tehani's review against another edition
5.0
Thoroughly enjoyed this. Though it took a little while to warm up, that was just the time it took to start to get to know the players! I loved that Daniells was not afraid to jump swathes of time in order to get to the exciting parts, that worked very well for me. The world building is fabulous, the characters are excellent - highly recommend, although you might like to be sensible and buy all three (released one month apart) before starting, because you'll get to the end and REALLY want to keep going! Bring on book 2!
rainbow_grace's review against another edition
1.0
I couldn't get into it. I found the writing awkward and boring.
carmelitasita's review against another edition
3.0
This was a great start to a fantasy series. It had everything one typically needs - religion, magic, corruption, war, and some people with serious personal identity issues. I am really looking forward to the next books in the series!
* I received this book for free from Goodreads First Reads.
* I received this book for free from Goodreads First Reads.
bookfairy99's review against another edition
2.0
I wanted to like this book so much more than I actually did. It promised a rich world, magic, strong women, political intrigue - all the things I love in a good fantasy novel. Unfortunately, I was underwhelmed by all these aspects and ultimately, pretty bored.
My biggest issue was that I had no one to root for. I didn’t really like a single character. I don’t actually require likable characters (I’ve loved plenty of books with strong antiheroes, and books like Gone Girl, with no likable protagonists at all) but I just didn’t give a damn about any of the characters in BESIEGED.
I think a big part of the problem is that the first hundred or so pages would have been better summed up as backstory. Very little actually happens, and what does only serves to set up what comes later; it never quite feels like part of the book’s plot. Then we meander through three decades of political machinations, backstabbing, and scheming only to end up at a cliffhanger ending. Sure, I get that this book is clearly the first in a series, and meant to sell more books, but I invested a lot of time and energy into this particular book for it to go absolutely nowhere. So, yeah... I will not be continuing with this series.
My biggest issue was that I had no one to root for. I didn’t really like a single character. I don’t actually require likable characters (I’ve loved plenty of books with strong antiheroes, and books like Gone Girl, with no likable protagonists at all) but I just didn’t give a damn about any of the characters in BESIEGED.
I think a big part of the problem is that the first hundred or so pages would have been better summed up as backstory. Very little actually happens, and what does only serves to set up what comes later; it never quite feels like part of the book’s plot. Then we meander through three decades of political machinations, backstabbing, and scheming only to end up at a cliffhanger ending. Sure, I get that this book is clearly the first in a series, and meant to sell more books, but I invested a lot of time and energy into this particular book for it to go absolutely nowhere. So, yeah... I will not be continuing with this series.
hrusewif's review against another edition
5.0
The blatant sexism present in the book had me flabberghasted and fuming at first, but then you slowly begin to realize that it is integral to the central plot of the story in some ways. After that, it grinds your gears quite a bit less.
The characters are real, though I wish there'd been just a tad bit more character development going on. The action and story will keep you glued to your seat, though, and once the book finally took off it was near impossible for me to put it down.
The world is unique and thrilling high fantasy like none I've ever seen before. It's well done, interesting, and there's such a wonderful level of detail. I honestly have not seen this level of world building except by the likes of George R.R. Martin and J.R.R. Tolkien. While definitely unique in it's own right and certainly not one to read if you want something along the lines of Martin and Tolkien's work, I'd still say that in its own right, Daniel's work in besieged certainly comparable in some regards, though. The world building is amazing.
The characters are real, though I wish there'd been just a tad bit more character development going on. The action and story will keep you glued to your seat, though, and once the book finally took off it was near impossible for me to put it down.
The world is unique and thrilling high fantasy like none I've ever seen before. It's well done, interesting, and there's such a wonderful level of detail. I honestly have not seen this level of world building except by the likes of George R.R. Martin and J.R.R. Tolkien. While definitely unique in it's own right and certainly not one to read if you want something along the lines of Martin and Tolkien's work, I'd still say that in its own right, Daniel's work in besieged certainly comparable in some regards, though. The world building is amazing.
thiefofcamorr's review against another edition
Katharine is a judge for the Sara Douglass 'Book Series' Award. This entry is the personal opinion of Katharine herself, and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of any judging panel, the judging coordinator or the Aurealis Awards management team.
