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Raven's Shadow #3
Queen of Fire
In the thrilling conclusion to the “deftly and originally executed” (Booklist) New York Times bestselling trilogy, Vaelin Al Sorna must help his Queen reclaim her Realm. Only his enemy has a dangerous new collaborator, one with powers darker than Vaelin has ever encountered…
“The Ally is there, but only ever as a shadow, unexplained catastrophe or murder committed at the behest of a dark vengeful spirit. Sorting truth from myth is often a fruitless task.”
After fighting back from the brink of death, Queen Lyrna is determined to repel the invading Volarian army and regain the independence of the Unified Realm. Except, to accomplish her goals, she must do more than rally her loyal supporters. She must align herself with forces she once found repugnant—those who possess the strange and varied gifts of the Dark—and take the war to her enemy’s doorstep.
Victory rests on the shoulders of Vaelin Al Sorna, now named Battle Lord of the Realm. However, his path is riddled with difficulties. For the Volarian enemy has a new weapon on their side, one that Vaelin must destroy if the Realm is to prevail—a mysterious Ally with the ability to grant unnaturally long life to her servants. And defeating one who cannot be killed is a nearly impossible feat, especially when Vaelin’s blood-song, the mystical power which has made him the epic fighter he is, has gone ominously silent…
“The Ally is there, but only ever as a shadow, unexplained catastrophe or murder committed at the behest of a dark vengeful spirit. Sorting truth from myth is often a fruitless task.”
After fighting back from the brink of death, Queen Lyrna is determined to repel the invading Volarian army and regain the independence of the Unified Realm. Except, to accomplish her goals, she must do more than rally her loyal supporters. She must align herself with forces she once found repugnant—those who possess the strange and varied gifts of the Dark—and take the war to her enemy’s doorstep.
Victory rests on the shoulders of Vaelin Al Sorna, now named Battle Lord of the Realm. However, his path is riddled with difficulties. For the Volarian enemy has a new weapon on their side, one that Vaelin must destroy if the Realm is to prevail—a mysterious Ally with the ability to grant unnaturally long life to her servants. And defeating one who cannot be killed is a nearly impossible feat, especially when Vaelin’s blood-song, the mystical power which has made him the epic fighter he is, has gone ominously silent…
27 pages, Audible Audio
First published July 2, 2015
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16519 people want to read
About the author
Anthony Ryan
89 books9,964 followersAnthony Ryan was born in Scotland in 1970 but spent much of his adult life living and working in London. After a long career in the British Civil Service he took up writing full time after the success of his first novel Blood Song, Book One of the Raven’s Shadow trilogy. He has a degree in history, and his interests include art, science and the unending quest for the perfect pint of real ale.
For news and general wittering about stuff he likes, check out Anthony's blog at: http://anthonystuff.wordpress.com
For news and general wittering about stuff he likes, check out Anthony's blog at: http://anthonystuff.wordpress.com
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,693 reviews
December 31, 2018
After pondering this off and on for the last few weeks I've settled on 2.5 stars because I'm still mad about a few things all of which are in the spoiler section of this review at the bottom.
Non Spoiler Sum Up of Feelings:
✔ - Ally’s story explained
✔ - Weaver’s character development was pretty awesome
✔ - Reva is still a Bad Ass
✔ - I loved hating ‘The Woman’ she is still fantastic in her bat-shit-craziness.
✔ - Frentis...I will have a soft spot for him always. His PoV was probably the best of the story, or at least the one I liked the most (although I thought he sounded more like Vaelin in Bloodsong)
✘ - So many story arcs not really tied up. Honestly it seemed left open in a lot of areas in case AR decided to write another book in this world, even another book starring Vaelin
✘ - All PoVs seemed written in almost the same voice.
✘ - Pacing, some parts dragged on forever and then others went really fast.
✘ - So much violence, rape (or reference to rape), murder, torture etc...I got really bored with it and it lost any shock value.
✘ - Hardly any Vaelin PoVs in the beginning and then he spent A LOT of time traveling.
✘ - Lyrna turning into a vengeful bEoTcH...I liked her much more in the Tower Lord
✘ - TOO MANY UNNESESSARY CHARACTERS – I seriously had look up who people were a lot I just finished rereads of Blodsong and The Tower Lord and I still didn’t remember who so many people were. I read a ton of Epic Fantasty with huge casts and never have I had this problem as much as in this book.
✘ - Sinking of all ‘Ships’ I have decided that AR hates happy couples and didn’t want any at the end of this series. Not a deal breaker for me usually but I was really unhappy with where he left the majority of the characters. Hence the ‘it doesn’t really feel like the ending’ feeling All the hook ups and break ups came so fast that I didn’t feel connected to any of them.
I just felt so much for the characters and the relationships in Bloodsong and even The Tower Lord but in this I just didn’t feel connected to hardly anyone. I was more upset when an Animal died than I was when some of the actual semi-main characters died not a great sign.
Total Spoilery Section. I'm going to rant a little and there will be spoilers everywhere.
Non Spoiler Sum Up of Feelings:
Pros
✔ - Ally’s story explained
✔ - Weaver’s character development was pretty awesome
✔ - Reva is still a Bad Ass
✔ - I loved hating ‘The Woman’ she is still fantastic in her bat-shit-craziness.
✔ - Frentis...I will have a soft spot for him always. His PoV was probably the best of the story, or at least the one I liked the most (although I thought he sounded more like Vaelin in Bloodsong)
Cons
✘ - So many story arcs not really tied up. Honestly it seemed left open in a lot of areas in case AR decided to write another book in this world, even another book starring Vaelin
✘ - All PoVs seemed written in almost the same voice.
✘ - Pacing, some parts dragged on forever and then others went really fast.
✘ - So much violence, rape (or reference to rape), murder, torture etc...I got really bored with it and it lost any shock value.
✘ - Hardly any Vaelin PoVs in the beginning and then he spent A LOT of time traveling.
✘ - Lyrna turning into a vengeful bEoTcH...I liked her much more in the Tower Lord
✘ - TOO MANY UNNESESSARY CHARACTERS – I seriously had look up who people were a lot I just finished rereads of Blodsong and The Tower Lord and I still didn’t remember who so many people were. I read a ton of Epic Fantasty with huge casts and never have I had this problem as much as in this book.
✘ - Sinking of all ‘Ships’ I have decided that AR hates happy couples and didn’t want any at the end of this series. Not a deal breaker for me usually but I was really unhappy with where he left the majority of the characters. Hence the ‘it doesn’t really feel like the ending’ feeling All the hook ups and break ups came so fast that I didn’t feel connected to any of them.
I just felt so much for the characters and the relationships in Bloodsong and even The Tower Lord but in this I just didn’t feel connected to hardly anyone. I was more upset when an Animal died than I was when some of the actual semi-main characters died not a great sign.
Total Spoilery Section. I'm going to rant a little and there will be spoilers everywhere.
May 28, 2019
1.5/5 stars
I’m in utter disbelief, I can’t believe this…
Queen of Fire is the third and last book in Anthony Ryan’s Raven's Shadow trilogy that began with the incredible Blood Song. By now, if you’ve heard about this trilogy, you’ll most likely have heard from several readers that the series didn’t end as good as the first book. I, unfortunately, have to agree with them completely. Anthony Ryan himself is great as an author and person, it seriously pains me to give this or any of his book a low rating but I really have to be honest that I didn’t enjoy reading Queen of Fire at all. I’m not angry at this book, but I’m genuinely sad and disappointed. How is it even possible that a series that began so brilliantly can derail this much? Even coming into this with the lowest of expectation, I still found myself disappointed at the final product of this tome.
Where do I even begin? Pretty much every cons I mentioned about Tower Lord exponentially worsen in Queen of Fire. Vaelin in Blood Song and Vaelin in Tower Lord/Queen of Fire seriously doesn’t sound the same. None of his voices, actions, and internal thoughts (when there’s any) contained any resemblance of his character in Blood Song. Not only that, his POV here ended up being one of, if not, the most boring storyline of the entire series. Reading an autobiography about someone’s journey in Antarctica would’ve made for a more engaging experience than reading Vaelin’s journey here, which was full of him walking and doing nothing in the snow. I don’t get it, I can’t see Ryan’s vision and what he tried to achieve with Vaelin in this trilogy. Ryan has spent the entirety of the first book Vaelin’s character, making the reader love and cares about Vaelin; he’s badass yet flawed, kind, and empathetic. The friendship he built in the brotherhood of the Sixth Order was one of the best parts of the first book; ALL of these are gone. It has gotten worse up to the point that if you don’t read Blood Song, you’ll still be able to understand both Tower Lord and Queen of Fire; frankly these two books made me disliked Vaelin more and more, Ryan really threw away everything that’s great about Vaelin.
The thing is, if the other characters have the power to balance things out, I would’ve accepted it more. But the other characters were also unlikeable. The main problem is that there’s literally none of the characters that I feel invested in; deaths happen and I would be like “oh okay bye bye adios wait who are you again?” Reva also goes against every incredible development that Vaelin had in Blood Song. Vaelin was never a Gary Stu, seeing him slowly learn and practice with bows or non-Sword related ability made readers realize that maybe his true talent lies only in a swordfight, he has to start and learn from scratch for other talents. Reva is the exact opposite of this. I’m never a fan of her, not in Tower Lord where her first appearance as Mary Sue appeared, and definitely not here. Lyrna was at least great to read in Tower Lord, but here? She was just outright hateful and despicable.
To be honest, the only characters that ended up being slightly compelling to read was Frentis (which, as I said before, resembled Vaelin from Blood Song more than Vaelin himself now) but his dreamscapes were annoying to read. None of the characters—except Verniers—have distinctive voices and the addition of another new POV here made things even worse. I’m serious, except for Verniers, if you switch around the names of the POV characters, it would be bloody difficult to tell whose POV you’re reading. Plus, there were so many names within this installment but the majority of them doesn’t have any anchor value for remembrance; I recently reread Blood Song and read Tower Lord, it was crazy how fast I forgot the side characters. I couldn’t tell anymore whether it’s because I genuinely forgot the characters or because I just met them here; most of them don’t have any value other than making things more confusing than necessary anyway.
