Dawnthief has sat on my shelf for awhile, promising a world of gritty mercenary realism reminiscent of Glen Cook or Joe Abercrombie. The book follows the exploits of an elite band of brothers called The Raven, as they’re caught up in a war against the powerful Wytch Lords. Imprisoned for centuries after failing in their last attempt to conquer the world of Balaia, the Wytch Lords are back--and this time will settle for nothing less than utter annihilation of their foes.

Barclay’s novel contains More...

I’m feeling very neutral about DAWNTHIEF, the first book of the CHRONICLES OF THE RAVEN. The book has some obvious storytelling flaws that bother me, and at the beginning, Barclay is so wrapped up the action that it’s hard to differentiate between the characters. And when some characters die early on and all the surviving characters are in mourning, there was a disconnect for me, since I never knew anything about the character past his name.

DAWNTHIEF is about an elite company of mercenaries who More...

Not very exciting. In fact, since I somehow had expected gritty realistic fantasy, but got some sort of bland, although action packed, sword and sorcery instead, I'm a bit disappointed.

If someone compares this to Erikson or Cook, don't believe them. This is "dungeons and dragons"-style fantasy with silly-sounding spell names, mana-power and where the "dark college" has a name with an 'X' in it (everyone who's played RPG's know that if someone has an 'X' in his name, he's no doubt chaotic or evil More...

I was shallow enough to buy this book purely for the look of its cover. With absolutely no knowledge of the author, or the series, the book looked charming with its purple pages, and dark moody cover.

For all those people who say 'never judge a book by its cover', I would say that this buy proved them all wrong. The books seductive coloured pages, and moody exterior was exactly what I got from reading the book.

Full of well described characters, long-standing friendships, as well as rivalry, this More...

I'm not sure what should have been done differently, but this book read more like the summary of a possible storyline than a real and completely developed story. Or maybe a fictionalized version of an RPG campaign. I've read and liked other books that appeared to use that formula.

I just felt like it lurched from one event to another without much connection or much sense. Many of the scenes or ideas worked on their own, but the whole did not hold together.

And there was no small amount of contradi More...

I was in the mood recently for an old school, romp n stomp fantasy adventure story. Not a 800 page opening to the latest swooning, overwrought fantasy epic, not another urban fantasy filled with vamps and werewolves, but something that brought back memories of my high school days tearing through Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and Grey Mouser tales.

I'd heard about Barclay's Raven novels for a decade, but avoided them because they sounded too much like what I was now in the mood for . . . what's old is new More...

This was an interesting book for me. Plot wise, I quite enjoyed it. A lot of good, solid action, and interesting characters. But I had a hard time really getting into it. The learning curve at the beginning was quite steep, and there were times that I just had no clue what was going on at first. That's a real problem for the first book in a series.

That said, if you like action fantasy, then this could be right up your alley. Definitely on the adult end of things, though.

In the end, I think I gav More...

Made it to page 100 before I gave up. The writing is distractingly bad and the plotting is contrived. Within the first ten pages, a seasoned mercenary breaks rank for no reason whatsoever, resulting in the death of one of his buddies. Then the other seasoned mercenaries somehow join up ranks with the wizard who--mere minutes before--was throwing exploding fireballs at them. Huh? Then, a couple days later, an assassin waltzes in and easily murders another member of The Raven during a party. Serio More...

It's just not going to happen. I really wish I could get into this, but I've got too many fantasy series going on here at the moment to dive into another one.

Fantastic imagery of mage bolts/spells during battle. You rarely get a distant view of a magical battle in fantasy, you are always in the thick of it - this was unique and I really liked it. All of his books that I've picked up and flipped through have scenes with vivid imagery - it makes me wish I could get into them.

Also, loved the drago More...

Decent fantasy fare, but a few things irked me. The writing wasn't particularly memorable, and I found the author's insistence on capitalizing the names of his spells distracting.

My memory of it is something like this:

'MainCharacter threw up his hands, sending a FireBall(TM) at his enemy. The enemy laughed and threw up a WaterShield(TM). "You'll never get me, MainCharacter!"'

