The Blood Knight by Greg Keyes
Mar. 11th, 2008 02:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snugglekittyThis is the third installment in the epic Kingdom of Bone and Thorn series. The princess Anne Dare is reunited with her friends, trying to take back her throne. Gone is the impetuous girl of the first book - she's been replaced by a young woman who sees what needs to be done and accepts that she will have to make sacrifices in order to do it. She knows her limitations, and the risks she takes now are considered ones. But the challenges she's facing, both internal and external, grow ever more dire. Who can be trusted?
"He took a deep breath, feeling as though he was about to dive into a very deep pool. 'Being with you -- and just you -- is like being alone, but better.'
She stared at him, blinking.
He saw dampness appear in her eyes, and his heart fell. He knew what he wanted to say, but clearly he didn't have the right words.
'Winna --' he started again.
She held up a finger.
'Hush,' she said. 'That's the best thing you've said to me in a long time -- maybe ever -- so you probably want to shut up now.'"
p 155
In the previous book, The Charnel Prince, it felt to me as though things were happening very slowly and the plotlines were far removed from each other. This is not true of this book. I'll grant you that it's more than five hundred pages long, but those pages are action-packed, and the characters' lives are woven together more closely. Monsters, evil magic, ancient prophecies - here, they don't seem cliched. The ending leaves things very much up in the air for the fourth book, The Born Queen, which was planned as the conclusion to the series. It seems to me that Keyes had his work cut out for him finishing this magnificent saga in just one more book - maybe that's why no reviews are available yet, even though it's supposed to come out in two weeks.
Fans of fantasy should take note of this series. In particular, anyone who feels that nothing good has come out of the epic fantasy genre in a while, is disenchanted by Robert Jordan, or wonders what voudoun would look like as a state religion should run right out and get The Briar King. You won't be able to resist the sequels. Three and a half stars.
"He took a deep breath, feeling as though he was about to dive into a very deep pool. 'Being with you -- and just you -- is like being alone, but better.'
She stared at him, blinking.
He saw dampness appear in her eyes, and his heart fell. He knew what he wanted to say, but clearly he didn't have the right words.
'Winna --' he started again.
She held up a finger.
'Hush,' she said. 'That's the best thing you've said to me in a long time -- maybe ever -- so you probably want to shut up now.'"
p 155
In the previous book, The Charnel Prince, it felt to me as though things were happening very slowly and the plotlines were far removed from each other. This is not true of this book. I'll grant you that it's more than five hundred pages long, but those pages are action-packed, and the characters' lives are woven together more closely. Monsters, evil magic, ancient prophecies - here, they don't seem cliched. The ending leaves things very much up in the air for the fourth book, The Born Queen, which was planned as the conclusion to the series. It seems to me that Keyes had his work cut out for him finishing this magnificent saga in just one more book - maybe that's why no reviews are available yet, even though it's supposed to come out in two weeks.
Fans of fantasy should take note of this series. In particular, anyone who feels that nothing good has come out of the epic fantasy genre in a while, is disenchanted by Robert Jordan, or wonders what voudoun would look like as a state religion should run right out and get The Briar King. You won't be able to resist the sequels. Three and a half stars.
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no subject
Date: 2008-03-12 12:03 am (UTC)Wow. That sounds like a relationship to aspire to.
Pardon my ignorance, but what is your maximum number of rating stars?
no subject
Date: 2008-03-12 01:37 am (UTC)Only for introverts like me. :)
Pardon my ignorance, but what is your maximum number of rating stars?
My maximum number of stars is five. One means I couldn't finish the book, two means I finished it but felt it had big problems. Three means I liked it well enough. Four means I would read it over and over again, and five means that I feel it changed my life somehow, or could change its genre.
Five-star books are about ten percent of the books that I read. You can see last year's five-star books with the link to the Best Books of 2007, on the upper left hand side of my journal page.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-12 03:11 pm (UTC)Norman is into Robert Jordan, and I started the first book at his insistence. But I didn't really LIKE any of those people, and if I don't like them, I don't want to read thousands of pages about them!
no subject
Date: 2008-03-12 03:50 pm (UTC)I feel that Robert Jordan succumbed to X-Files Syndrome, which is when the plot just gets more and more complicated over time because nothing is ever fully resolved. I read a few books and then decided it wasn't worth it.
I suspect you'd like these ones. They're pagan-ish, but in a weird creepy interesting way. :)