Also, let’s talk about the narrative tone and expectations set in the first book of a series. If you want a series to turn completely grimdark, there needs to be something at the first installment of the series that shows glimpses that it has the potential to turn this way. Blood Song didn’t show any inclination that the story will turn this way. There’s so much gory violence and they ended up being shock factor—that’s not shocking—to show that the enemies are ruthless. If you spend the entirety of the first book on a single character, you don’t make this character become pointless and super pathetic to read. It almost felt like Ryan hated Vaelin so much that after Blood Song he degrade Vaelin more and more with each installment.
In the end, as I said before, Tower Lord and Queen of Fire should be treated as a different series to Blood Song. There were still many more negative factors that I could elaborate—sluggish pacing, villain’s weak motivation, the anticlimactic ending—but honestly? I’m too exhausted and disappointed to write more about it. I’ve spent too much of my time on this book already, I don’t want to spend any longer by prolonging the review too. Let’s simplify it this way: I’ve never seen such a unanimous disappointment from this many readers towards a single book to be proven true; simple as that. For now, I really can’t recommend anyone to continue past Blood Song. Queen of Fire is easily the most disappointing final book of a series I’ve ever read. The disappointment was magnified because I utterly loved Blood Song and I never read any series that began with 5 stars rating but concluded as low as 1.5 stars in the final installment. I’m so sorry, Anthony Ryan, but as a book reviewer, I must always be honest with my reviews.
Despite all this, I’ve read Ryan’s Draconis Memoria trilogy and A Pilgrimage of Swords, I have a good feeling that The Wolf’s Call, the newest book in this world, will be a return to the glory of Blood Song; I’ve heard that Vaelin will be prominent like he was in Blood Song again. Fingers-crossed! (This is me trying to be positive…)
Series Review:
Blood Song: 5/5 stars
Tower Lord: 2.5/5 stars
Queen of Fire: 1.5/5 stars
Raven's Shadow: 9/15 stars
You can order the book from: Book Depository (Free shipping)
You can find this and the rest of my reviews at Novel Notions
I’m in utter disbelief, I can’t believe this…
Queen of Fire is the third and last book in Anthony Ryan’s Raven's Shadow trilogy that began with the incredible Blood Song. By now, if you’ve heard about this trilogy, you’ll most likely have heard from several readers that the series didn’t end as good as the first book. I, unfortunately, have to agree with them completely. Anthony Ryan himself is great as an author and person, it seriously pains me to give this or any of his book a low rating but I really have to be honest that I didn’t enjoy reading Queen of Fire at all. I’m not angry at this book, but I’m genuinely sad and disappointed. How is it even possible that a series that began so brilliantly can derail this much? Even coming into this with the lowest of expectation, I still found myself disappointed at the final product of this tome.
Where do I even begin? Pretty much every cons I mentioned about Tower Lord exponentially worsen in Queen of Fire. Vaelin in Blood Song and Vaelin in Tower Lord/Queen of Fire seriously doesn’t sound the same. None of his voices, actions, and internal thoughts (when there’s any) contained any resemblance of his character in Blood Song. Not only that, his POV here ended up being one of, if not, the most boring storyline of the entire series. Reading an autobiography about someone’s journey in Antarctica would’ve made for a more engaging experience than reading Vaelin’s journey here, which was full of him walking and doing nothing in the snow. I don’t get it, I can’t see Ryan’s vision and what he tried to achieve with Vaelin in this trilogy. Ryan has spent the entirety of the first book Vaelin’s character, making the reader love and cares about Vaelin; he’s badass yet flawed, kind, and empathetic. The friendship he built in the brotherhood of the Sixth Order was one of the best parts of the first book; ALL of these are gone. It has gotten worse up to the point that if you don’t read Blood Song, you’ll still be able to understand both Tower Lord and Queen of Fire; frankly these two books made me disliked Vaelin more and more, Ryan really threw away everything that’s great about Vaelin.
The thing is, if the other characters have the power to balance things out, I would’ve accepted it more. But the other characters were also unlikeable. The main problem is that there’s literally none of the characters that I feel invested in; deaths happen and I would be like “oh okay bye bye adios wait who are you again?” Reva also goes against every incredible development that Vaelin had in Blood Song. Vaelin was never a Gary Stu, seeing him slowly learn and practice with bows or non-Sword related ability made readers realize that maybe his true talent lies only in a swordfight, he has to start and learn from scratch for other talents. Reva is the exact opposite of this. I’m never a fan of her, not in Tower Lord where her first appearance as Mary Sue appeared, and definitely not here. Lyrna was at least great to read in Tower Lord, but here? She was just outright hateful and despicable.
To be honest, the only characters that ended up being slightly compelling to read was Frentis (which, as I said before, resembled Vaelin from Blood Song more than Vaelin himself now) but his dreamscapes were annoying to read. None of the characters—except Verniers—have distinctive voices and the addition of another new POV here made things even worse. I’m serious, except for Verniers, if you switch around the names of the POV characters, it would be bloody difficult to tell whose POV you’re reading. Plus, there were so many names within this installment but the majority of them doesn’t have any anchor value for remembrance; I recently reread Blood Song and read Tower Lord, it was crazy how fast I forgot the side characters. I couldn’t tell anymore whether it’s because I genuinely forgot the characters or because I just met them here; most of them don’t have any value other than making things more confusing than necessary anyway.
“But people are still people, however comfortable their surroundings. They lie, they feud, they betray and however much you give them, they always want more.”
Also, let’s talk about the narrative tone and expectations set in the first book of a series. If you want a series to turn completely grimdark, there needs to be something at the first installment of the series that shows glimpses that it has the potential to turn this way. Blood Song didn’t show any inclination that the story will turn this way. There’s so much gory violence and they ended up being shock factor—that’s not shocking—to show that the enemies are ruthless. If you spend the entirety of the first book on a single character, you don’t make this character become pointless and super pathetic to read. It almost felt like Ryan hated Vaelin so much that after Blood Song he degrade Vaelin more and more with each installment.
In the end, as I said before, Tower Lord and Queen of Fire should be treated as a different series to Blood Song. There were still many more negative factors that I could elaborate—sluggish pacing, villain’s weak motivation, the anticlimactic ending—but honestly? I’m too exhausted and disappointed to write more about it. I’ve spent too much of my time on this book already, I don’t want to spend any longer by prolonging the review too. Let’s simplify it this way: I’ve never seen such a unanimous disappointment from this many readers towards a single book to be proven true; simple as that. For now, I really can’t recommend anyone to continue past Blood Song. Queen of Fire is easily the most disappointing final book of a series I’ve ever read. The disappointment was magnified because I utterly loved Blood Song and I never read any series that began with 5 stars rating but concluded as low as 1.5 stars in the final installment. I’m so sorry, Anthony Ryan, but as a book reviewer, I must always be honest with my reviews.
Despite all this, I’ve read Ryan’s Draconis Memoria trilogy and A Pilgrimage of Swords, I have a good feeling that The Wolf’s Call, the newest book in this world, will be a return to the glory of Blood Song; I’ve heard that Vaelin will be prominent like he was in Blood Song again. Fingers-crossed! (This is me trying to be positive…)
Series Review:
Blood Song: 5/5 stars
Tower Lord: 2.5/5 stars
Queen of Fire: 1.5/5 stars
Raven's Shadow: 9/15 stars
You can order the book from: Book Depository (Free shipping)
You can find this and the rest of my reviews at Novel Notions
August 24, 2015
There is no other way to say this other than this book broke my heart. I have been disappointed before, but when I read the final page of Queen of Fire, I wanted to literally cry and I don’t mean that in a good way. I understand that endings are hard, especially in fantasy, but with Blood Song, the first book in this trilogy, Anthony Ryan created something special and although the second book in the series Tower Lord was a slight misstep , I still enjoyed it, but to say that Queen of Fire disappointed me would be the understatement of the year.
For the uninitiated, Queen of Fire picks up right after the ending of The Tower Lord. The United Realm has been invaded by the Empire of Volar, a sadistically evil nation who outwardly practices slavery and appeals to the worse base of human nature and cruelty. You think something is barbaric and cruel and dehumanizing, well the Volarians feel that is just the way of doing business. Not only are they evil, but they are ruled in the background by a dark and mysteriously powerful being termed the Ally who pulls the strings of the ruling council while also granting said members near immortality, mysterious abilities and wealth beyond their wildest dreams. At the start of our novel, the people of the United Realm have just crushed a large Volarian army at Alltor, the capital city for one of the provinces of the realm and are now making plans to remove the Volarians from their capital city Varinshold and the remainder of the realm while taking the fight to Volaria itself in order to ensure that the Volarians stay gone forever.
The strength of the first book of this series, Blood Song lied in the characterization of the characters. Every character in that book felt unique, believable, and tangible and they spoke with their own voice. The characters all felt real and they grew organically into full-fledged human beings in their own right. The biggest example of this was Nortah, a character who was simply a jerk at the beginning of the Blood Song, but through the trials of the story transforms into one of the better characters of the series. If at the start of Blood Song, you would have told me that Nortah would become one of my favorite characters in the series and I would have never believed you. Fast Forward and contrast that with Queen of Fire, and there is almost no characterization between hardly any of the characters. Honestly, this phenomena is not entirely unique, as characterization died in this series with Tower Lord, but I digress. In Queen of Fire, every character speaks with almost the same voice and little is given to motivate their actions or why a character is doing anything. This is a problem, because there are A LOT of characters in this book, a lot of side characters as well as POV characters, and while not all the POV characters held my attention, the complete lack of character among any of the side characters made all of them readily forgettable and caused none of them to stand out. This in turn creates a scenario where you simply don’t care about any of the characters in the story, except maybe the main characters which leads to a case where an epic cast feels almost like cannon fodder or an afterthought. In this book, it felt like the characterization took a back page so that the author could focus more on his world building. That being said, I would highly advise that you reread Tower Lord before you pick up this book, as you will need a cheat sheet of sorts to keep track of who is who as you read the novel. This could have been alleviated somewhat if ever character felt unique, but among the minor characters you will have to work hard to keep track of who is who so you don’t feel lost.
Vaelin Al Sorna, ostensibly the main character or the hero of the series, will go down as one of my favorite fantasy characters to ever grace the written page. However, his treatment in this novel is nothing short of a disaster. To put it mildly, Vaelin in the first two novels was a man that you did not want to cross, he was arguably the best swordsman alive and his Blood Song gave him nigh omniscient. In Queen of Fire, that is pretty much all gone, as he has lost his blood song, which would not be so bad, however, he has lost a lot of his ability to fight. Even though he regains both his confidence and his skills early in the novel, in my opinion the damage had already been done to the character and for me personally he lost a lot of his appeal, as his confidence and sure nature as well as his martial ability was what made him appealing to me in the first place.
