Anthony Ryan (1)Críticas

This review is for the complete Raven's Shadow trilogy , by Anthony Ryan (Blood Song; Tower Lord; Queen of Fire).

I enjoyed it a lot...

The first book is a coming of age story told from the point of view of Vaelin al Sorna, as he grows up as a brother of the Sixth Order. That's an order of warriors monks who serve the Faith and the Realm, in that order. It's a training novel, and the training is absolutely brutal, resulting in the death of a good number of the young trainees. Vaelin himself grows up to be an extraordinary warrior with a mystical ability. You have to understand that this is a heroic story, and the main characters are extremely skilled. However, he does not seem overpowered because the challenges he faces always keep him as the underdog. the novel is very readable and the supernatural elements are intriguing and original.

Then, in the second and third books, the style changes to multiple points of view. Three new point of view characters are introduced, with the story told from the perspective of one of them in each chapter. I have seen that the reviews are mixed for these books. The first one met with almost universal acclaim, while the second and particularly the third got mixed reviews. I think that this is somewhat unfair. People liked Vaelin and wanted more of him, but the storylines of the other three point of view characters are quite interesting too. But it's true that some of the style and personality of the first book gets diluted into a more generic epic fantasy. I think that many readers found the sudden change from single to multiple points of view a bit jarring. Also, the author makes the choice to keep Vaelin away from many of the greatest battles. In a story like this, we want our greatest hero kicking ass, but a lot of the time, particularly in the third book, Vaelin is involved in a quest that is equally important but removes him from the war.

Anyway, the supernatural enemies are original and menacing, and the story is epic, even if the final war in the third book is sometimes anticlimactic.

This review is for the complete Raven's Shadow trilogy , by Anthony Ryan (Blood Song; Tower Lord; Queen of Fire).

I enjoyed it a lot...

The first book is a coming of age story told from the point of view of Vaelin al Sorna, as he grows up as a brother of the Sixth Order. That's an order of warriors monks who serve the Faith and the Realm, in that order. It's a training novel, and the training is absolutely brutal, resulting in the death of a good number of the young trainees. Vaelin himself grows up to be an extraordinary warrior with a mystical ability. You have to understand that this is a heroic story, and the main characters are extremely skilled. However, he does not seem overpowered because the challenges he faces always keep him as the underdog. the novel is very readable and the supernatural elements are intriguing and original.

Then, in the second and third books, the style changes to multiple points of view. Three new point of view characters are introduced, with the story told from the perspective of one of them in each chapter. I have seen that the reviews are mixed for these books. The first one met with almost universal acclaim, while the second and particularly the third got mixed reviews. I think that this is somewhat unfair. People liked Vaelin and wanted more of him, but the storylines of the other three point of view characters are quite interesting too. But it's true that some of the style and personality of the first book gets diluted into a more generic epic fantasy. I think that many readers found the sudden change from single to multiple points of view a bit jarring. Also, the author makes the choice to keep Vaelin away from many of the greatest battles. In a story like this, we want our greatest hero kicking ass, but a lot of the time, particularly in the third book, Vaelin is involved in a quest that is equally important but removes him from the war.

Anyway, the supernatural enemies are original and menacing, and the story is epic, even if the final war in the third book is sometimes anticlimactic.

A good 'growing up' fantasy novel about a young man, Alwin the Scribe, taken in by a bandit gang in the forest. The bandit 'king' has pretensions to great things and Alwin is fated to get involved in politics of the nation. Very different in plot from his Raven's Shadow novels, but similar in tone and some basic plot elements. Still good though, Alwin and Toria and Brewer and others are good characters. A bit on the dark side.

643pg
guerra vinta, alleato sconfitto
alcuni muoiono, ogni sopravvissuto torna a casa sua

602pg
Invasione Volariana. Tutto il mondo in guerra.
Vaelin insieme a sua sorella Alornis e Dharena raduna Nortah e altri magici oltre a Eorhil Sil e i Seorda Sil infine anche Caenis con quel che resta della Guardia del Regno
Regina Lyrna gravemente ustionata dopo la pace con i Lonak arriva con rinforzi Maldeani tra cui Lo Scudo
Tutti giungono a Cumbrael x salvare Alltor,la città di Reva, tranne Frentis, Dakova e Maestro Sollis che sono rimasti indietro

DNF because I realised relatively quickly that this is not for me.

I think this book was solid, but the comparisons to Name of the Wind are a bit farfetched. This book rushes a lot. It doesn't feel as much like an enjoyable story as it does a lesson (though it's not clear in what), and this makes it less enjoyable to relax and lose oneself in. The story itself was good, though not perfect, and the characters were a bit less developed than I would have expected. Most of all, I found the format to be a bit awkward. The present day vs. long historical sections were not as well done as in the Name of the Wind, and often ruined bits of the story by telling what would happen in the next historical part (which I found extremely frustrating). Overall, worth reading for fans of the genre, but not a book I'd recommend to anyone else.