I won't be recording my thoughts (if I choose to) here until after the AA are over.
I won't be recording my thoughts (if I choose to) here until after the AA are over.
emiling256's review against another edition
4.0
Besieged by Rowena Cory Daniells
****4****
Full review now up
Wow, this was a big book and a lot happened. It's going to take me a few to organize my thoughts. For now, we'll say, it's a solid solid 4 star rating. The pacing was my biggest issue, but I've already purchased books 2 and 3. Full RTC.
Full Review below:
Ok guys, this book is a Tome, and my review is long. The world building is truly impressive and the story is complex. The pacing is weird and some of the characters are bland, but we’ll get to all of that.
Where to start? The story focuses on three different peoples. The True Men (or Mieren – Regular human beings), the T’Enatuath (or T’en or Wyrds - Silver haired, red eyed, six fingered individuals who have mystical powers and are hated by True Men) and the Half Bloods (or Malajune – Copper haired and six fingered servants/family/devotees of the T’En and hated by True Men).
The T’En live segregated into brotherhoods and sisterhoods. The sisterhoods raise all pure blood T’En children (therefore any man from a brotherhood who has a T’En child must give them up), but when the boys are 17 they are sent back to the brotherhood of their fathers, the girls stay with the sisterhood. It is very difficult to birth a healthy T’En baby and so their numbers are low. T’En men and their Malajune wives often birth Malajune babies. Sometimes they will get lucky and birth a pure T’En baby to give up to the sisterhood. This causes tension between the two groups which are each ruled by All-Fathers and All-Mothers respectively. One All-Father decides that he wants to keep his pure T’En daughter and raise her himself, to break down the barriers between the brotherhoods and sisterhoods. (A side note here, that while the brotherhoods and sisterhoods do “tryst” most of the sexual encounters take place within their own “hoods” and therefore some gender and sexual issues are explored which are very interesting)
This leads us to one of the main characters, Imoshen, daughter of All-Father Rohaayel, kept from the sisterhood. They plan to have her form a mystical bond with a T’En male and birth a very special and powerful baby called a Sacrare, who can bind the sister/brotherhoods together.
In another part of the world, King Charald’s queen Sorna births a Malajune baby boy. Priest Oskane convinces the King not to kill the boy, but to allow Oskane to take him away and raise him and use him to find a weakness in the Wyrds (aka T’En) and use the boy to kill them all. The King does, however, kill the boy’s mother. The boy is taken away and named after his mother, Sorne is our 2nd main character.
The book spans both characters childhoods and into their younger adult years. This is where the pacing gets weird. Some of the chapters really jump through the years. One chapter is “seven years later” and another “ten years later.” Further in the book these jumps shrink to three years and one year but it still makes some big time jumps that throws the pacing off. This weird pacing also occurs within some chapters as well. One example is when some T’En women are trying to heal a Malajune man, but cannot fully heal him until he emotionally forgives himself for the terrors he brought to the world. Long story short, the man forgive himself for a lifetime of wrongs in four short sentences so he could be healed.
*Name* took *name’s* hand and poined to Charald, exercising her raeden gift. The king’s features dissolved to reveal he was as much a beast as the men he commanded. *Name* could not be responsible for Charald’s nature; the king would always seek the path of war. *Name* felt it the moment *name* accepted this.
While some aspects of the story take pages and pages to develop, this is just one of many many instances where something big happens in just a few sentences.
While some of the characters, especially the main characters are very well developed (especially since we’ve followed them since childhood), others are pretty weak and interchangeable. Some of the characters are really likeable and you cheer for them, and some are really despicable and you hope to see them die and even a few are complex enough that you aren’t sure if you hate them or feel sorry for them or understand why they did what they did. However, these unremarkable characters are only made harder to differentiate when some of the names used are so similar. Example: Reothe, Reoden and Reoshen (fyi, one of these is a female, two are males).