Add to the fact that his POV chapters on the ice, were tedious to the extreme, incorporating a lot of walking, a lot of mysterious and foreboding innuendo all seemingly building up to a massive crescendo but in the end all being revealed in a gratuitous information dump. In retrospect, it was all a waste of time. However, the biggest sin of this trek was that while the rest of the United Realm was invading Volaria, ostensibly your main character is as far away as he can be from the action. At least in the Tower Lord, Vaelin, got a scene at the end where he was able to effectively break and end the siege of Alltor, but here he shows up at the end after all the fighting is said and done, he pulls another POV character aside, gives an info dump and then kills the main baddie in a totally pedestrian and utterly forgettable manner. It was extremely disappointing to say the least.
That brings me two the villains in this novel. To label them mustache twirling villains would be an insult to the mustache twirling villains association of America. There is absolutely no sophistication to the villains in this book and even when they commit heinous actions it doesn’t come across as evil but as crazy or just simply incompetent. The Volarians are just evil with no redeeming qualities, and the two main baddies offer no sense of menace throughout the entire novel. Eleverah was interesting the in the Tower Lord, and the Ally was that all powerful force behind the throne of the most powerful nation on the planet, however circling back to the lack of characterization argument, both of these characters are relegated to cartoon villainy in this novel. Eleverah was showing signs of growth in the last book, but all that is thrown away here, as she is just sadistic, cruel, petty and in the most damning quality for a villain proved, she proved to be utterly incompetent. One could argue and the author does imply that she is patently insane, but still insane villains can often be unconventional, unpredictable and dangerous, of which Eleverah was none. It was so bad, that at the end, I found myself wondering, ok, maybe she is crazy like a fox and there is some great stratagem that she has cooked up that will make this final showdown great at the end. Nope, sorry, didn’t happen. Also the Ally, while his origins were cool, his motives were weak, and a lot of time was spent building up him as this great tool of death and destruction and then when you find out why he is so evil, you are like, really? That’s it? That’s all you got? *Sigh. Also, to be the big baddie in the series, he went out in the worst manner you can take out the main evil guy, it was fairly bad.
Ahh, Volaria. Paper tigers of the world should stand up and take note, as this is how you create a paper tiger. The empire of Alpira, the nation invaded by our heroes in the first novel has been fighting Volaria for centuries, and Alpira wiped the floor with our heroes in the first novel. However, in this book, Volaria went down like a good old fashioned house of cards. The Empress Eleverah, pulled a trick here or there, but it never felt like the Realm was ever in any serious danger of losing even without the great Vaelin Al Sorna in the forefront. There was some talk with Frentis’s POV that, yeah invading these guys may not be a good idea, we will probably all die, but the Volarians never mounted a serious defense. The explanation given in the novel was that they essentially used up all of their best troops trying to invade the United Realm, and slave revolts where stripping their ability to field a decent army but this really was an anti-climactic way to set up a final war. This was utterly disappointing and robbed the novel of any tension or sense of danger in the novel. I never thought one of our heroes would die, even given the dour circumstances they were in, because the Volarians proved utterly incompetent to stop them.
The list of disappointments could go on and on, Brother Caenis once again gets short treatment, although his character does get an interesting turn. Sherin does not show up yet again, which I found puzzling.
There is some good in the novel however. Blood Song, and ostensibly the entire series could be a referendum on war and what it does to the powerless and those who fight it. That theme is carried on here throughout the novel as Ryan does a great job showing the visceral effects of the Volarian invasion on the United Realm while also showing the cost that liberation from said Volarians has on the Vox Populli, as well as the liberators. The book also raises the question of when in the process of revenge do you become as bad as the people you are reaping your vengeance upon? Does your cause remain righteous even when it causes you to do unrighteous things? The book also shows how the strong the idea of vengeance and even religious fervor can be whipped up by leaders to get a reluctant populace to stand up and fight a war even when their children may starve throughout the winter given the devastation of their homes. The psychological effect of killing is also shown rather well in the novel which was a nice touch. The battles of the novel are also extremely well written, as Ryan has a great idea how to write epic battle scenes whether they be on land or on sea. It also floats some interesting ideas about the origin of the religions throughout the nations in the novel but none of these ideas are really expounded upon. The novel does answer all the lingering questions in the series, but as I outlined above not everything is answered satisfactorily. The novel also does leave open the possibility of more stories to be shared in this world, which I also found intriguing.
Overall though, this book was a supreme disappointment. Though extremely well written, I found parts of it tedious to read through, the characterization was rather poor and the villains were laughable with their worse crime being that they proved to be nonthreatening. I loved Blood Song, and in fact consider that novel one of my favorite books of all time, but Queen of Fire book broke my heart in the worst possible manner, in the end betraying all that I found dear about Blood Song. Excuse me while I go somewhere and cry some more.
For the uninitiated, Queen of Fire picks up right after the ending of The Tower Lord. The United Realm has been invaded by the Empire of Volar, a sadistically evil nation who outwardly practices slavery and appeals to the worse base of human nature and cruelty. You think something is barbaric and cruel and dehumanizing, well the Volarians feel that is just the way of doing business. Not only are they evil, but they are ruled in the background by a dark and mysteriously powerful being termed the Ally who pulls the strings of the ruling council while also granting said members near immortality, mysterious abilities and wealth beyond their wildest dreams. At the start of our novel, the people of the United Realm have just crushed a large Volarian army at Alltor, the capital city for one of the provinces of the realm and are now making plans to remove the Volarians from their capital city Varinshold and the remainder of the realm while taking the fight to Volaria itself in order to ensure that the Volarians stay gone forever.
The strength of the first book of this series, Blood Song lied in the characterization of the characters. Every character in that book felt unique, believable, and tangible and they spoke with their own voice. The characters all felt real and they grew organically into full-fledged human beings in their own right. The biggest example of this was Nortah, a character who was simply a jerk at the beginning of the Blood Song, but through the trials of the story transforms into one of the better characters of the series. If at the start of Blood Song, you would have told me that Nortah would become one of my favorite characters in the series and I would have never believed you. Fast Forward and contrast that with Queen of Fire, and there is almost no characterization between hardly any of the characters. Honestly, this phenomena is not entirely unique, as characterization died in this series with Tower Lord, but I digress. In Queen of Fire, every character speaks with almost the same voice and little is given to motivate their actions or why a character is doing anything. This is a problem, because there are A LOT of characters in this book, a lot of side characters as well as POV characters, and while not all the POV characters held my attention, the complete lack of character among any of the side characters made all of them readily forgettable and caused none of them to stand out. This in turn creates a scenario where you simply don’t care about any of the characters in the story, except maybe the main characters which leads to a case where an epic cast feels almost like cannon fodder or an afterthought. In this book, it felt like the characterization took a back page so that the author could focus more on his world building. That being said, I would highly advise that you reread Tower Lord before you pick up this book, as you will need a cheat sheet of sorts to keep track of who is who as you read the novel. This could have been alleviated somewhat if ever character felt unique, but among the minor characters you will have to work hard to keep track of who is who so you don’t feel lost.
Vaelin Al Sorna, ostensibly the main character or the hero of the series, will go down as one of my favorite fantasy characters to ever grace the written page. However, his treatment in this novel is nothing short of a disaster. To put it mildly, Vaelin in the first two novels was a man that you did not want to cross, he was arguably the best swordsman alive and his Blood Song gave him nigh omniscient. In Queen of Fire, that is pretty much all gone, as he has lost his blood song, which would not be so bad, however, he has lost a lot of his ability to fight. Even though he regains both his confidence and his skills early in the novel, in my opinion the damage had already been done to the character and for me personally he lost a lot of his appeal, as his confidence and sure nature as well as his martial ability was what made him appealing to me in the first place.
Add to the fact that his POV chapters on the ice, were tedious to the extreme, incorporating a lot of walking, a lot of mysterious and foreboding innuendo all seemingly building up to a massive crescendo but in the end all being revealed in a gratuitous information dump. In retrospect, it was all a waste of time. However, the biggest sin of this trek was that while the rest of the United Realm was invading Volaria, ostensibly your main character is as far away as he can be from the action. At least in the Tower Lord, Vaelin, got a scene at the end where he was able to effectively break and end the siege of Alltor, but here he shows up at the end after all the fighting is said and done, he pulls another POV character aside, gives an info dump and then kills the main baddie in a totally pedestrian and utterly forgettable manner. It was extremely disappointing to say the least.
That brings me two the villains in this novel. To label them mustache twirling villains would be an insult to the mustache twirling villains association of America. There is absolutely no sophistication to the villains in this book and even when they commit heinous actions it doesn’t come across as evil but as crazy or just simply incompetent. The Volarians are just evil with no redeeming qualities, and the two main baddies offer no sense of menace throughout the entire novel. Eleverah was interesting the in the Tower Lord, and the Ally was that all powerful force behind the throne of the most powerful nation on the planet, however circling back to the lack of characterization argument, both of these characters are relegated to cartoon villainy in this novel. Eleverah was showing signs of growth in the last book, but all that is thrown away here, as she is just sadistic, cruel, petty and in the most damning quality for a villain proved, she proved to be utterly incompetent. One could argue and the author does imply that she is patently insane, but still insane villains can often be unconventional, unpredictable and dangerous, of which Eleverah was none. It was so bad, that at the end, I found myself wondering, ok, maybe she is crazy like a fox and there is some great stratagem that she has cooked up that will make this final showdown great at the end. Nope, sorry, didn’t happen. Also the Ally, while his origins were cool, his motives were weak, and a lot of time was spent building up him as this great tool of death and destruction and then when you find out why he is so evil, you are like, really? That’s it? That’s all you got? *Sigh. Also, to be the big baddie in the series, he went out in the worst manner you can take out the main evil guy, it was fairly bad.