Well, this was horrible!

The author is good with words but he lacks any idea of how to write a decent story and has little clue of human behaviour.

The main character sounds witty but.. he's anything but.

Characters in general are downright dumb, doing things for no reason. Some are pictured as being good while bringing murder, rape, pillage and destruction everywhere they go.

Here are two examples:

(The following paragraphs contain SPOILERS)

In the first book, at some point this lady, the commander of the main army group is wounded and she's dying. The main character decides to save her life by employing the pagan rituals of a witch. When she wakes up she thinks she was saved by angels. She then proceeds in rallying all the local peasants against the greedy royals and the church claming divine wisdom. The royals and the church try to assassinate her of course but again she is saved by the main character with help from her army and the peasants. She, him and their army group then proceed to a meeting with the royals and the church where she swears fealty to them. Wait, what!? But they just tried to kill her! The peasants are also very happy about the situation even though just a short while ago they were screaming their guts out against the royals and the church for bleeing them dry. Again, what, why!?

They are then ordered to proceed and fight a war against a neighboring province, this being a way in which the royals and church hope to get rid of them. The province in question is one of the few places in the realm where the nobles, the church and the peasants live in relative harmony. Wow! This sure sounds like a bad place which needs to be wiped off the face of the earth. So they go there and exterminate pretty much everyone. All this time the lady commander keeps saying that this has to be done so as to prevent the demons from coming to this realm. All her subjects, including the main character believe what she says because real-wide slaughter sure sounds like something that would prevent the apocalypse. While facilitating this conquest the main character keeps pretending that he is a good person. He later questions himself about how he could do all this. I questioned myself too and it turned out that everything that he did, he did because he wanted to fuck his commander.

Sadly this is the level of story telling here, in the first book and beyond.

I'm really not sure why people where comparing this to Sanderson or Rothfuss. Did no one read Mark Lawrence's The Broken Empire? In any case, I started off thinking this was boy lit--all testosterone and swordly prowess, but it turned out to be a nuanced look at loyalty, religion, honor, love and magic.

Being a '1st' book, there were times when the prose could have been smoother or a change of subject came too abruptly, but I have no doubt that this trilogy (series?) will just get better.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book, including parts of it on audio (I switch back and forth between the two depending on circumstance). The narrator's voice was delicious. My only complaint is that on occasion I missed that the character was expressing an inner thought, but on the whole he did a superb job.

REREAD 2016: Loved it just as much as the 1st time. I want more from Mr Ryan.


ORIGINAL REVIEW: Loved, loved, loved--and shocked that I did. Very much looking forward to the next book in the (what I hope is) a trilogy.

The narrator was quite good--I'll be picking up the print version as well because these books will be on my 'Will Re-read' list.

REREAD: 10/10/2016: Finished for the second time. I was not ready to leave that world yet. Here's hoping that there are some shortstories in this series. I'm off to look.

ORIGINAL REVIEW: This was one of those series that I will go back to again and again. I wanted to start it all over as soon as I was done.

I really liked that although there was no HEA, all the 'ends' were fitting to the story, world and character.

Great job by Mr. Ryan.

I enjoyed the ending to this trilogy and was satisfied with it from a story perspective, but I think the final battles went on a bit too long. It would have rated another star if it wasn't so much of the same battle. The excellent narration got me through them and I did enjoy the book--I wouldn't mind seeing more of this world.

This was a fun little novella set in one of my favourite worlds and series. I love the banter between the demon and Guyime and this was an interesting little story. (I also love his attitude towards things “not my problem” made me laugh for no reason wjfndjdn½

First half had promise, second half didn't live up to it. The initial outlaw cast was interesting, but I felt that the rest of the characters were either boring or just plain unlikable. The pacing and amount of setting changes also played into negative character dynamic, nothing and nobody felt very fleshed out.