The names and the odd pacing were not enough to take off a star for me, but when you add these to the fact that none of the magic systems are really explained at all for the first 200 pages it fell to less than perfect. I was enjoying the book, but was pretty confused for the first 200 pages. Afterwards I felt like I was getting a grasp on things. Luckily the book was interesting enough to keep me reading until I got to page 200, but it was touch and go for a bit there which led me remove one star.
This book was still really enjoyable, complex and impressive, it deals with cultural, social and gender issues head on and sometimes in interesting ways. And that ending! Now there’s a cliffhanger. Thankfully all the books in this series are already published so the cliffhanger ending isn’t as bad (I’m actually not a fan of the cliffhanger hook, but since all 3 books are out already I’m going to overlook this). I hope you give this book a chance and enjoy it.
****4****
Full review now up
Wow, this was a big book and a lot happened. It's going to take me a few to organize my thoughts. For now, we'll say, it's a solid solid 4 star rating. The pacing was my biggest issue, but I've already purchased books 2 and 3. Full RTC.
Full Review below:
Ok guys, this book is a Tome, and my review is long. The world building is truly impressive and the story is complex. The pacing is weird and some of the characters are bland, but we’ll get to all of that.
Where to start? The story focuses on three different peoples. The True Men (or Mieren – Regular human beings), the T’Enatuath (or T’en or Wyrds - Silver haired, red eyed, six fingered individuals who have mystical powers and are hated by True Men) and the Half Bloods (or Malajune – Copper haired and six fingered servants/family/devotees of the T’En and hated by True Men).
The T’En live segregated into brotherhoods and sisterhoods. The sisterhoods raise all pure blood T’En children (therefore any man from a brotherhood who has a T’En child must give them up), but when the boys are 17 they are sent back to the brotherhood of their fathers, the girls stay with the sisterhood. It is very difficult to birth a healthy T’En baby and so their numbers are low. T’En men and their Malajune wives often birth Malajune babies. Sometimes they will get lucky and birth a pure T’En baby to give up to the sisterhood. This causes tension between the two groups which are each ruled by All-Fathers and All-Mothers respectively. One All-Father decides that he wants to keep his pure T’En daughter and raise her himself, to break down the barriers between the brotherhoods and sisterhoods. (A side note here, that while the brotherhoods and sisterhoods do “tryst” most of the sexual encounters take place within their own “hoods” and therefore some gender and sexual issues are explored which are very interesting)
This leads us to one of the main characters, Imoshen, daughter of All-Father Rohaayel, kept from the sisterhood. They plan to have her form a mystical bond with a T’En male and birth a very special and powerful baby called a Sacrare, who can bind the sister/brotherhoods together.
In another part of the world, King Charald’s queen Sorna births a Malajune baby boy. Priest Oskane convinces the King not to kill the boy, but to allow Oskane to take him away and raise him and use him to find a weakness in the Wyrds (aka T’En) and use the boy to kill them all. The King does, however, kill the boy’s mother. The boy is taken away and named after his mother, Sorne is our 2nd main character.
The book spans both characters childhoods and into their younger adult years. This is where the pacing gets weird. Some of the chapters really jump through the years. One chapter is “seven years later” and another “ten years later.” Further in the book these jumps shrink to three years and one year but it still makes some big time jumps that throws the pacing off. This weird pacing also occurs within some chapters as well. One example is when some T’En women are trying to heal a Malajune man, but cannot fully heal him until he emotionally forgives himself for the terrors he brought to the world. Long story short, the man forgive himself for a lifetime of wrongs in four short sentences so he could be healed.
*Name* took *name’s* hand and poined to Charald, exercising her raeden gift. The king’s features dissolved to reveal he was as much a beast as the men he commanded. *Name* could not be responsible for Charald’s nature; the king would always seek the path of war. *Name* felt it the moment *name* accepted this.
While some aspects of the story take pages and pages to develop, this is just one of many many instances where something big happens in just a few sentences.