Okay, he didn't put trademarks, and it's been a few years since I've read it, but still, the capitalization thing makes me More...

Les Ravens, c'est le meilleur de la fantasy plaisir. Combat et magie, acier et fireballs. De la fantasy ultra classique dans un habillage tout feu tout flammes, avec son lot d'amitiés taillées dans le roc, de rebondissements, de morts cruelles et de cascades.
L'ombre du jeu de rôle n'est jamais loin mais qu'importe, le plaisir est entier.
Aubemort, ce sont ces moments de nostalgie, de portes crochetées, d'incantations murmurées, de lames jaillissant de leurs fourreaux, comme en faisant griller l More...

I read this in paperback at least six years ago. Last December I took the opportunity to download the complete Raven collection in eBook form for my Kindle.

I read the first three books in the series but found re-reading the first book rewarding. I'd forgotten much but remembered how interesting the magic was and the settings colour.

It isn't great fiction. It isn't great writing. However the story and the characters are engaging. Don't get too attached to them though, as any can be killed off wit More...

This book was amazing. It was one of the most intricate and complex stories I've ever read, but I loved every minute of it. You really get attached to the characters, and want them to succeed, but at the same time, the author is realistic enough that not all of them survive every battle or trial. I cannot stress enough the awesomeness of the plot, it was so very developed, complex, and there were twists and turns that I didn't even see coming.

I love this book, but due to its complex nature, it More...

James Barclay’s Dawnthief is the first book in the Chronicles of the Raven which, as it turns out, is the first of two trilogies featuring this band of mercenaries. The Raven, composed of six men plus one elf, are a hardened group of mercenaries renowned for their fighting ability and ability to succeed at the toughest missions. In Dawnthief, the Raven are quickly and almost accidentally drawn into a quest to recover the nigh-apocalyptic spell Dawnthief for the dark wizard Denser in order to sta More...

I'll admit it first up: this book was hard going. Not because it was difficult to read, it wasn't, but because there wasn't much in it that held my attention. And I think that's more my problem than the book's. This is heroic fantasy and as such lives up to much heroic fantasy that I've read in the past. And therein lies the problem. Perhaps heroic fantasy just aint my thing. It's essentially a quest story centred around a group of fighters called The Raven who try to find a number of relics so More...

This one was one of the hardest to get in to as I have ever experienced. I put it down twice and didn't expect to go back to it. Perseverance paid off in the end and after about the first four chapters, wherein there is way too much written about ponytails, the story really takes off. It doesn't get really amazing until about the middle of the book but from there on it I couldn't put it down. I have read quite a few reviews on here where I can't bring myself to believe that the person who wrote More...

I hated this book. It wasn't that it was necessarily a bad book, it just wasn't for me. The characters were very thin. To the point that it was hard to find any real differences between them. The author beat you over the head with how different they were. The problem is they way they spoke and acted was exactly the same. One of the big themes of the book is the conflict within the party. Well, there wasn't a whole lot of that either. They always said how much they didn't really like each other b More...

I loved the looks of Dawnthief, that is the thing that made me pick up the book in a first place and after reading the backside, I decided to give it a shot.

At first the storyline looks pretty simple, like yeah we have a mission, we have to obtain some stuff in order to cast a spell that can save the world. But there are many mini stories running on background. For example the past of The Unknown Warrior, or slow revelation of the reasons why Ilkar hates Xetesk so much.

I loved the fighting scene More...

Dawnthief; James Barclay, 2009; Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY

Dawnthief is a first for author James Barclay and myself, and I must say for a first book-date it was pretty sketchy. Not that I don't think the novel (first in three series "Chronicles of the Raven") was an intentionally badly written book. I actually thought for a fantasy novel the author created a rather unique story line. Which lets face it, with over one hundred thousand new authors cranking out manuscripts per year, is not all th More...

Pros: old style fantasy quest, interesting magic system, high tension, surprising willingness to kill off main characters

Cons: minor inconsistencies in characters and events add up and bump you out of the story

While doing a routine mercenary job, the Raven loses a member and follows an enemy Xetesk mage into another dimension. After these experiences the remaining members of the Raven realize two things: they're getting old and the world is a stranger place than they thought.