Ahh, Volaria. Paper tigers of the world should stand up and take note, as this is how you create a paper tiger. The empire of Alpira, the nation invaded by our heroes in the first novel has been fighting Volaria for centuries, and Alpira wiped the floor with our heroes in the first novel. However, in this book, Volaria went down like a good old fashioned house of cards. The Empress Eleverah, pulled a trick here or there, but it never felt like the Realm was ever in any serious danger of losing even without the great Vaelin Al Sorna in the forefront. There was some talk with Frentis’s POV that, yeah invading these guys may not be a good idea, we will probably all die, but the Volarians never mounted a serious defense. The explanation given in the novel was that they essentially used up all of their best troops trying to invade the United Realm, and slave revolts where stripping their ability to field a decent army but this really was an anti-climactic way to set up a final war. This was utterly disappointing and robbed the novel of any tension or sense of danger in the novel. I never thought one of our heroes would die, even given the dour circumstances they were in, because the Volarians proved utterly incompetent to stop them.
The list of disappointments could go on and on, Brother Caenis once again gets short treatment, although his character does get an interesting turn. Sherin does not show up yet again, which I found puzzling.
There is some good in the novel however. Blood Song, and ostensibly the entire series could be a referendum on war and what it does to the powerless and those who fight it. That theme is carried on here throughout the novel as Ryan does a great job showing the visceral effects of the Volarian invasion on the United Realm while also showing the cost that liberation from said Volarians has on the Vox Populli, as well as the liberators. The book also raises the question of when in the process of revenge do you become as bad as the people you are reaping your vengeance upon? Does your cause remain righteous even when it causes you to do unrighteous things? The book also shows how the strong the idea of vengeance and even religious fervor can be whipped up by leaders to get a reluctant populace to stand up and fight a war even when their children may starve throughout the winter given the devastation of their homes. The psychological effect of killing is also shown rather well in the novel which was a nice touch. The battles of the novel are also extremely well written, as Ryan has a great idea how to write epic battle scenes whether they be on land or on sea. It also floats some interesting ideas about the origin of the religions throughout the nations in the novel but none of these ideas are really expounded upon. The novel does answer all the lingering questions in the series, but as I outlined above not everything is answered satisfactorily. The novel also does leave open the possibility of more stories to be shared in this world, which I also found intriguing.
Overall though, this book was a supreme disappointment. Though extremely well written, I found parts of it tedious to read through, the characterization was rather poor and the villains were laughable with their worse crime being that they proved to be nonthreatening. I loved Blood Song, and in fact consider that novel one of my favorite books of all time, but Queen of Fire book broke my heart in the worst possible manner, in the end betraying all that I found dear about Blood Song. Excuse me while I go somewhere and cry some more.
March 23, 2016
Is it normal to desperately want to read this book even though I just finished reading Blood Song 5 minutes ago and I haven't even read the second book yet?
Just finished Tower Lord and I want this book I want this book I want this book now. Stupid cliffhanger.
(Sad) Book Review
I don't know what happened. Somehow my number one most anticipated book of 2015 turned out to be the biggest disappointment of the year. (I know the year isn't over yet but I cannot see how I could be more disappointed in a book). I feel like I've been betrayed.
There were some really big issues that I had with Queen of Fire, namely with the multiple POV's. There were too many POV's, and while I did admit that it worked in Tower Lord, that only worked because of the fact that the plot was still interesting, there were some likeable characters, and Vaelin's awesomeness. Sadly, none of these were present in this book. Reva was never really that interesting to begin with, I'm not sure why Frentis still has his own POV in this book, Lyrna has ceased to be an interesting, complex, sharp and intelligent character that she was in the first two books, and Vaelin...oh Vaelin. It hurts me to say this, but Vaelin was as boring as the rest of the boring cast of characters in this book.
When Vaelin lost his blood song at the end of Tower Lord, I wondered what would happen to him. I knew it would be hard for him to accept the loss, since he was grown very reliant on his song to give him guidance and strength. But never would I expect him to cease to be interesting and awesome. To be fair, I don't think this newfound boring aspect of his character can be entirely attributed to the loss of his blood song. The ending of Tower Lord was very very satisfying in the fact that Vaelin totally and completely PWNED Volarian ass, thus showcasing Vaelin's swordsmanship and general awesomeness. And I guess it would be hard to amp up the drama and awesome in the third book considering that he did at the end of the second. But that does not excuse turning him into a boring two dimensional character. How could the author do this to one of the most epic characters that I've ever read?!?
Speaking of turning epic characters into boring redundant second rate poop: Lyrna. What happened there I do not know. The intelligent, mysterious, sharp, and manipulative princess that we all knew and love has turned into a boring idiot that I have no interest in reading about. Most of the time she was appointing random people to random royal positions "I hearby apoint you Queen's blah blah" rinse and repeat this speech about 10 more times. And I'm not sure about how I feel when Weaver healed her burns and returned her good looks. I kind of like some insecurity in her. Some flaw in her perfect facade that made her more human- some sort of reminder of the trails that she went through. Speaking of healing her burns, isn't this book called Queen of Fire for a reason? And wasn't there subtle references to a 'Queen of Fire' in Tower Lord? And so it comes as a complete surprise to me when there isn't really any queen of fire. There is a queen. There is lots of fire. But no Queen of Fire. From the title and the plot, I assume that Lynra is supposed to be the Queen of Fire, but nowhere in the book is she really explicitly called by that name. There was one reference to her spitting fire.
(like a dragon, I think? That would have been way more awesome than what we actually got).
But besides that, nothing to indicate that she is the Queen of Fire, or how Vaelin is supposed to serve her as the Queen of Fire (remember back to the last part of Blood Song when Barkus asked Vaelin; "Do you really think you’re going to serve a Queen of Fire, brother?" What Vaelin does do is travel somewhere and meets people and does stuff and somehow defeats a disappointing villain that looked so mysterious, evil and malicious in the previous books but turned out very ordinary and boring when fully revealed.
I kind of understood the Ally's backstory but don't entirely get his motivation for killing everyone and destroying the world. I didn't understand how the killed him that easily (it was actually quite quick and at that point I was bored and skimming) or what happened to the souls that were trapped in the beyond. From all the fear that the demon possessing creatures showed for him in the past 2 books, I expected much more and got much less than I wanted.
The romance, oh the romance. What was this farce? It made me want to throw the book across the room when reading the "romance" parts. I thoroughly enjoy a good romance, and I like to consider myself a romance aficionado, and the "romance" in this book made a mockery of all the well written (and even badly written) romance everywhere. Let's do the counting:
Strike one- Vaelin and Dahrena. I never felt any chemistry from either of them and it was a real source of confusion for me as to why they got together in the first place. But seeing as they did get together, the author could have at least given them some lovey dovey scenes for them to show some sort of affection or passion for each other. Honestly, I though that Vaelin treated Dahrena just like any other female character- with politeness and respect. Shame, because despite the crappy romance, I always want a happy ending for the characters I read about. I though Vaelin would get a happy ending in relation to his love life at least, but alas, it was not meant to be. He can't seem to catch a break. First Sherin (who I didn't really like that much) and now Dahrena.
Strike two- Alornis and Alucius.
Strike three: Lyrna and the Shield. In Tower Lord I was so excited because Lyrna was going to get her own romance on the side, and unlike Vaelin and Dahrena's, I was expecting to actually enjoy it. The chemistry between The Shield and Lyrna was so much better and hotter compared to Vaelin and Dahrena's, and I loved it more because Lyrna is so headstrong and The Shield was so unpredictable. I was wondering, what are they going to do next? Will she accept his suit? Will they get married? Ohhhhh. But then Queen of Fire happened and it was as if Lynra and him are strangers to each other: awkward and unsure. The Shield (who proclaimed his willingness to follow her anywhere in the previous book), suddenly develops resentment towards Lyrna's regard for Vaelin and for some reason decided to give up on her? WTF? Is this even the same guy from the previous books? The most promising couple in this series turned out to not even be a couple...
Three strikes and you're out. It's like Anthony Ryan though to himself: Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm going to set up these two characters, and then I'm going to hint at the possibility of something between them so then my readers will ship them, because how doesn't like a good shipping? and then at the last moment, I'm going to snatch that happiness away because it's MINE ITS ALL MINE MWHAHAHA". Sigh. These ships have not only sailed, but been ransacked by pirates and then burned and are now at the bottom of the deepest ocean where it is home to crustaceans and the occasional school of fish. Word of advice to the author: please don't try writing romance. It makes me want to cry, and not in a good way.
So disappointing.
Just finished Tower Lord and I want this book I want this book I want this book now. Stupid cliffhanger.
(Sad) Book Review
I don't know what happened. Somehow my number one most anticipated book of 2015 turned out to be the biggest disappointment of the year. (I know the year isn't over yet but I cannot see how I could be more disappointed in a book). I feel like I've been betrayed.
There were some really big issues that I had with Queen of Fire, namely with the multiple POV's. There were too many POV's, and while I did admit that it worked in Tower Lord, that only worked because of the fact that the plot was still interesting, there were some likeable characters, and Vaelin's awesomeness. Sadly, none of these were present in this book. Reva was never really that interesting to begin with, I'm not sure why Frentis still has his own POV in this book, Lyrna has ceased to be an interesting, complex, sharp and intelligent character that she was in the first two books, and Vaelin...oh Vaelin. It hurts me to say this, but Vaelin was as boring as the rest of the boring cast of characters in this book.
When Vaelin lost his blood song at the end of Tower Lord, I wondered what would happen to him. I knew it would be hard for him to accept the loss, since he was grown very reliant on his song to give him guidance and strength. But never would I expect him to cease to be interesting and awesome. To be fair, I don't think this newfound boring aspect of his character can be entirely attributed to the loss of his blood song. The ending of Tower Lord was very very satisfying in the fact that Vaelin totally and completely PWNED Volarian ass, thus showcasing Vaelin's swordsmanship and general awesomeness. And I guess it would be hard to amp up the drama and awesome in the third book considering that he did at the end of the second. But that does not excuse turning him into a boring two dimensional character. How could the author do this to one of the most epic characters that I've ever read?!?
Speaking of turning epic characters into boring redundant second rate poop: Lyrna. What happened there I do not know. The intelligent, mysterious, sharp, and manipulative princess that we all knew and love has turned into a boring idiot that I have no interest in reading about. Most of the time she was appointing random people to random royal positions "I hearby apoint you Queen's blah blah" rinse and repeat this speech about 10 more times. And I'm not sure about how I feel when Weaver healed her burns and returned her good looks. I kind of like some insecurity in her. Some flaw in her perfect facade that made her more human- some sort of reminder of the trails that she went through. Speaking of healing her burns, isn't this book called Queen of Fire for a reason? And wasn't there subtle references to a 'Queen of Fire' in Tower Lord? And so it comes as a complete surprise to me when there isn't really any queen of fire. There is a queen. There is lots of fire. But no Queen of Fire. From the title and the plot, I assume that Lynra is supposed to be the Queen of Fire, but nowhere in the book is she really explicitly called by that name. There was one reference to her spitting fire.
