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timinbc's review against another edition
3.0
I read this almost back-to-back with volume 1, and I'm glad I did.
Credit to Duncan for starting out this time with a list of the key players and where we left them at the end of the previous book. I wish more multi-volume authors would do that.
The story ripped along, meticulously structured and self-consistent as always. But in the end it just didn't leave me with even a little bit of "Wow, that was good!" Maybe I grew tired of a world in which life is cheap and most people are subjugated by violence or magic or both, and rape and killing are casual. Oh wait, that's most fantasy books, isn't it? (Recent exception: Re-reading Stardust, thank you Neil Gaiman!)
Maybe Saltaja just became too much Cruella de Vil, or the witch from Snow White, or the Ice Queen from Narnia, or whatever. Stock character, really, nyah-hah-hah. OK, she had to be EEE-villll so we could wonder what would happen to Fabia, but really ....
Coupla times I stalled and thought "Huh?" over simple things, like a troop of warriors disappearing in quicksand. In our world, at least, quicksand is rarely more than a few feet deep and can be dealt with. Duncan might have just left it as very deep fine dust, which can indeed swallow people (happens in grain silos, for example).
Another that was just NOT acceptable was
The whole dodec thing seemed unnecessary. A mountain range would have sufficed. And in the end notes Duncan says Nardalborg Pass would be 600 miles above sea level. Lookit, Olympus Mons on Mars is 16 miles high. The Pass would be more than twice the height at which the International Space Station orbits. Duncan admits the dodec's infeasibility, but I can't really accept that it could be so different from our planet that any humanoid species could breathe even at a fortieth of the height given. Was it important to have 12 faces, 12 gods? There was no hint of one-god-per-face, or any other reason to create Dodec.
Also, if we're going from sea level to +600 miles, we must have some serious hills. Paddling up the Milky (you don't row a canoe, Dave, unless you put oars in it, and as a Vancouver Islander you should know that!) must have been arduous, even for strong paddlers, which they weren't.
Benard and Dantio were believable, Wales good, Chies execrable (if this were a movie, people would boo whenever he appeared). Speaker Ardiel was irritating until it became apparent that we was actually comic relief. Heth and Horth were good too (I kept expecting a "hearth" joke).
You have to admire Duncan's plot-building, because everything follows from what he gave us earlier, and few details are just abandoned. And the details of what the Werists, Seers and Witnesses could and couldn't do were well worked out (not so much the Chosen).
Also good was the idea that if you train your warriors to be fiercely loyal to their unit leader, then they will likely be more loyal to him than to the top officers ...
But from mid-book on I felt a growing sense of here comes A, who's immensely powerful, and suddenly B is all shazam, I've got power too! This happens several times, in between episodes where opposing forces are carefully weighed and military analyses made. By the end, whenever tension built, I was left wondering which character would go Ka-blam! and zap everyone in sight with his or her or its magic.
The plot-resolving scene was admirable, because Duncan had carefully set up who couldn't be the next doge. That almost made up for the rushed feeling I got as Duncan quickly ran through the major confrontations that had to be dealt with before we could close.
Credit to Duncan for starting out this time with a list of the key players and where we left them at the end of the previous book. I wish more multi-volume authors would do that.
The story ripped along, meticulously structured and self-consistent as always. But in the end it just didn't leave me with even a little bit of "Wow, that was good!" Maybe I grew tired of a world in which life is cheap and most people are subjugated by violence or magic or both, and rape and killing are casual. Oh wait, that's most fantasy books, isn't it? (Recent exception: Re-reading Stardust, thank you Neil Gaiman!)
Maybe Saltaja just became too much Cruella de Vil, or the witch from Snow White, or the Ice Queen from Narnia, or whatever. Stock character, really, nyah-hah-hah. OK, she had to be EEE-villll so we could wonder what would happen to Fabia, but really ....
Coupla times I stalled and thought "Huh?" over simple things, like a troop of warriors disappearing in quicksand. In our world, at least, quicksand is rarely more than a few feet deep and can be dealt with. Duncan might have just left it as very deep fine dust, which can indeed swallow people (happens in grain silos, for example).
Another that was just NOT acceptable was
Spoiler
killing Marno off on the Altiplano, then a couple of chapters later doing the old pulp-fiction thing of "after his last-minute rescue by Vespa-something, ..." I refer you to thisThe whole dodec thing seemed unnecessary. A mountain range would have sufficed. And in the end notes Duncan says Nardalborg Pass would be 600 miles above sea level. Lookit, Olympus Mons on Mars is 16 miles high. The Pass would be more than twice the height at which the International Space Station orbits. Duncan admits the dodec's infeasibility, but I can't really accept that it could be so different from our planet that any humanoid species could breathe even at a fortieth of the height given. Was it important to have 12 faces, 12 gods? There was no hint of one-god-per-face, or any other reason to create Dodec.
Also, if we're going from sea level to +600 miles, we must have some serious hills. Paddling up the Milky (you don't row a canoe, Dave, unless you put oars in it, and as a Vancouver Islander you should know that!) must have been arduous, even for strong paddlers, which they weren't.
Benard and Dantio were believable, Wales good, Chies execrable (if this were a movie, people would boo whenever he appeared). Speaker Ardiel was irritating until it became apparent that we was actually comic relief. Heth and Horth were good too (I kept expecting a "hearth" joke).
You have to admire Duncan's plot-building, because everything follows from what he gave us earlier, and few details are just abandoned. And the details of what the Werists, Seers and Witnesses could and couldn't do were well worked out (not so much the Chosen).