Ein Mann kommt auf einem Schiff zu sich. Er weiß nicht, warum er dort ist und wer er überhaupt ist. Dass er Huxley heißt, lässt ihn eine Tätowierung auf dem Arm annehmen. Er ist nicht alleine, es gibt weitere fünf Lebende und ein Toter. Keiner von ihnen hat eine Erinnerung. Das Schiff ist ferngesteuert und sie erhalten über ein Satellitentelefon Anweisungen. Im dichten Nebel hören sie schreckliche Schreie. Sie finden heraus, dass sie auf dem Weg in ein zerstörtes und ausgestorbenes London sind. Doch auf der Themse wird es immer gefährlicher, denn überall lauern schreckliche Wesen. Was ist geschehen?
Ich kannte den Autor Anthony Ryan bisher nur von Fantasy-Büchern, doch er kann auch Thriller, jedenfalls wenn man solch blutrünstige Horrorgeschichten mag. Meine Sache sind sie nicht. Der Schreibstil allerdings lässt sich gut und flüssig lesen sofern man nicht immer wieder pausieren muss, weil man das Gemetzel nicht mehr ertragen kann.
Es ist eine verstörende und sehr bedrohliche Welt, in der sich die sechs Überlebenden bewegen. Sie versuchen herauszufinden, was mit ihnen geschehen ist und ihre Vermutungen scheinen sich zu bestätigen. Sie geraten von einer gefährlichen Situation in die nächste und können sich keinen Fehler erlauben, denn sonst erwartet sie der Tod. Ihre Aufgabe ist es, die Welt zu retten, was sich aber erst so peu à peu ergibt. Doch nicht alle werden am Ende dabei helfen können.
Die Charaktere kamen mir nicht wirklich nahe, sie sind auch nicht besonders vielschichtig ausgearbeitet. Sie wurden in eine Ausnahmesituation hineingeworfen und ihre besonderen Fähigkeiten sollen ihnen dabei helfen, die Schwierigkeiten zu meistern. Vielleicht gehen sie deshalb nicht besonders empathisch miteinander um.
Für mich war diese zwar spannende, aber blutige und grausame Geschichte nicht das Richtige.

It took me a lot longer to get through Tower Lord than Blood Song. I liked the first better, but still enjoyed this book.

Every bit as enjoyable and entertaining the second time around as it was the first. I've read a lot of reviews that blast Ryan for line-edit errors (which is why authors have editors, btw) but the kindle version of this series has been updated repeatedly as errors are found and corrected (as is the case with every book).

If you like Rothfuss, Brett, Jordan or Weeks, you'll absolutely love Ryan! I'd highly recommend this series to any fan of epic fantasy!

Really loved this follow-up to Blood Song. Ryan did a lot of work to round out character building with world building and every chapter was entertaining! The addition of new characters like Reva filled some of what I was lacking from the first installment and the build-up to a final war was done in a way that didn't make it feel tired. Can't wait to dive into book three!

If you haven't read this series yet - you're really missing out!

I have to say, I'm a bit disappointed with how this entire series ended on such a flat note. I'm still madly in love with the characters, but only mildly in love with their stories.

One of the things that bothered me so much was how predictable the plot was. Every epic fantasy wants to end with an epic battle between good and evil, but even the most basic fantasy writers try to find a way to make that battle exciting - in this case, it was literally good vs. evil and when all was said and done, I didn't really care.

It's a rare thing to love the second book so much more than the first, but that is the case with The Legion of Flame! I loved the different character perspectives and all the different story arcs. I had a hard time putting this thing down because I was dying to see what might happen next! The introduction of a few new characters was an excellent touch as well. Face-paced. Full of action. Awesome character development and world-building. And drakes. Need I say more?

Definitely give this series a read!

Anthony Ryan... you're on my naughty list this Christmas for ending a series that would have kept me reading for at least a hundred books. Shame.

This was an awesome concluding book. I'm madly in love with every character and will be keeping my fingers crossed that we see other stories in the same universe as this one.

If you love action and reading a story through multiple perspectives, this series and this book are totally your jam. I loved it. You probably will too.

What I loved about this book was that it was a little bit fantasy, a little bit steampunk, and a little bit of something I'd never read before. The read was incredible enjoyable. Loved the characters and depth of world building. I was slightly put off by editing errors and the whole time I kept thinking this is oddly similar to Sanderson's Mistborn Trilogy... so if you liked that one, you'll enjoy this one as well.

Give it a go!

3.5 stars from me. I love Ryan's Al Sorna books, especially because the depth of character is what makes people come back for more Vaelin! This series, however, started off with an assumption that the reader will already know and love these characters. Terrible for new readers, and difficult for those of us who haven't read the original series in years. I found myself constantly having to stop to remind myself of the characters and story arcs referred to constantly in this book with no further backstory or explanation. I was left with a whole lot of prose on war and almost none of the amazing character-building I've fallen in love with in Ryan books.

Still an entertaining read and a great story. Just lacking earlier series magic for me.

This was a lovely conclusion to a powerful duology of some of my favorite characters from past series in addition to a few new ones. I felt like some of the character depth lacking in the previous book had space to shine in this one, which carried the story through its climax at just the right place.

While I still feel like too much is missed if you haven't read past trilogies, this installment is definitely worth a read!

A fun, quick read. Not a lot of depth, but a well executed short story that was entertaining from the opening paragraph to the closing. I'm so used to reading Ryan's incredibly constructed worlds and characters so it threw me off a bit to read a short, but I'd still recommend giving it a go!