(like a dragon, I think? That would have been way more awesome than what we actually got).
But besides that, nothing to indicate that she is the Queen of Fire, or how Vaelin is supposed to serve her as the Queen of Fire (remember back to the last part of Blood Song when Barkus asked Vaelin; "Do you really think you’re going to serve a Queen of Fire, brother?" What Vaelin does do is travel somewhere and meets people and does stuff and somehow defeats a disappointing villain that looked so mysterious, evil and malicious in the previous books but turned out very ordinary and boring when fully revealed.
I kind of understood the Ally's backstory but don't entirely get his motivation for killing everyone and destroying the world. I didn't understand how the killed him that easily (it was actually quite quick and at that point I was bored and skimming) or what happened to the souls that were trapped in the beyond. From all the fear that the demon possessing creatures showed for him in the past 2 books, I expected much more and got much less than I wanted.
The romance, oh the romance. What was this farce? It made me want to throw the book across the room when reading the "romance" parts. I thoroughly enjoy a good romance, and I like to consider myself a romance aficionado, and the "romance" in this book made a mockery of all the well written (and even badly written) romance everywhere. Let's do the counting:
Strike one- Vaelin and Dahrena. I never felt any chemistry from either of them and it was a real source of confusion for me as to why they got together in the first place. But seeing as they did get together, the author could have at least given them some lovey dovey scenes for them to show some sort of affection or passion for each other. Honestly, I though that Vaelin treated Dahrena just like any other female character- with politeness and respect. Shame, because despite the crappy romance, I always want a happy ending for the characters I read about. I though Vaelin would get a happy ending in relation to his love life at least, but alas, it was not meant to be. He can't seem to catch a break. First Sherin (who I didn't really like that much) and now Dahrena.
Strike two- Alornis and Alucius.
Strike three: Lyrna and the Shield. In Tower Lord I was so excited because Lyrna was going to get her own romance on the side, and unlike Vaelin and Dahrena's, I was expecting to actually enjoy it. The chemistry between The Shield and Lyrna was so much better and hotter compared to Vaelin and Dahrena's, and I loved it more because Lyrna is so headstrong and The Shield was so unpredictable. I was wondering, what are they going to do next? Will she accept his suit? Will they get married? Ohhhhh. But then Queen of Fire happened and it was as if Lynra and him are strangers to each other: awkward and unsure. The Shield (who proclaimed his willingness to follow her anywhere in the previous book), suddenly develops resentment towards Lyrna's regard for Vaelin and for some reason decided to give up on her? WTF? Is this even the same guy from the previous books? The most promising couple in this series turned out to not even be a couple...
Three strikes and you're out. It's like Anthony Ryan though to himself: Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm going to set up these two characters, and then I'm going to hint at the possibility of something between them so then my readers will ship them, because how doesn't like a good shipping? and then at the last moment, I'm going to snatch that happiness away because it's MINE ITS ALL MINE MWHAHAHA". Sigh. These ships have not only sailed, but been ransacked by pirates and then burned and are now at the bottom of the deepest ocean where it is home to crustaceans and the occasional school of fish. Word of advice to the author: please don't try writing romance. It makes me want to cry, and not in a good way.
So disappointing.
December 26, 2018
***I reviewed this book some time ago. I simply found a typo and corrected it.***
What can I say here? The rating speaks for itself.
I don't know what happened here. The first book in this series is probably one of the best fantasy works I've ever read. Well crafted and even enthralling. I had trouble putting it down, I sat up late reading. I've read it more than once. The second book was simply good. I still rated it 5 stars though it wasn't as good as the first.
Now we have the third. For some reason Mr. Ryan seems to have simply let the story run on in different directions with little control of what's actually there. the view points bounce around from one to another with the story losing all direction at times, plot strings flailing out in all directions with very little relation (at times) to the original plot line(s). Where I had trouble putting the first book down this one I had to make myself go back to...and even finish. On multiple occasions I simply wanted to put it down and move on to something else.
Vaelin our "erstwhile" protagonist vacillates in character from what he has been established to be but then never settles down to an actually "new" character. I use the word erstwhile as he is now "mostly" just one of several points of view. The Enemy (or The Ally depending on where you are in the story) was in the end of the first novel the center of Vaelin's quest (so to speak). That focus has gone by the wayside. We do finally get back to it but oh the side roads, diatribes, wandering conversations, speeches, info dumps etc.
I am sorry. I don't like to give reviews this negative, especially on books by writers I know can be excellent story tellers. Thus my statement "I don't know what happened". I tend to wonder if maybe the story lines were all just so important to Mr. Ryan that he couldn't let anything be left out. Maybe he just wanted the story to go to a certain place and found he had to bend things and drag them out to get there. I have no idea how the book was edited. Could it have been saved (or if you don't "feel" it needs saving, "made better") by a more thorough editor? Again I don't know.
I know this is a subjective review and reflects my own reaction to and view of the book. If you disagree and like or even love the book I'm happy for you. I can not recommend it.
I'm sure one reason I am so disappointed in this novel is that I loved the first. That book Blood Song is still one of the best beginnings of an epic fantasy I've ever read. Happily this book does not ruin that one. It does however (in my humble opinion) fail to fulfill the promise made there.
With a heavy heart I can not recommend this novel.
What can I say here? The rating speaks for itself.
I don't know what happened here. The first book in this series is probably one of the best fantasy works I've ever read. Well crafted and even enthralling. I had trouble putting it down, I sat up late reading. I've read it more than once. The second book was simply good. I still rated it 5 stars though it wasn't as good as the first.
Now we have the third. For some reason Mr. Ryan seems to have simply let the story run on in different directions with little control of what's actually there. the view points bounce around from one to another with the story losing all direction at times, plot strings flailing out in all directions with very little relation (at times) to the original plot line(s). Where I had trouble putting the first book down this one I had to make myself go back to...and even finish. On multiple occasions I simply wanted to put it down and move on to something else.
Vaelin our "erstwhile" protagonist vacillates in character from what he has been established to be but then never settles down to an actually "new" character. I use the word erstwhile as he is now "mostly" just one of several points of view. The Enemy (or The Ally depending on where you are in the story) was in the end of the first novel the center of Vaelin's quest (so to speak). That focus has gone by the wayside. We do finally get back to it but oh the side roads, diatribes, wandering conversations, speeches, info dumps etc.
I am sorry. I don't like to give reviews this negative, especially on books by writers I know can be excellent story tellers. Thus my statement "I don't know what happened". I tend to wonder if maybe the story lines were all just so important to Mr. Ryan that he couldn't let anything be left out. Maybe he just wanted the story to go to a certain place and found he had to bend things and drag them out to get there. I have no idea how the book was edited. Could it have been saved (or if you don't "feel" it needs saving, "made better") by a more thorough editor? Again I don't know.
I know this is a subjective review and reflects my own reaction to and view of the book. If you disagree and like or even love the book I'm happy for you. I can not recommend it.
I'm sure one reason I am so disappointed in this novel is that I loved the first. That book Blood Song is still one of the best beginnings of an epic fantasy I've ever read. Happily this book does not ruin that one. It does however (in my humble opinion) fail to fulfill the promise made there.
With a heavy heart I can not recommend this novel.
July 6, 2015
Arguably one of the worst endings to a series that had SO much potential.
If anybody loved Blood Song as much as I did, just go ahead and burn Tower Lord and Queen of Fire. They will not be concerning your love for that protagonist.
No instead Vaelin is forcibly set into the Man-Who-Cannot-Die and the Mary Sue trope of being invincible and almighty and also, the big kicker:
Staying away from the plot for 90% of the book as you travel through once again:
Pointless Forests
Pointless Ice
Pointless fucking Forests Again
And Caves
To learn about:
Everybody and their Mother's Religion
Different Animal Tribes
Trolls
While Experiencing the Joys of:
The Snow Whore finally dying because we all love Sherin who does not ever fucking come back.
If anybody loved Blood Song as much as I did, just go ahead and burn Tower Lord and Queen of Fire. They will not be concerning your love for that protagonist.
No instead Vaelin is forcibly set into the Man-Who-Cannot-Die and the Mary Sue trope of being invincible and almighty and also, the big kicker:
Staying away from the plot for 90% of the book as you travel through once again:
Pointless Forests
Pointless Ice
Pointless fucking Forests Again
And Caves
To learn about:
Everybody and their Mother's Religion
Different Animal Tribes
Trolls
While Experiencing the Joys of:
The Snow Whore finally dying because we all love Sherin who does not ever fucking come back.
May 20, 2019
It is more productive to open an empty fridge than this novel.
(I might pen areview warning for gullible readers in the future but frankly speaking, I don't think this book merits it.)
_______
Also in the series:
1. Blood Song ★★★★☆
2. Tower Lord ★★☆☆☆
(I might pen a
_______
Also in the series:
1. Blood Song ★★★★☆
2. Tower Lord ★★☆☆☆
February 28, 2017
The Queen of Fire was a nice book, bringing Vaelin's Saga to an end and closing all the open threads, but unfortunately it was not what i had anticipated.
"He recalled those brief years when his song had fallen silent, his refusal to heed it leaving him bereft, without guidance. It had been hard to be so rudderless in a sea of chaos and war. This, however, was much worse, because now there was the chill, the bone-deep cold that had seeped into him in the Ally’s domain and lingered on here in this world of myriad paths, all seemingly so dark. And the words, of course, those words that hounded him from the Beyond. We will make an ending, you and I.”
As a stand alone book, Queen of Fire is a good work. You get to learn the final outcome of the story, all of the smaller plot arcs come to an end, and no loose threads are left hanging. But Queen of Fire is not a stand alone book, but the continuity of Raven's Shadow, one of the greatest fantasy stories of the last decade. And as such, it's simply... disappointing. All characters are flat and written in the same voice (for example Frentis was a miniature of Vaelin. It was like reading about the same character), a lot of characters were unnecessary, and finally the main protagonist had the less interesting storyline. It was a nice book, but not the epic conclusion i expected. The only possible explanation that i can think of, is that the publisher forced Anthony's hand, making him write & publish a book in the space of a few months without giving him enough time and space to properly finish his story.
