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Join John Rogers as he ventures out into an uncharted London like a redbrick Indiana Jones in search...
Japanese Gardens and Landscapes, 1650-1950
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Moss, stone, trees, and sand arranged in striking or natural-looking compositions: the tradition of...
Roman Portable Sundials: The Empire in Your Hand
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In an unscientific era when maps were rarities, how did ancient Romans envisage their far flung...
The Wood for the Trees: One Man's Long View of Nature
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From one of our greatest science writers, this biography of a beech-and-bluebell wood through...
The Wood for the Trees: The Long View of Nature from a Small Wood
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From one of our greatest science writers, this biography of a beech-and-bluebell wood through...
Robert Fry
Jane Neal, Anthony Fry, Alfred Kornfeld and Anne Langmann
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The paintings and etchings of Robert Fry (b. 1980, London) confront viewers with an engaging...
Taking Heaven Lightly: A Near Death Experience Survivor's Story and Inspirational Guide to Living in the Light
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'A remarkable book ...Experiences like Roisin's have now been validated by hundreds of scientific...
The Phoenix: An Unnatural Biography of a Mythical Beast
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Arising triumphantly from the ashes of its predecessor, the phoenix has been an enduring symbol of...
Ti West recommended Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) in Movies (curated)
Ross (3284 KP) rated Legacy of Ash in Books
Dec 21, 2020
The book takes place in an empire with far-from-happy constituent parts and angry neighbours. The heirs of the traitorous Southweald "phoenix" are held captive as figureheads warning off any thoughts of rebellion. Meanwhile, a cliched corrupt council tries to keep the empire safe from impending invasion.
The book is filled with interesting magical creatures and abilities, with a demon, witches, crow-themed goth assassins and ancient spirits. These were at the fore nowhere near often enough, treated as curses and cast aside in favour of political plotting and old fashioned battle.
The first third of the book was awesome: learning about the richness of the world, its history, politics and magic. It really was set up to be an epic story of political intrigue, deception, plotting and underhand nastiness.
Sadly, this all lead to a battle sequence that lasted far too long. It was really like Joe Abercrombie had taken one of the First Law books and shoved The Heroes into the middle of it. I really struggled to get past this long, fairly boring conflict.
The second half of the book then calms down and focuses once again before taking a massive left-turn and changing to something very different.
As with many books of this size, the cast was massive and a number of characters not distinct enough to remember by name. And so many had such promising abilities to offer but were largely absent when they would have been so useful. It was like having a superstar in an amateur dramatic society and leaving them out of most of the script. Having said that, I once saw a pantomime with David Van Day in the cast and it was in everyone's best interests that he was largely absent.
The book finished well, but it was an 800-page book that read like a 1200-page one, taking me 5 weeks to read.