Also good was the idea that if you train your warriors to be fiercely loyal to their unit leader, then they will likely be more loyal to him than to the top officers ...
But from mid-book on I felt a growing sense of here comes A, who's immensely powerful, and suddenly B is all shazam, I've got power too! This happens several times, in between episodes where opposing forces are carefully weighed and military analyses made. By the end, whenever tension built, I was left wondering which character would go Ka-blam! and zap everyone in sight with his or her or its magic.
The plot-resolving scene was admirable, because Duncan had carefully set up who couldn't be the next doge. That almost made up for the rushed feeling I got as Duncan quickly ran through the major confrontations that had to be dealt with before we could close.
tani's review
4.0
Seriously, major spoilers here. Don't read this if you don't want to be spoiled. That said...
For the most part, I really enjoyed this book. I liked the action and the fast pace. The characters were great: interesting and fun to read about. The plot was intriguing. In general, the book did a great job of keeping me focused and reading.
However, I wasn't really too thrilled with the ending. It felt a little rushed, especially the battle for Celebre. Maybe I was losing my concentration at that point, but it definitely felt a little too sudden in starting and a little too quick in ending.
I wasn't pleased by Waels's death. At all. Yes, part of that was my emotional reaction to the whole thing. I liked Waels. I didn't want him to die. Also, I hate to say it, but the fact that the gay guy, faced with a horribly life-threatening situation, dies, while the straight guys all pull through when faced with similarly horribly situations, is a little suspect to me. Yes, Marno ends up mauled and deformed, but he's still alive. Would it really have hurt to let Waels have a similarly miraculous recovery? A year or two ago, I probably wouldn't have noticed that kind of disparity, but now...Well, I do, and I don't like it.
Marno was the other thing I didn't really like. I just wasn't convinced that he's secretly this sweet, sensitive guy. Sure, it was said a couple times, although not exactly in those words, but his actions all went in the other direction. We saw Marno be ruthless. We saw him show very little regret for his ruthlessness. The only time we might have seen this other side of him was when he was talking to Fabia after they were married, with the art and the goblets and whatnot. It just wasn't enough to convince that Fabia falling for him was believable, you know? Maybe if we'd seen some of the conversations they had in the chariot, I wouldn't be having such a hard time, but since we didn't...I guess I think that there was a little too much telling and not enough showing where Marno was involved. I know I'll sound superficial when I say this, but it's not that easy to get past physical deformities like Marno's, and I'm just not convinced by Fabia's swift acceptance of him as a husband.
Also, the complete refusal to even consider Fabia as dogaressa kind of irked me. I'd have been fine with her age and lack of experience being cited as the reason she couldn't be dogaressa, but the focus on her gender was annoying. Oh, and this line: "Dogaressa Oliva had done her best, no doubt, but it was good to have a doge in charge again." Yeah, I know it's an in-character comment, not necessarily a reflection on the author or anything like that, but grr. Way to hit my buttons!
Still, my quibbles don't change the fact that I did enjoy the book a great deal. The ending really is the only thing that I'm dissatisfied with. I'll definitely be seeking out more Dave Duncan in the future.
For the most part, I really enjoyed this book. I liked the action and the fast pace. The characters were great: interesting and fun to read about. The plot was intriguing. In general, the book did a great job of keeping me focused and reading.
However, I wasn't really too thrilled with the ending. It felt a little rushed, especially the battle for Celebre. Maybe I was losing my concentration at that point, but it definitely felt a little too sudden in starting and a little too quick in ending.
I wasn't pleased by Waels's death. At all. Yes, part of that was my emotional reaction to the whole thing. I liked Waels. I didn't want him to die. Also, I hate to say it, but the fact that the gay guy, faced with a horribly life-threatening situation, dies, while the straight guys all pull through when faced with similarly horribly situations, is a little suspect to me. Yes, Marno ends up mauled and deformed, but he's still alive. Would it really have hurt to let Waels have a similarly miraculous recovery? A year or two ago, I probably wouldn't have noticed that kind of disparity, but now...Well, I do, and I don't like it.
Marno was the other thing I didn't really like. I just wasn't convinced that he's secretly this sweet, sensitive guy. Sure, it was said a couple times, although not exactly in those words, but his actions all went in the other direction. We saw Marno be ruthless. We saw him show very little regret for his ruthlessness. The only time we might have seen this other side of him was when he was talking to Fabia after they were married, with the art and the goblets and whatnot. It just wasn't enough to convince that Fabia falling for him was believable, you know? Maybe if we'd seen some of the conversations they had in the chariot, I wouldn't be having such a hard time, but since we didn't...I guess I think that there was a little too much telling and not enough showing where Marno was involved. I know I'll sound superficial when I say this, but it's not that easy to get past physical deformities like Marno's, and I'm just not convinced by Fabia's swift acceptance of him as a husband.
Also, the complete refusal to even consider Fabia as dogaressa kind of irked me. I'd have been fine with her age and lack of experience being cited as the reason she couldn't be dogaressa, but the focus on her gender was annoying. Oh, and this line: "Dogaressa Oliva had done her best, no doubt, but it was good to have a doge in charge again." Yeah, I know it's an in-character comment, not necessarily a reflection on the author or anything like that, but grr. Way to hit my buttons!
Still, my quibbles don't change the fact that I did enjoy the book a great deal. The ending really is the only thing that I'm dissatisfied with. I'll definitely be seeking out more Dave Duncan in the future.
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