To conclude, Raven's Shadow is a great story, and i totally recommend it to all fantasy readers. If we are lucky enough, perhaps Anthony will write a 4th book with a properly befitting conclusion to this awesome story.
You can find more of my reviews over at http://BookNest.eu/
"He recalled those brief years when his song had fallen silent, his refusal to heed it leaving him bereft, without guidance. It had been hard to be so rudderless in a sea of chaos and war. This, however, was much worse, because now there was the chill, the bone-deep cold that had seeped into him in the Ally’s domain and lingered on here in this world of myriad paths, all seemingly so dark. And the words, of course, those words that hounded him from the Beyond. We will make an ending, you and I.”
As a stand alone book, Queen of Fire is a good work. You get to learn the final outcome of the story, all of the smaller plot arcs come to an end, and no loose threads are left hanging. But Queen of Fire is not a stand alone book, but the continuity of Raven's Shadow, one of the greatest fantasy stories of the last decade. And as such, it's simply... disappointing. All characters are flat and written in the same voice (for example Frentis was a miniature of Vaelin. It was like reading about the same character), a lot of characters were unnecessary, and finally the main protagonist had the less interesting storyline. It was a nice book, but not the epic conclusion i expected. The only possible explanation that i can think of, is that the publisher forced Anthony's hand, making him write & publish a book in the space of a few months without giving him enough time and space to properly finish his story.
To conclude, Raven's Shadow is a great story, and i totally recommend it to all fantasy readers. If we are lucky enough, perhaps Anthony will write a 4th book with a properly befitting conclusion to this awesome story.
You can find more of my reviews over at http://BookNest.eu/
June 25, 2016
I'm calling this one. Date of death: July 22, 2015 @ 12:29 am.
I'm distraught over this book. I'm hurt, genuinely hurt. Before I read BLOOD SONG, I strictly read historical fiction. Well, I've been reading A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, but who isn't? But BLOOD SONG was a game changer for me. It put a love and a thirst for fantasy that will never be satiated. After I read it I loved it so much that I started looking for similar fantasy books and have devoured a great many. BLOOD SONG sparked a passion in my life.
TOWER LORD was a decent follow up, though the new George R.R. Martin style POV chapters were a sore let down. But the story was still there and kept me interested.
This ABORTION was a 600 page middle finger! Added and unnecessary POVs, disjointed flow to the plot, and NOT ENOUGH FUCKING VAELIN YOU STUPID BRITISH TWIT! Why create such an awesome character just to let him hang out in the snow for most of the book. And the other two books in this series both got a little confusing at times and forced me to reread here and there, but this confused mess had me rereading every damn page.
Maybe I'm not the brightest reader in the world and I'm sure there are plenty of people that will love and feel satisfied with this book but I'm not one of them. Reva is conscripting peasants, Vaelin's off building snowmen, Frentis is freeing slaves and Lyrna is of doing God knows what. And this bullshit would be fine if I could follow it in a coherent way. I'm not going to finish this book. This book was so terrible that i don't even care about the loose ends. I don't care if Vaelin gets his song back or if the Ally eats them all. IN FACT, I'm going to pretend that the Ally did eat them all, so there! Very cute, Mr. Ryan but fuck off, man. You will never get another ten bucks out of this reader...
I'm distraught over this book. I'm hurt, genuinely hurt. Before I read BLOOD SONG, I strictly read historical fiction. Well, I've been reading A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, but who isn't? But BLOOD SONG was a game changer for me. It put a love and a thirst for fantasy that will never be satiated. After I read it I loved it so much that I started looking for similar fantasy books and have devoured a great many. BLOOD SONG sparked a passion in my life.
TOWER LORD was a decent follow up, though the new George R.R. Martin style POV chapters were a sore let down. But the story was still there and kept me interested.
This ABORTION was a 600 page middle finger! Added and unnecessary POVs, disjointed flow to the plot, and NOT ENOUGH FUCKING VAELIN YOU STUPID BRITISH TWIT! Why create such an awesome character just to let him hang out in the snow for most of the book. And the other two books in this series both got a little confusing at times and forced me to reread here and there, but this confused mess had me rereading every damn page.
Maybe I'm not the brightest reader in the world and I'm sure there are plenty of people that will love and feel satisfied with this book but I'm not one of them. Reva is conscripting peasants, Vaelin's off building snowmen, Frentis is freeing slaves and Lyrna is of doing God knows what. And this bullshit would be fine if I could follow it in a coherent way. I'm not going to finish this book. This book was so terrible that i don't even care about the loose ends. I don't care if Vaelin gets his song back or if the Ally eats them all. IN FACT, I'm going to pretend that the Ally did eat them all, so there! Very cute, Mr. Ryan but fuck off, man. You will never get another ten bucks out of this reader...
September 17, 2015
The pace was sluggish and uneven for stretches of this book (Reva being the main, but far from the only, reason for this) but the exciting finale tied everything together and made it worthwhile. Overall this was a strong ending to a really enjoyable series that answered most of the mysteries that were set up over the previous books and provided closure for the characters we've come to care about (at least those that survived, Ryan was surprisingly and sometimes detrimentally ruthless in places) while leaving enough to room to write more installments in this universe in the future.
This book continued with the same structure as the previous book with 4 main POV characters (plus one surprise additional character) with interludes outside of chronological order provided by the scholar Verniers. While I was initially skeptical about the inclusion of Alucius as a POV character he quickly earned my trust with his humorous observations and interesting perspective.
Ryan made the interesting decision of having the series main character and the sole POV character from book 1 not appear for much of the early part of the book. This was probably a large part of the reason why the opening sections dragged somewhat. Vaelin's first parts were initially underwhelming but by the middle of the book (with the beginning of his awesome journey) his parts began to steal the show. The journey was filled with intriguing mysteries and epic encounters and while his loss of his powers stripped him of the sense of danger and mystery he had in book 2 it also kept him from going Leroy Jenkins as he did in the last book.
Lyrna's section were also really enjoyable. Her ruthlessness and desire for revenge separated her from the heroic princess trope that she seemed in danger of falling into in the last book. However while I enjoyed her personal interactions and political intrigues I found a lot of the military stuff (normally by far and away my favourite storylines in fantasy) to be pretty weak. Ryan showed no desire to accurately represent how medieval warfare worked and as a card carrying history nerd this annoyed me greatly. I would have been able to shrug off a few mistakes but it seemed as if armies of several hundred thousand soldiers were being raised every few pages, which greatly undermined my immersion in the world. This was compounded by Alornis' using her skills as an artist to somehow develop a doomsday machine that none of the thousand year old bad guys were capable of matching because sketches. The one plus side of the military campaigns was that most of the engagements were filled with cool tactical reversals on both sides. These twists and turns also succeeded in making the villains (especially the Empress)more respectable due to being legitimate threats to the heroes rather than the ineffective morons fantasy villains often are.
Frentis' sections were also really engaging pretty much throughout. There was none of the BS magical puppetry that ruined his parts in the first half of the last book and instead we got badassery throughout. The constant campaigns of bloody guerilla warfare, Frentis' well-written love-hate relationship with the evil empress who plagued his dreams and the presence of some really cool secondary characters (Illian who despite being a cringe-inducing noblewoman turned badass warrior cliche still managed to be really likeable and interesting, Draker the street thug turned soldier and Lekran the bloodthirsty barbarian warrior).
Reva's plotline was imo by far and away the weak link in this book. I honestly can't remember much of what she did for about 90% of it. It seems that Ryan wrote her into the series as a main character in order to fulfil a big role in book 2 (see my review of that book for my beef with her there) without having any plan for her here. The only interesting involvement that she had was her claim to be a prophetess of her people's god in order to drum up support for an invasion. This was an extremely complex moral quandary that could have been explored in a really intriguing way. Unfortunately Reva just did it without much consideration then spent the rest of the book thinking about how shitty a thing it was to do... without bothering to try to remedy the situation of course. Her sections only became interesting towards the end, where she had some cool action sections and her scenes with the Empress were awesome (mostly due to the on-page charisma of the empress rather than Reva's predictable blandness). Earlier on in the book I rather like her interactions with her lover/advisor and the little girl they adopted but these were never given much screen time unfortunately.
Despite the uneven pacing I found this to be a worthy and enjoyable end to a really good series. Ryan managed to write an interesting story on it's own merits with plenty of cool plotlines and character development while also wrapping up this trilogy nicely, both delivering closure about the characters we've come to care about and leaving room for more stories in this world.
This book continued with the same structure as the previous book with 4 main POV characters (plus one surprise additional character) with interludes outside of chronological order provided by the scholar Verniers. While I was initially skeptical about the inclusion of Alucius as a POV character he quickly earned my trust with his humorous observations and interesting perspective.
Ryan made the interesting decision of having the series main character and the sole POV character from book 1 not appear for much of the early part of the book. This was probably a large part of the reason why the opening sections dragged somewhat. Vaelin's first parts were initially underwhelming but by the middle of the book (with the beginning of his awesome journey) his parts began to steal the show. The journey was filled with intriguing mysteries and epic encounters and while his loss of his powers stripped him of the sense of danger and mystery he had in book 2 it also kept him from going Leroy Jenkins as he did in the last book.
Lyrna's section were also really enjoyable. Her ruthlessness and desire for revenge separated her from the heroic princess trope that she seemed in danger of falling into in the last book. However while I enjoyed her personal interactions and political intrigues I found a lot of the military stuff (normally by far and away my favourite storylines in fantasy) to be pretty weak. Ryan showed no desire to accurately represent how medieval warfare worked and as a card carrying history nerd this annoyed me greatly. I would have been able to shrug off a few mistakes but it seemed as if armies of several hundred thousand soldiers were being raised every few pages, which greatly undermined my immersion in the world. This was compounded by Alornis' using her skills as an artist to somehow develop a doomsday machine that none of the thousand year old bad guys were capable of matching because sketches. The one plus side of the military campaigns was that most of the engagements were filled with cool tactical reversals on both sides. These twists and turns also succeeded in making the villains (especially the Empress)more respectable due to being legitimate threats to the heroes rather than the ineffective morons fantasy villains often are.
Frentis' sections were also really engaging pretty much throughout. There was none of the BS magical puppetry that ruined his parts in the first half of the last book and instead we got badassery throughout. The constant campaigns of bloody guerilla warfare, Frentis' well-written love-hate relationship with the evil empress who plagued his dreams and the presence of some really cool secondary characters (Illian who despite being a cringe-inducing noblewoman turned badass warrior cliche still managed to be really likeable and interesting, Draker the street thug turned soldier and Lekran the bloodthirsty barbarian warrior).
