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jessarratt's review
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I liked this more than I thought I would! I loved Temur and Samarkar both, and I'm really looking forward to seeing where the second book goes.
shdnx's review
3.0
This book had some truly awesome moments, especially around the wizard initiation ritual ("Go and earn your power!"). Unfortunately, apart from these few memorable pages, Range of Ghosts becomes just an average epic fantasy book.
At the core, the problem lies in that epic fantasy books, by nature, rely on their awesome scope - potentially large number of PoVs, events that shape the world, many locations, many different-but-overlapping conflicts/problems... things like that - to entertain. Usually they don't try to be full of action-scenes and in general set a slow(er) pace than their urban fantasy counterparts for instance.
(There are a few exceptions to this, books that are coincidentally the best in the epic fantasy genre in my opinion - most notable examples are The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss and the Mistborn books by Brandon Sanderson. There is not many of them, and the reason is that they're incredibly difficult to get right - as we're seeing here.)
So let's see what Range of Ghosts features from the above:
- PoVs? Four, in fact, but two of which with barely any chapters. This isn't a problem in itself; four viewpoints should usually be enough - however, 2-3 of these are usually very near each other, and therefore only offer a vaguely different perception of the events.
- World-shaping events? Well, kind of. I suspect that the rest of the series will fare better in this regard, but a fact is a fact: this is not an epic book in this regard.
- Many locations? Well, our protagonists do travel a lot, but there is just not much difference between the locations, as they are described. I do not really see the different cultures, apart from a very few surface things, like how people dress - but, for instance, never in how they behave.
- Different conflicts/problems? No, there is only one (serious) conflict (some sect vs the world), and that's all, be happy with it.
"All right, fine, it's not a good epic fantasy book. But is it any good with the action?" - you could ask. However, I'm afraid the answer is "not really". See, the book pretends to be epic fantasy, so there are fighting scenes very rarely, and they are not even written that well. Some vague description of a few engagements, but I didn't feel the chaos and the intensiveness of a well-written combat scene.
Outside of the combat scenes, the story creeps forward very-very slowly. This is usually all right in epic fantasy books, because - once again - they're not like action movies: in fact, quite the opposite, they try to amaze you with their cool ideas, colorful world and vast scope.
Now there are some fairly cool ideas featured in Range of Ghosts, but they are just not awesome, and not significant enough to save it. As I already mentioned, the world feels rather uniform and boring, with very little real variety.
The characters are much the same. I can't recall a single character from the entire story who caught my interest in any way. They're just like the rest of their world: different-appearing on the surface, but quite the same in essence.
There's definitely potential for an epic scope however, in later books. The story does have this potential, but it goes mostly unexploited throughout the opening book of the Eternal Sky series. In that case, this book is a mere prologue, which was blown up to a full book's size.
So overall, while it is a fine book, Range of Ghosts is not really remarkable. Read once, then forget. It is disappointing, because the cover text looked very promising. Anyhow, I will try the second book sometime to see if there's any hope for the series.
At the core, the problem lies in that epic fantasy books, by nature, rely on their awesome scope - potentially large number of PoVs, events that shape the world, many locations, many different-but-overlapping conflicts/problems... things like that - to entertain. Usually they don't try to be full of action-scenes and in general set a slow(er) pace than their urban fantasy counterparts for instance.
(There are a few exceptions to this, books that are coincidentally the best in the epic fantasy genre in my opinion - most notable examples are The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss and the Mistborn books by Brandon Sanderson. There is not many of them, and the reason is that they're incredibly difficult to get right - as we're seeing here.)
So let's see what Range of Ghosts features from the above:
- PoVs? Four, in fact, but two of which with barely any chapters. This isn't a problem in itself; four viewpoints should usually be enough - however, 2-3 of these are usually very near each other, and therefore only offer a vaguely different perception of the events.
- World-shaping events? Well, kind of. I suspect that the rest of the series will fare better in this regard, but a fact is a fact: this is not an epic book in this regard.
- Many locations? Well, our protagonists do travel a lot, but there is just not much difference between the locations, as they are described. I do not really see the different cultures, apart from a very few surface things, like how people dress - but, for instance, never in how they behave.
- Different conflicts/problems? No, there is only one (serious) conflict (some sect vs the world), and that's all, be happy with it.
"All right, fine, it's not a good epic fantasy book. But is it any good with the action?" - you could ask. However, I'm afraid the answer is "not really". See, the book pretends to be epic fantasy, so there are fighting scenes very rarely, and they are not even written that well. Some vague description of a few engagements, but I didn't feel the chaos and the intensiveness of a well-written combat scene.
Outside of the combat scenes, the story creeps forward very-very slowly. This is usually all right in epic fantasy books, because - once again - they're not like action movies: in fact, quite the opposite, they try to amaze you with their cool ideas, colorful world and vast scope.
Now there are some fairly cool ideas featured in Range of Ghosts, but they are just not awesome, and not significant enough to save it. As I already mentioned, the world feels rather uniform and boring, with very little real variety.
The characters are much the same. I can't recall a single character from the entire story who caught my interest in any way. They're just like the rest of their world: different-appearing on the surface, but quite the same in essence.
