesting (although Bazhell comes across a bit like Superman). Bottom line - despite the nitpicking it was a fun book to read.

The series is kind of going through an evolution. Oath of Swords was pretty much a straight up adventure - two buddies going on an adventure with only limited "grand scale issues". The War God's Own introduced a few more characters and started getting more involved in political issues - Bazhell's father leading the Hrdani (sp ??), the political structure of the War God's religion, etc.

This third book really gives the impression that you're in a series. Multiple characters and plot threads developing. But there's still a good climax (actually a couple of good grand fights at the end).

Don't read this book first. Oath of Swords introduces the characters really well. You care about them after reading that book. If you enjoy the first two in the series, you won't be disappointed in this one (I think its the weakest of the three, but its still good).

I used to be a huge fan of David Weber, I in particular really enjoyed the first book of this series, Oath of Swords. It had all the humor, engaging unique characters, plotting and a proper sense of scale that is almost entirely lacking in this looooong delayed sequal. I was really let down by the first 2/3rds of WRO, which seemed packed with too much of the author's exposition and too little of descriptive action and (interesting!) character interaction. Seems interminably long with too many "parlor" scenes where characters explain what they are going to do and why, ad nauseum.

Even worse is that there is no real sense of peril, the two champions of Tomanak (certainly Bahzell) seem invulnerable and the villian's inept and weak. Threats to the Big BB hadrani champion seem to just shrugged aside too easily for this reader to be truly engaged in the lead character's struggles. Only real suspense comes way too late in the novel with the female human champion of Tomanak.

The greatest flaw is probably the number of plots, characters being juggled by the author in a somewhat forced if not (horrors!) pedestrian manner. In my opinion, David Weber could stand a real severe editing for all of his books of the past 5 years or more, this book should be pared down to maybe one major plotline and remove all of the unnecessary characters/minor plots (the nephew of the Baron's first taste of independent command/battle and maybe much of the Leanna story could be trimmed/dropped out or placed as short stories in some future anthology). I've read a great set of books when he works with joint authorship with Eric Flint (even with John Ringo, as much as I dislike the man's politics) in his Honor Harrington anthologies and the 1632-universe of Flint's.

It might be that David weber, like too many sucessful authors these days, needs to maybe cut back on the number of series/projects he's commited to (sometimes I curse the coming of the computer/word processing software, which allows authors maybe to write too much too quickly and dilute that which made the writing so special in the first place).

Weber has faltered with this series, and, oddly, he has faltered in much the same way he did with his last Honor Harrington book. Both the Bazhzell and HH series have lived on their great action scenes. Well, the last HH book (war of honor) had virtually no action until the final few chapters, and neither does this Bahzell book. How little? This book has 46 chapters. Bahzell does not draw his sword in anger for the first time until chapter 41, Kerry, not until chapter 44. Most of the rest of the book is dialogue. And not particularly interesting or amusing dialogue either. Those of you who follow the HH series might be thinking about the dejavu of that. Weber also spent virtually his entire last book on dialogue, and not very interesting dialogue there, either.

Others have noted the plot line involving Leeana, the teen war maid. I found it intensely dull, and by mid book was not even bothering to skim any more - I was skipping all the scenes of her entirely. Unfortunately, if other reviewers are right, Weber is setting her and the boring war maids up as the centrepiece of at least the next novel. Sad, very sad.

This book could have been awesome. I had expected to see scenes of the high and mighty Sothoi trying to wrap their minds around Bahzell and company. We got little of that, and not cleverly done either. Maybe Weber is losing his touch. I'd hoped to see something of what the Hradani were building with the war done, as well, but we got nothing there.

Don't get me wrong; this book is worth reading. There are some decent scenes and - leaving aside the girl Leeana - the rest is fairly readable. But you might want to wait for the paperback version. And watch out if there's another book and it features the boring young Leeana.

Bahzell Bahnakson is the first hradani to be Champion of the war-god Tomanak, which means that he's stuck righting wrongs, fighting evil, and generally carrying on even if the people he's helping don't like him. And they really don't like him. After a thousand years of war, the Sothoii hate anything having to do with the hradani--and there's a sizable segment of the court who will do just about anything to stir up trouble and end the pesky peace that threatens to break out between Sothoii and the hradani. The dark gods, always looking for an angle, are happy to take the opportunity Bahzell's opponents give them. With luck, they'll be able to eliminate Bahzell and his fellow champion, Kaeritha (the only female Champion of Tomanak in maybe forever). Their first step is the slaughter of a courser (horse-evolved but with human intelligence creatures) herd--and stealing the power that this gives them.