Reva's plotline was imo by far and away the weak link in this book. I honestly can't remember much of what she did for about 90% of it. It seems that Ryan wrote her into the series as a main character in order to fulfil a big role in book 2 (see my review of that book for my beef with her there) without having any plan for her here. The only interesting involvement that she had was her claim to be a prophetess of her people's god in order to drum up support for an invasion. This was an extremely complex moral quandary that could have been explored in a really intriguing way. Unfortunately Reva just did it without much consideration then spent the rest of the book thinking about how shitty a thing it was to do... without bothering to try to remedy the situation of course. Her sections only became interesting towards the end, where she had some cool action sections and her scenes with the Empress were awesome (mostly due to the on-page charisma of the empress rather than Reva's predictable blandness). Earlier on in the book I rather like her interactions with her lover/advisor and the little girl they adopted but these were never given much screen time unfortunately.
Despite the uneven pacing I found this to be a worthy and enjoyable end to a really good series. Ryan managed to write an interesting story on it's own merits with plenty of cool plotlines and character development while also wrapping up this trilogy nicely, both delivering closure about the characters we've come to care about and leaving room for more stories in this world.
did-not-finish
June 19, 2015
I give y'all permission to be jealous. ;)
August 28, 2015
Queen of Fire is the conclusion to Anthony Ryan's Raven's Shadow trilogy. The first two books in the series Blood Song and Tower Lord were exceptional books. They had everything a reader of epic fantasy could desire. Action, mystery, romance, intrigue, and plenty of surprises. The world building was good, the plot complex, and the various characters were full of depth and personality. This series finale did not quite match those books in terms of overall quality. A lot of the same building blocks were present so Queen of Fire was still an enjoyable read, but it had flaws and issues that made it a less enjoyable read than its predecessors. As a result I was left feeling slightly disappointed that this did not live up to my, admittedly lofty, expectations.
The story picks up where we left off at the end of Tower Lord. The Volarian invasion of the Unified Realm had been defeated and our group of heroes lead by Queen Lyrna are about to embark on a counter invasion of their own to finally put an end to the evil Volarian Empire and to confront the mysterious Ally who pulls its strings.
The story was enjoyable for the most part and we did get plenty of action and the revelations to a lot of the mysteries that were present in the first two books.
All four of the POV characters from Tower Lord returned here and were joined by an additional new character. The new character actually turned out to be a surprise star of the book.
Vaelin's POV and story arc turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. Vaelin just lacked the same spark without the blood song and he was lumbered with a quest type story arc that was slow and plodding at times. He was still a likeable guy who is easy to root for and admire, but I'll admit to being very depressed at times while reading his story as he never seems able to catch a break!
Lyrna and Frentis have always been complicated characters and it was no different in this one. Both had interesting POV segments, but unfortunately both characters developed in directions I did not enjoy as they fought against feelings of vengeance for most of the book.
Reva has always been a easy character to love and it was no different here. She is as kick ass as ever and had a ton of interesting scenes towards the end. The flaw in her story arc was that she had no real story for the first half of the book!
Queen of Fire had three major failings that hurt it in comparison to the earlier books.
The first was the unremittingly bleak and depressing tone to the story. I never felt that way while reading Blood Song and Tower Lord as despite the sometimes bleak and dark happenings I always felt an undercurrent of hope. QoF lacked that hope and it definitely hurt the story.
The second was the way the various romances played out. Ryan did a good job in the earlier books in the series of building a number of different and interesting romantic bonds between the various characters. That was gone in this instalment and it felt like he actively went out of his way to destroy and stamp down on any chance his of happiness his characters might find with each other or just with their lives in general. Depressing and disappointing in my opinion.
The last of the major failings was the unsatisfying ending. We did get a decent conclusion to the main story arc that focused on the battle against the Ally and the Volarian Empire, so I have no complaints in that regard, even considering a tiny mystery that left open the possibility of a sequel series was dangled. What left me feeling so unsatisfied was how things ended for our batch of lovable POV characters. I felt like they deserved better.
I look back at this review and see that it is packed full of me moaning about the flaws and shortcomings I found. I guess that is a sure sign that this failed to live up to my expectations. Despite that I will again point out that I did actually enjoy reading this! It is not as good as it could have been, but it is better than the vast majority of lesser fantasy reads that are out there.
Rating: 4 stars.
Audio Note: I do not dislike Steven Brand as a narrator and I'm glad the series kept a consistent narrator throughout, but I do wish he was a tiny bit more adept at differentiating between character voices.
The story picks up where we left off at the end of Tower Lord. The Volarian invasion of the Unified Realm had been defeated and our group of heroes lead by Queen Lyrna are about to embark on a counter invasion of their own to finally put an end to the evil Volarian Empire and to confront the mysterious Ally who pulls its strings.
The story was enjoyable for the most part and we did get plenty of action and the revelations to a lot of the mysteries that were present in the first two books.
All four of the POV characters from Tower Lord returned here and were joined by an additional new character. The new character actually turned out to be a surprise star of the book.
Vaelin's POV and story arc turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. Vaelin just lacked the same spark without the blood song and he was lumbered with a quest type story arc that was slow and plodding at times. He was still a likeable guy who is easy to root for and admire, but I'll admit to being very depressed at times while reading his story as he never seems able to catch a break!
Lyrna and Frentis have always been complicated characters and it was no different in this one. Both had interesting POV segments, but unfortunately both characters developed in directions I did not enjoy as they fought against feelings of vengeance for most of the book.
Reva has always been a easy character to love and it was no different here. She is as kick ass as ever and had a ton of interesting scenes towards the end. The flaw in her story arc was that she had no real story for the first half of the book!
Queen of Fire had three major failings that hurt it in comparison to the earlier books.
The first was the unremittingly bleak and depressing tone to the story. I never felt that way while reading Blood Song and Tower Lord as despite the sometimes bleak and dark happenings I always felt an undercurrent of hope. QoF lacked that hope and it definitely hurt the story.
The second was the way the various romances played out. Ryan did a good job in the earlier books in the series of building a number of different and interesting romantic bonds between the various characters. That was gone in this instalment and it felt like he actively went out of his way to destroy and stamp down on any chance his of happiness his characters might find with each other or just with their lives in general. Depressing and disappointing in my opinion.
The last of the major failings was the unsatisfying ending. We did get a decent conclusion to the main story arc that focused on the battle against the Ally and the Volarian Empire, so I have no complaints in that regard, even considering a tiny mystery that left open the possibility of a sequel series was dangled. What left me feeling so unsatisfied was how things ended for our batch of lovable POV characters. I felt like they deserved better.
I look back at this review and see that it is packed full of me moaning about the flaws and shortcomings I found. I guess that is a sure sign that this failed to live up to my expectations. Despite that I will again point out that I did actually enjoy reading this! It is not as good as it could have been, but it is better than the vast majority of lesser fantasy reads that are out there.
Rating: 4 stars.
Audio Note: I do not dislike Steven Brand as a narrator and I'm glad the series kept a consistent narrator throughout, but I do wish he was a tiny bit more adept at differentiating between character voices.
August 2, 2015
Executive Summary: A somewhat enjoyable end to the series, but I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I did the last two books. 3.5 stars.
Audio book: Much like the last 2 books, I enjoy Steven Brand as a narrator, save for the fact that he's so QUIET. Thankfully my audiobook app lets me increase the volume, or it would be incredibly frustrating. I wonder if the publishers listens to the book with noise canceling headphones only or something, or if even that would be sufficient.
If you've done the previous two in audio, you should know what to expect. Hopefully like me you have a way to increase the volume so you can enjoy Mr. Brand's otherwise excellent narration.
Full Review
After how much I enjoyed the last two, it was almost going to be impossible for this book to live up to my expectations.
Some of this is probably on me. I read Blood Song and Tower Lord back to back. It's been about a year since then, and my memory on the details were fuzzy. I should have reread. I wish there was a wiki or something with plot points and character bios I could have used to refresh myself.
I struggled at the start remembering many of the minor characters. I think all books in a series (and really all audio books in general) should have a list of the important characters with maybe a 1 sentence reminder of who they are. It would really help a lot. There are just too many books to reread previous books every time a new one comes out, even books I loved as much as the last two.
Both of those books grabbed me early on and never let go. That never really happened here. I was always happy to pick it back up, but I wasn't making excuses to listen longer or counting down the time until I could get back to listening. So unfortunately I can't the whole series 5 stars.
I also found myself wondering for much of the second half of the book if there would be enough time to resolve everything. For the most part I think he does a good job of converging the different story lines, but it required a fairly large info-dump near the end to do so.
That said, I really love the world Mr. Ryan has built, and I'm especially fond of the characters. It's always great to read about them, and this book is no different. Much like Tower Lord, I think Frentis and Riva both sort of steal the show again. However Vaelin's chapters are pretty interesting as well. Lyrna's story was still enjoyable, just not as much as the others.
Overall this has been one of the best series I've found in the last few years. I'd happily read another series set in this world, especially if we can visit again with some of the characters.
This is definitely a series I'll revisit down the road on a reread. Maybe reading all 3 back to back I won't struggle as much as the start and enjoy it more the second time.
Either way, I'll be looking forward to checking out what Mr. Ryan has in store for us next.
Audio book: Much like the last 2 books, I enjoy Steven Brand as a narrator, save for the fact that he's so QUIET. Thankfully my audiobook app lets me increase the volume, or it would be incredibly frustrating. I wonder if the publishers listens to the book with noise canceling headphones only or something, or if even that would be sufficient.
If you've done the previous two in audio, you should know what to expect. Hopefully like me you have a way to increase the volume so you can enjoy Mr. Brand's otherwise excellent narration.
Full Review
After how much I enjoyed the last two, it was almost going to be impossible for this book to live up to my expectations.
Some of this is probably on me. I read Blood Song and Tower Lord back to back. It's been about a year since then, and my memory on the details were fuzzy. I should have reread. I wish there was a wiki or something with plot points and character bios I could have used to refresh myself.
I struggled at the start remembering many of the minor characters. I think all books in a series (and really all audio books in general) should have a list of the important characters with maybe a 1 sentence reminder of who they are. It would really help a lot. There are just too many books to reread previous books every time a new one comes out, even books I loved as much as the last two.