There's definitely potential for an epic scope however, in later books. The story does have this potential, but it goes mostly unexploited throughout the opening book of the Eternal Sky series. In that case, this book is a mere prologue, which was blown up to a full book's size.
So overall, while it is a fine book, Range of Ghosts is not really remarkable. Read once, then forget. It is disappointing, because the cover text looked very promising. Anyhow, I will try the second book sometime to see if there's any hope for the series.
archaeomancer's review
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
vreyone's review
4.0
Hoho, I like this one. Prince in running (really good with bow), badass princess turned wizard, tiger-woman, heck, there's even badass horse. The setting is fantasy version of Central Asia and Ottoman Empire, where different places have different sky. Cool concept. Story itself is pretty generic, but I can ignore that.
kmowery's review
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
peytonm's review
2.0
I enjoyed the world building, but how this type of fantasy treats relationships isn't for me. Oh well.
booksarebetter's review
3.0
Another book where I tried three chapters and...nada. The writing is fine but I just wasn't connected at all. Maybe it's me, but I'm giving this three stars and I definitely plan on trying again in the future just not right now.
strigine's review
4.0
Rich worldbuilding, layered characters, nice balance of plot complexity. Definitely looking for the rest of the trilogy.
timinbc's review
3.0
I never know what to say about these just-good-enough-to-make-you-read-the-next one books.
The setting seems rather familiar. The sole survivor on a battlefield just happens to be a prince - what, again? We have a rukh (roc) and a Cho-Tse (kzin) and veiled assassins (out-ot-place ninjas) in a world that isn't our Asia but also isn't NOT our Asia.
So to fix this, Bear gives us a sky that changes to indicate who's in power where you are at the moment, and in some cases has a moon for each of the power players. Said moons seem to be in the sky all the time, let's not work too hard on the physics of that. Lookit, I can accept djinns and magic horses etc., but this sky stuff is too much. Can you go for a walk, looking up, and see it change? Does it click over in a blink. or change at midnight, or what?
We have to have a Quest, of course, and the setup is OK except that Temur's devotion to Edene is not established but seems to be all-important.
Our lead characters are all nice. Decent, thoughtful, visit Mom every Sunday. The bad guys are bwah-hah-hah, OK. I did like the matter-of-fact, businesslike djinn.
We have a wizardess who has been told she doesn't have much power but she could be strategic. I dunno, I have this feeling that 700 pages from now she's going to go up against an obviously-way-stronger wizard and find that ... well, you know. Not complaining; that's what we WANT in our fantasy. [Although, someday, I want a book from someone about the problems of being by FAR the strongest wizard in the world, battling a constant challenge of can vs. should and conflicting requests]
So we meet the characters, set up the problem, move them toward the Confrontation. and we have to stop, because that's how multi-volume sagas work. Sigh.
Now we come to the horse. Bear does a good job of slowly, slowly revealing that this is not just a good horse. By then end of this volume 1 we see that it can teleport, and I think we are shown that it can talk and/or is telepathic and quite intelligent. Great. What will we learn in volume 2? Can it shake its mane and turn into 200 pegasi that can breathe fire? Can it teleport its rider?
Nevertheless, I will read #2. I've read several other E-Bears and generally liked them,
The setting seems rather familiar. The sole survivor on a battlefield just happens to be a prince - what, again? We have a rukh (roc) and a Cho-Tse (kzin) and veiled assassins (out-ot-place ninjas) in a world that isn't our Asia but also isn't NOT our Asia.
So to fix this, Bear gives us a sky that changes to indicate who's in power where you are at the moment, and in some cases has a moon for each of the power players. Said moons seem to be in the sky all the time, let's not work too hard on the physics of that. Lookit, I can accept djinns and magic horses etc., but this sky stuff is too much. Can you go for a walk, looking up, and see it change? Does it click over in a blink. or change at midnight, or what?
We have to have a Quest, of course, and the setup is OK except that Temur's devotion to Edene is not established but seems to be all-important.
Our lead characters are all nice. Decent, thoughtful, visit Mom every Sunday. The bad guys are bwah-hah-hah, OK. I did like the matter-of-fact, businesslike djinn.
We have a wizardess who has been told she doesn't have much power but she could be strategic. I dunno, I have this feeling that 700 pages from now she's going to go up against an obviously-way-stronger wizard and find that ... well, you know. Not complaining; that's what we WANT in our fantasy. [Although, someday, I want a book from someone about the problems of being by FAR the strongest wizard in the world, battling a constant challenge of can vs. should and conflicting requests]
So we meet the characters, set up the problem, move them toward the Confrontation. and we have to stop, because that's how multi-volume sagas work. Sigh.
Now we come to the horse. Bear does a good job of slowly, slowly revealing that this is not just a good horse. By then end of this volume 1 we see that it can teleport, and I think we are shown that it can talk and/or is telepathic and quite intelligent. Great. What will we learn in volume 2? Can it shake its mane and turn into 200 pegasi that can breathe fire? Can it teleport its rider?
Nevertheless, I will read #2. I've read several other E-Bears and generally liked them,
mssarahmorgan's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75