A review by usbsticky
The House of the Stag by Kage Baker
3.0
Following some other reviewers' recommendation, I read this #2 book first. It was a mistake. I should have read #1 first. Book 2 basically throws you into the series and many things are explained in book 1 (which I'm reading now).
Overall, I would say Baker is a good writer, the writing is easy to read and follow, though this book falls afoul of some of my pet peeves and I dnf'd it.
Spoilers ahead:
The first of my pet peeves is the prologue. Usually it's the author trying to be clever. 99% of the time it's irrelevant to the main story and ties in only at the end and by that time I will have forgotten about it. I chose to skip this one.
My next pet peeve is alternating POV's. You settle in with the main story, then comes another POV. At worst it's like reading another bo0k and you have to change mental gears and reset, and keep resetting. Only at the very best do you get a book that does it well and this one isn't it. I chose to skip the other POV. In fact the last chapter was a 3rd POV and I just decided to quit right there as I had no wish to read another story.
Spoilers really. Don't read this if you don't want the summary:
But the main story was quite good. It started with Gard waking up in the mountain as a slave. He worked up from a laborer to a skilled gladiator and then the master class. And then the best mage, at which time he detonated a spell and freed everyone so they could leave the mountain.
He escaped to live elsewhere as a free man. He soon found out that he was being chased by people from the mountain and he escaped again. He finally settled in a free city under a fake name. At first he worked as a laborer (again why?). Then he became a gardener, then an actor, then a soldier.
When the free city got invaded and his army got defeated he left with the group of demon/halfling soldiers under him and created his mountain stronghold. Then he married a healer from the Yendri race and she cooled him down. I stopped reading when the next chapter began with a different POV.
This book is supposed to give the background to book 1, which is why people recommended reading it first but I felt it was quite disjointed and you didn't need to know this to read book 1. And book 1 explains the setting better.
Overall, I would say Baker is a good writer, the writing is easy to read and follow, though this book falls afoul of some of my pet peeves and I dnf'd it.
Spoilers ahead:
The first of my pet peeves is the prologue. Usually it's the author trying to be clever. 99% of the time it's irrelevant to the main story and ties in only at the end and by that time I will have forgotten about it. I chose to skip this one.
My next pet peeve is alternating POV's. You settle in with the main story, then comes another POV. At worst it's like reading another bo0k and you have to change mental gears and reset, and keep resetting. Only at the very best do you get a book that does it well and this one isn't it. I chose to skip the other POV. In fact the last chapter was a 3rd POV and I just decided to quit right there as I had no wish to read another story.
Spoilers really. Don't read this if you don't want the summary:
But the main story was quite good. It started with Gard waking up in the mountain as a slave. He worked up from a laborer to a skilled gladiator and then the master class. And then the best mage, at which time he detonated a spell and freed everyone so they could leave the mountain.
He escaped to live elsewhere as a free man. He soon found out that he was being chased by people from the mountain and he escaped again. He finally settled in a free city under a fake name. At first he worked as a laborer (again why?). Then he became a gardener, then an actor, then a soldier.
When the free city got invaded and his army got defeated he left with the group of demon/halfling soldiers under him and created his mountain stronghold. Then he married a healer from the Yendri race and she cooled him down. I stopped reading when the next chapter began with a different POV.
This book is supposed to give the background to book 1, which is why people recommended reading it first but I felt it was quite disjointed and you didn't need to know this to read book 1. And book 1 explains the setting better.