While some of the characters, especially the main characters are very well developed (especially since we’ve followed them since childhood), others are pretty weak and interchangeable. Some of the characters are really likeable and you cheer for them, and some are really despicable and you hope to see them die and even a few are complex enough that you aren’t sure if you hate them or feel sorry for them or understand why they did what they did. However, these unremarkable characters are only made harder to differentiate when some of the names used are so similar. Example: Reothe, Reoden and Reoshen (fyi, one of these is a female, two are males).
The names and the odd pacing were not enough to take off a star for me, but when you add these to the fact that none of the magic systems are really explained at all for the first 200 pages it fell to less than perfect. I was enjoying the book, but was pretty confused for the first 200 pages. Afterwards I felt like I was getting a grasp on things. Luckily the book was interesting enough to keep me reading until I got to page 200, but it was touch and go for a bit there which led me remove one star.
This book was still really enjoyable, complex and impressive, it deals with cultural, social and gender issues head on and sometimes in interesting ways. And that ending! Now there’s a cliffhanger. Thankfully all the books in this series are already published so the cliffhanger ending isn’t as bad (I’m actually not a fan of the cliffhanger hook, but since all 3 books are out already I’m going to overlook this). I hope you give this book a chance and enjoy it.
jasmeralia's review against another edition
4.0
Really solid premise and execution, with characters that just pull you into their lives and their concerns. Even some of the villians make sense, they just... lack empathy, and the ability to reason that the T'En and the half-breeds are still human, and that what they're doing is racist.
Spoiler
I was glad to see Sorne redeemed; I was really hoping that he wouldn't fall beneath the weight of the sins brought on by his actions as a result of his guardian/torturer/brainwasher.timofeev's review against another edition
3.0
I had mixed feelings over this book. For the most part it wasn't that bad but for the most part it just seemed to be a lot of back stabbing and no real flow. I know some people have complained about the homosexuality in this book but it's only mentioned and doesn't go into detail. The sex is done tastefully and is actually plausible. In Roman times, warriors were encouraged to engage in homosexuality because it helped to form a more cohesive unit. With that being said I am going to get the next one because this book ended with a cliff hanger. Normally I don't mind them, but I feel that this was just a ploy used by the author to get the public to buy another mediocre novel. Oh well, I do want to know what happens.
ecooper99's review against another edition
2.0
I wanted to like this book so much more than I actually did. It promised a rich world, magic, strong women, political intrigue - all the things I love in a good fantasy novel. Unfortunately, I was underwhelmed by all these aspects and ultimately, pretty bored.
My biggest issue was that I had no one to root for. I didn’t really like a single character. I don’t actually require likable characters (I’ve loved plenty of books with strong antiheroes, and books like Gone Girl, with no likable protagonists at all) but I just didn’t give a damn about any of the characters in BESIEGED.
I think a big part of the problem is that the first hundred or so pages would have been better summed up as backstory. Very little actually happens, and what does only serves to set up what comes later; it never quite feels like part of the book’s plot. Then we meander through three decades of political machinations, backstabbing, and scheming only to end up at a cliffhanger ending. Sure, I get that this book is clearly the first in a series, and meant to sell more books, but I invested a lot of time and energy into this particular book for it to go absolutely nowhere. So, yeah... I will not be continuing with this series.
My biggest issue was that I had no one to root for. I didn’t really like a single character. I don’t actually require likable characters (I’ve loved plenty of books with strong antiheroes, and books like Gone Girl, with no likable protagonists at all) but I just didn’t give a damn about any of the characters in BESIEGED.
I think a big part of the problem is that the first hundred or so pages would have been better summed up as backstory. Very little actually happens, and what does only serves to set up what comes later; it never quite feels like part of the book’s plot. Then we meander through three decades of political machinations, backstabbing, and scheming only to end up at a cliffhanger ending. Sure, I get that this book is clearly the first in a series, and meant to sell more books, but I invested a lot of time and energy into this particular book for it to go absolutely nowhere. So, yeah... I will not be continuing with this series.