Lonely Planet Sweden
Lonely Planet, Anna Kaminski, Josephine Quintero and Becky Ohlsen
Book
Lonely Planet: The world's leading travel guide publisher Lonely Planet Sweden is your passport to...
Lonely Planet Tanzania
Lonely Planet, Stuart Butler, Anthony Ham and Mary Fitzpatrick
Book
#1 best-selling guide to Tanzania* Lonely Planet Tanzania is your passport to the most relevant,...
Lonely Planet West Coast Australia
Lonely Planet, Steve Waters, Brett Atkinson and Kate Armstrong
Book
Lonely Planet: The world's leading travel guide publisher Lonely Planet West Coast Australia is your...
Sombreros and Motorcycles in a Newer South: The Politics of Aesthetics in South Carolina's Tourism Industry
Book
In 1949, Alan Schafer opened South of the Border, a beer stand located on bucolic farmland in Dillon...
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.
JadedBubbles (1 KP) rated The King in Books
Jan 3, 2018
The book has some really good plot points finally coming about after a few books of build up from the Band of Bastards and the Glymeria, as well as Trez and iAm getting a spot light, hinting at the contents of the next novel, since it will be revolving around them.
In this novel Wraith and Beth are coming to an impasse regarding their future; Beth, who has yet to go into her Needing, would like nothing more than to have a child of her own. She knows her life has meaning as the Queen of the race, but she feels a hole in her life that only a young can fill. Wraith, who was orphaned at a young age when his parents were killed in a raid, does not want to subject his future offspring to his same fate, ruling the race from behind a massive wooden desk hating life. Not to mention the risk to Beth.
I found that I could relate to Beth very easily, and even though I really hated the way that Wraith reacted when he found out Beth wanted a child, I could see his point too. No one wants to lose the one they love more than life itself. the dialogue between characters was fun and witty, and events followed a logical progression and conclusion (trying to not give away details is so hard) that were satisfying.
Overall, if you are a fan of this series and you have not read this book yet, it is a must read! Especially if you love Beth and Wraith as much as I do.
Endurance: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Emil Zatopek
Book
Shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year In the summer of 1952 Emil Zatopek became...
Brazil: What Everyone Need to Know
Book
Brazil is one of the most important but puzzling countries in the world. A nation of 200 million...
Brown Bodies, White Babies: The Politics of Cross-Racial Surrogacy
Book
Brown Bodies, White Babies focuses on the practice of cross-racial gestational surrogacy, in which a...
The Feel Bad Film
Book
Presents an analysis of what contemporary directors seek to attain by putting their spectators in a...