tiffanytcole's review against another edition
4.0
Rasi, a talented warrior and member of Prince Elijah's squad, may soon become a captain. However, he no longer wants the warrior lifestyle. He'd rather settle down with his pregnant wife for a little while and perhaps pick up a career a lot less death heavy.
Rasi's plan was to give up his title as a warrior some time after going to the royal family's meeting. Unfortunately, the shortcut he takes from the palace in an effort to quickly get back to his wife ends up completely changing everything. Rasi hears a commotion. At first he just thinks it's a bunch of drunken men until he hears a girl being harmed. He tries to save her; he tries to defeat the captors.
It does not go as planned. Rasi opens his eyes and learns two things: 1.) his tongue is gone and 2.) he is not only being framed for the rape and murder of the girl, but his punishment is to die fighting a seven-tentacled beast. Here, Rasi's talent as a warrior gets him through - though barely - and the seven tentacles jump from the Rashta to him.
His escape seems for naught. He has nowhere to return to and nothing to keep him going but revenge...well, until he meets Princess Alina many years later.
I thought the story would be about Rasi and his revenge. However, with the introduction of Alina comes the introduction of the Light and the coming war with the Teks. The Light's role is to decide when the throne should be passed from elder to heir. However, on the day of change, the Light can be stolen if Alina is killed. The Teks, a steampunk civilization, are just out to conquer worlds and acquire more oil, and Epertase happens to be next.
Douglas Brown did a great job describing battles and plans, and the bits of humor here and there got a smile out of me. He's a a great writer, in that I could usually imagine everything he described and his sentences flowed together. However, I couldn't really connect with the characters. Prince Elijah's corruptness (I don't understand what he has against Rasi), Rasi and Alina's fairly quick relationship, even some of Rasi's actions...sometimes the only purpose I could see was moving the plot forward.
For me, the story especially picks up when the Teks started invading. At this point, the focus was less on characterization and more on the war (which was well-written and an enjoyable read).
Still, I have faith in Brown's storytelling skills and writing ability and I know for certain that he gets a better grasp of characterization the more he writes. How awesomely realistic the characters in Tamed were proves this. I recommend Legends Reborn for anyone interested in fantasy, steampunk, and battles.
Rasi's plan was to give up his title as a warrior some time after going to the royal family's meeting. Unfortunately, the shortcut he takes from the palace in an effort to quickly get back to his wife ends up completely changing everything. Rasi hears a commotion. At first he just thinks it's a bunch of drunken men until he hears a girl being harmed. He tries to save her; he tries to defeat the captors.
It does not go as planned. Rasi opens his eyes and learns two things: 1.) his tongue is gone and 2.) he is not only being framed for the rape and murder of the girl, but his punishment is to die fighting a seven-tentacled beast. Here, Rasi's talent as a warrior gets him through - though barely - and the seven tentacles jump from the Rashta to him.
His escape seems for naught. He has nowhere to return to and nothing to keep him going but revenge...well, until he meets Princess Alina many years later.
I thought the story would be about Rasi and his revenge. However, with the introduction of Alina comes the introduction of the Light and the coming war with the Teks. The Light's role is to decide when the throne should be passed from elder to heir. However, on the day of change, the Light can be stolen if Alina is killed. The Teks, a steampunk civilization, are just out to conquer worlds and acquire more oil, and Epertase happens to be next.
Douglas Brown did a great job describing battles and plans, and the bits of humor here and there got a smile out of me. He's a a great writer, in that I could usually imagine everything he described and his sentences flowed together. However, I couldn't really connect with the characters. Prince Elijah's corruptness (I don't understand what he has against Rasi), Rasi and Alina's fairly quick relationship, even some of Rasi's actions...sometimes the only purpose I could see was moving the plot forward.
For me, the story especially picks up when the Teks started invading. At this point, the focus was less on characterization and more on the war (which was well-written and an enjoyable read).
Still, I have faith in Brown's storytelling skills and writing ability and I know for certain that he gets a better grasp of characterization the more he writes. How awesomely realistic the characters in Tamed were proves this. I recommend Legends Reborn for anyone interested in fantasy, steampunk, and battles.
vabookworm703's review against another edition
1.0
In Legends Reborn Rasi witnesses soon to be King Elijah rape and murder a woman; after removing his tongue to keep him silent, Rasi is sentenced to death by combat. After escaping from prison by defeating a tentacled creature (whose tentacles have now attached themselves to Rasi) Rasi claims he will exact his revenge on Prince Elijah and then ……………….. nothing. Meanwhile a mindless killing enemy called Teks are approaching from the sea and threaten to wipe out the entire empire with their new mechanical army of machines. This novel is filled with every bad fantasy trope out there: beautiful princess falls in love with the rebel who threatened to kill her father; corrupt king; wrongfully imprisoned warrior who will fight to save the empire; and a unknown enemy who threatens to destroy the world. The plot moved at glacial speed, the writing was overly simplistic, the characters flat and without dimension (really, why are the Teks attacking), and there were random point of view chapters thrown in that did not advance plot or character development. This was not a well crafted story and I had to force myself to finish.
Spoiler
Seriously, nothing happens for 100 pages. Rasi lives in a cave, it snows, he kills some animals, he lights a fire, and it snows again. He does this for seven years. Then he meets and falls in love with Prince Elijah’s daughter who is not only NOT frightened of the killing, mindless tentacles on Rasi’ s back she somehow manages to calm them. Then its four more years of Rasi living in a cave with occasional visits from the princess and lots of “woe is me” when the princess is not there. Then the princess is kidnapped (of course she is) by her father who doesn’t want to give up the Light/Power of the throne and Rasi goes out to find her.
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