The mage, Denser, la More...

The Raven are a renown group of mercernaries, known for being trustworthy and fierce, and have never failed a job. But after ten years it looks as though they may have taken their last job and settle in to retirement. However, fate has other plans, the Wytch Lords have escpaed their prison and are uniting the Wesman for an attack on Balaia, and The Raven and a Dark Mage may be the only people with the power to stop them.

This book has been on my shelf waiting to be read for literally years, and I More...

Dawnthief is the first book in James Barclay's CHRONICLES OF THE RAVEN trilogy (followed by Noonshade and Nightchild). In addition to the trilogy, the author also published four LEGENDS OF THE RAVEN novels and one Raven novella, as well as two ASCENDANTS OF ESTORIA novels and the stand-alone Vault of Deeds. Dawnthief was James Barclay's first published work in 1999 and, in the author's words, "came from a personal frustration with the pace, style and character matter of other fantasy novels." It More...

De Raven zijn een groep huurlingen die erover denken om met pensioen te gaan. Dan worden twee van hen vermoord. Jarenlang hebben ze overal gevochten in hun wereld Balaia, bijna nooit hadden ze verliezen en dan plotseling zijn ze twee man kwijt. Dat kwam een beetje ongeloofwaardig over.
De Raven zijn alleen trouw aan zichzelf en hun erecode en zijn te huren door de hoogste bieder.
Door het verlies van deze twee geliefde makkers besluiten ze te laten inhuren door een Xeteskische magiër genaamd Dens More...

I was torn between wanting to give this book 3 stars and 5 stars. I loved the series and it was really something that I haven't encountered in a while. I love the whole adventure/action fantasy series. The characters were loveable and I loved the fact that they weren't perfect, as in they made mistakes in how they fought and they got hurt. All too often characters are invincible and it makes it hard to believe. There are character diaologe that is believe and makes it easy to understand what is More...

Wow. This book was so bad. 30 pages is my usual meter. I attempt to make it through 30 pages before deciding if I'm going to read a book or not. I made it through 8 pages of Dawnthief before I had to put it down. Maybe my reading tastes have changed over the years, but I just couldn't deal with the absurdity and silliness of this book -- that looked to be taking it self seriously. The first character you meet is called The Unknown Warrior, or sometimes just "The Unknown". Really? It was too chee More...

Okay, I'm not sure if I can finish this one. I powered through some slow, awkward parts, got to some more fun, rollicking adventure style material, and then.....

....I just read the worst sex scene I've ever read in my life.

It felt like I was reading something written by a sexually frustrated high school student who could only imagine getting laid as his own Dungeons and Dragons character. The term "rainbow teardrops" is used...without irony.

It was completely out of place, and made me feel emba More...

Dawnthief is the first novel of a series (already completed) about the mercenary group The Raven. Their mission is complicated: to stop an invading army led by a group of evil sorcerers, they need to assemble the pieces of the spell Dawnthief (which can destroy the world), travel to the enemy's center of power, and cast the spell.
The novel has its flaws, but that is normal considering how it's James Barclay's first. But it's polished enough to make it clear just how talented this writer is. His More...

Dawnthief made me embarrassed to be a fantasy reader. A mercenary group so famous their enemies quake in fear at their name. Badasses that cry uncontrollably for their lost comrade. Who coincidentally own the most popular bar in town, and hang in the super exclusive back room.

The world and plot are acceptably interesting, but the character development is so bad the book is (for me) unreadable. And I read a lot of books that are not, um, classic literature.

This book tried to be good, it could have been good, but it failed. It was so irritating that I could not finish it. The characters appear, then stagnate, then die. The seemingly main characters being killed so easily is really odd for a fighting group that had gone 10 years with only 3 casualties. The inexplicable plot twists drove me nuts. You get interested in what seems like a main plot line, then those people all die. The chapter transition is disorderly and makes you wonder if you accident More...