WIND RIDERS OATH switches back and forth between two simultaneous plots launched by the dark gods. In one, they attempt to undermine the peace--and Baron Tellian Bowmaster--along with the coursers under his domain. In the other, they stir up hostility between the unpopular War Maids (women who have fled to free cities where they are no longer subject to Sothoii's parernalistic legal structure) and the conservative nobility. Success in either plot would cast Sothoii back to its 'times of trouble.' Success in both would be a major victory for the dark gods.

Author David Weber continues his fantasy series with a strong adventure. Bahzell is a charmingly 'human' champion of his god--a champion who sometimes resists the god's orders and who certainly follows them in his own way. The coursers are only a part of the strong world-building that Weber brings to this series.

Weber is a story-teller rather than an 'author,' and he occasionally gets bogged down in boring conversations where characters chat things out, explain what they are going to do to one another, and generally kill the action. As with many of Weber's books, a hundred pages of trimming would have made the story stronger. Still, when Weber gets down to action, he's hard to beat. The second half of this story, in particular, was a rolicking adventure that kept me turning the pages.

As with many recent Baen hardbacks, a CD-ROM, containing the full text to dozens of novels including the earlier books in this series and Weber's Honor Harrington series, dramatically enhances the value of the package.

Just so you all know I consider myself a Weber fan, and have read most of his books. To me his stories can be hit or miss; this is one of the biggest misses. But I'll still keep reading his books because I love the good ones and re-read them again and again. I'd advise passing this one by, or waiting for paperback if you must have it. And if you like all of Weber's books, you'll probably like this one as well.

I really missed character development in this one--which is my usual complaint when I don't like a Weber book. Where's the interplay between Brandark and Bazhell? To me, their friendship and development was key to the first 2 books, but in this one I barely saw any of that. As for the other characters, their stories weren't as compelling as they were in the first two books of the series. The secondary and minor characters had depth and I cared about them more in those books.

Maybe the jokes are getting a little stale or the characters are too powerful and have developed as far as they can. Bazhell isn't struggling with becoming or being a champion anymore, and I didn't get any new, believable conflict in this story for his character. We've read about how he can run and keep up with horses--enough already.

I feel compelled to say that talking horse companions have been beaten to death in this genre, so seeing them crop up with some of the same jokes from Mercedes Lacky used just doesn't inspire.

One final note, in this case you can judge this book by it's cover. In the history of bad cover art, this passes the cover to Billy Joel's album, "River of Dreams". At least he had the excuse that his soon-to-ex wife designed it (you will note it didn't save the marriage). Not only do they pick the worst scene in the book (see the other reviewer), but the people look like posable action figures. OK, this is probably a publishing decision, not an author's decision but I couldn't keep quiet.

Maybe number 4 in this series will be better.

This book appeared seven years after the second book in the series and, I think, has suffered in some people's opinion because of the time separation. Weber is obviously working to the same sort of plan he did in his Honor Harrington novels (although I prefer his style in this series), with plot strands carried through from one book to the next. This was less obvious in the first two books than in WRO, and I believe the dissatisfaction some readers have expressed results at least in part from the fact that Weber didn't intend the book as a stand alone.This is clearly a complex, well realized fantasy universe, and he obviously has a long story to tell. That's going to take time and wordcount, and books are going to be interconnected and interdependent, like this one is. There are, indeed, unresolved plot strands which I expect to see resolved -- in whole or in part -- in the next book. Which hopefully will be coming out in the next year or so.

Personally, I found the book very enjoyable and readable, and I felt that it progressed naturally from a "launch phase," in which a whole new society (that of the Sothoii) was being introduced, to fast and furious action in the last few chapters. Given the lengthy time break between this book and the last one, I thought Weber did an excellent job of connecting the two while still giving the new reader enough information to know what was going on. My biggest criticism? Weber and Baen Books should have given us this book at least four years ago . . . and they'd better give me the next one a heck of a lot sooner than they did this one!

I got the impression while reading this that Weber was desperate to fulfill his contract for another Bahzell book so he could get back to Honor Harrington. Windrider's Oath lacks the breathless excitement and political intrigue of "The War God's Own" and "Oath of Swords" while attempting to introduce new characters that really aren't that interesting. This series doesn't advance the overall adventure or tie up any loose ends. What about Churnazh? What about Jashan? Tell us more about the gods and their war, Mr. Weber. I loved the first two books but can't really recommend this one unless you're just in desperate need of a Bahzall fix (Brandark, the second-most interesting character, gets short shrift in this book). Let's hope the next one gets it right