Both of those books grabbed me early on and never let go. That never really happened here. I was always happy to pick it back up, but I wasn't making excuses to listen longer or counting down the time until I could get back to listening. So unfortunately I can't the whole series 5 stars.
I also found myself wondering for much of the second half of the book if there would be enough time to resolve everything. For the most part I think he does a good job of converging the different story lines, but it required a fairly large info-dump near the end to do so.
That said, I really love the world Mr. Ryan has built, and I'm especially fond of the characters. It's always great to read about them, and this book is no different. Much like Tower Lord, I think Frentis and Riva both sort of steal the show again. However Vaelin's chapters are pretty interesting as well. Lyrna's story was still enjoyable, just not as much as the others.
Overall this has been one of the best series I've found in the last few years. I'd happily read another series set in this world, especially if we can visit again with some of the characters.
This is definitely a series I'll revisit down the road on a reread. Maybe reading all 3 back to back I won't struggle as much as the start and enjoy it more the second time.
Either way, I'll be looking forward to checking out what Mr. Ryan has in store for us next.
July 26, 2015
3.5 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum http://bibliosanctum.com/2015/07/26/b...
This highly anticipated novel is the final volume of Anthony Ryan’s epic Raven’s Shadow trilogy, so be aware this review may contain spoilers for the first two books of the series if you have not caught up yet. It would be impossible to talk about Queen of Fire without at least referencing some of the events in the previous book, and not just because it picks up directly where Tower Lord left off (and follows in the same vein). The truth is, so much of what stood out were the characters and their growth over the course of the trilogy; to praise (and critique) this book I would have to give the nod to Blood Song and Tower Lord as well.
We learn at the beginning of Queen of Fire that Queen Lyrna, who was brutally attacked and burned at the end of Tower Lord has been healed by the very same forces she used to mistrust, and now seeks to ally with them to meet the invading Volarian army head on. She is determined to fight for the independence of the Unified Realm, but to do so she must first raise an army. Meanwhile, the Tower Lord Vaelin Al Sorna, now also called Battle Lord of the Realm, is taking it upon himself to confront the mysterious Ally and an enemy who must be defeated if the Queen’s efforts are to have a chance. On the way, Vaelin rallies other factions to their side, their support invaluable now that the power of his bloodsong seems to have abandoned him.
Other prominent characters include Frentis, whose traumatizing plight in the last novel made me wonder how he would come back from the consequences of his actions, even though so many of them were not his own while his mind was being controlled. Reva also starts her climb to the top by demonstrating her strength and incredible battle prowess. And finally, an unexpected perspective comes in the form of Alucius Al Hestian who adds tension to the overall arc by having to make some very difficult decisions.
First, the good: Like I said, this is a fitting end for a lot of characters who joined in for this epic journey. Characters like Lyrna, Frentis and Reva have all seen tremendous development since they made their respective appearances, and each had their personal obstacles to overcome. It fills me with much satisfaction to see everything come together in this concluding volume.
I also liked the many new places Anthony Ryan took us in Queen of Fire, as well as the fascinating new people we get to meet. The wolf people were especially great, since I always find it a treat to read about fictional cultures inspired by shamanistic traditions. There were also some amazing moments of characters doing battle on the high seas, which wasn’t a surprise given my fondness for maritime fantasy. In addition, there was the minor element of invention and the enthusiasm of a particular character for tinkering, creating new and improved machines of war – this I loved, even if it did only make up a relatively small part of the story. This is a huge tome of a novel after all, and there is a lot packed in it, much of which I thoroughly enjoyed.
There were some stumbling blocks, however. The first is that the story is admittedly on the slow side to take off, with a significant portion of “critical” scenes happening in the second half of the novel. That means I felt that the first 300 or so pages were mostly given to establishing the basis for the finale at the end, which is a bit much (it’s such a lengthy book, after all). Fortunately, the pacing improves by leaps and bounds after the story finds its stride.
I also think that those who were disappointed with certain aspects of Tower Lord might experience the same snags in Queen of Fire. The two books are stylistically similar, both featuring multiple POVs and readers who had wanted more Vaelin in book two will probably not see a marked change here. Vaelin Al Sorna, who won me over in Blood Song, does not really feel like the main protagonist to me anymore, but I find myself okay with that because he is still an important presence. I’m actually regretting more the fact that folks like Caenis and Nortah didn’t show up as much. Clearly, the story’s scope has become much bigger (a good thing) so the result is plenty of other characters sharing the pages with him now that I’ve come to connect with.
But basically, if you were expecting Vaelin to dominate his share of screentime in this book again, I’m afraid you just won’t get that. I do understand the sentiment, though. Speaking for myself, Blood Song still remains my favorite of the trilogy, because it was such a detailed exploration into Vaelin’s character. Of course, it certainly helped that I’m such a huge fan of the warrior school trope chronicling a boy’s rise to become the greatest fighter the world has ever known, complete with a relentless training regime and harsh instructors.
But while Queen of Fire didn’t quite reach the heights that Blood Song or even Tower Lord did for me, it’s nevertheless a good book with undeniably awesome conclusion. I would recommend the series as a whole and if you’ve been following along with the trilogy as the books come out, this is an ending you probably wouldn’t want to miss.
This highly anticipated novel is the final volume of Anthony Ryan’s epic Raven’s Shadow trilogy, so be aware this review may contain spoilers for the first two books of the series if you have not caught up yet. It would be impossible to talk about Queen of Fire without at least referencing some of the events in the previous book, and not just because it picks up directly where Tower Lord left off (and follows in the same vein). The truth is, so much of what stood out were the characters and their growth over the course of the trilogy; to praise (and critique) this book I would have to give the nod to Blood Song and Tower Lord as well.
We learn at the beginning of Queen of Fire that Queen Lyrna, who was brutally attacked and burned at the end of Tower Lord has been healed by the very same forces she used to mistrust, and now seeks to ally with them to meet the invading Volarian army head on. She is determined to fight for the independence of the Unified Realm, but to do so she must first raise an army. Meanwhile, the Tower Lord Vaelin Al Sorna, now also called Battle Lord of the Realm, is taking it upon himself to confront the mysterious Ally and an enemy who must be defeated if the Queen’s efforts are to have a chance. On the way, Vaelin rallies other factions to their side, their support invaluable now that the power of his bloodsong seems to have abandoned him.
Other prominent characters include Frentis, whose traumatizing plight in the last novel made me wonder how he would come back from the consequences of his actions, even though so many of them were not his own while his mind was being controlled. Reva also starts her climb to the top by demonstrating her strength and incredible battle prowess. And finally, an unexpected perspective comes in the form of Alucius Al Hestian who adds tension to the overall arc by having to make some very difficult decisions.
First, the good: Like I said, this is a fitting end for a lot of characters who joined in for this epic journey. Characters like Lyrna, Frentis and Reva have all seen tremendous development since they made their respective appearances, and each had their personal obstacles to overcome. It fills me with much satisfaction to see everything come together in this concluding volume.
I also liked the many new places Anthony Ryan took us in Queen of Fire, as well as the fascinating new people we get to meet. The wolf people were especially great, since I always find it a treat to read about fictional cultures inspired by shamanistic traditions. There were also some amazing moments of characters doing battle on the high seas, which wasn’t a surprise given my fondness for maritime fantasy. In addition, there was the minor element of invention and the enthusiasm of a particular character for tinkering, creating new and improved machines of war – this I loved, even if it did only make up a relatively small part of the story. This is a huge tome of a novel after all, and there is a lot packed in it, much of which I thoroughly enjoyed.
There were some stumbling blocks, however. The first is that the story is admittedly on the slow side to take off, with a significant portion of “critical” scenes happening in the second half of the novel. That means I felt that the first 300 or so pages were mostly given to establishing the basis for the finale at the end, which is a bit much (it’s such a lengthy book, after all). Fortunately, the pacing improves by leaps and bounds after the story finds its stride.
I also think that those who were disappointed with certain aspects of Tower Lord might experience the same snags in Queen of Fire. The two books are stylistically similar, both featuring multiple POVs and readers who had wanted more Vaelin in book two will probably not see a marked change here. Vaelin Al Sorna, who won me over in Blood Song, does not really feel like the main protagonist to me anymore, but I find myself okay with that because he is still an important presence. I’m actually regretting more the fact that folks like Caenis and Nortah didn’t show up as much. Clearly, the story’s scope has become much bigger (a good thing) so the result is plenty of other characters sharing the pages with him now that I’ve come to connect with.
But basically, if you were expecting Vaelin to dominate his share of screentime in this book again, I’m afraid you just won’t get that. I do understand the sentiment, though. Speaking for myself, Blood Song still remains my favorite of the trilogy, because it was such a detailed exploration into Vaelin’s character. Of course, it certainly helped that I’m such a huge fan of the warrior school trope chronicling a boy’s rise to become the greatest fighter the world has ever known, complete with a relentless training regime and harsh instructors.
But while Queen of Fire didn’t quite reach the heights that Blood Song or even Tower Lord did for me, it’s nevertheless a good book with undeniably awesome conclusion. I would recommend the series as a whole and if you’ve been following along with the trilogy as the books come out, this is an ending you probably wouldn’t want to miss.
August 20, 2017
Trilogy Review: [3.5 stars for Queen of Fire] I thoroughly enjoyed the Raven’s Shadow Trilogy, especially the first book, Blood Song. It was easily a 5 star read and one of the best fantasies I’ve read since Sanderson’s Stormlight Archives. It focused on one character – Vaelin, and his coming of age story. Taking place in the school (one of my favorite settings) it offered a combative learning environment that honestly reminded me of Harry Potter adventures meets the medieval, gritty reality of Game of Thrones. The camaraderie that Vaelin formed with his fellow “brothers” was an excellent dynamic, one which I wish had carried through the rest of the trilogy.
After finishing the first book (and fangirling about it for a few days) I quickly became aware that people weren’t loving the second and third books nearly as much. I have a few theories as to why. The sequels are very different from the first one. What an author puts forth in initially is usually a promise to the reader of what’s to come and readers expect at least a bit of consistency of storytelling (which Ryan failed to deliver because his tale took off in a completely different direction).
His story also went from a single point of view to multiple, bouncing around in a very Game of Thrones manner. I actually liked the different perspectives, each one adding a missing piece to the puzzle and written as well as Vaelin. Ironically, though, the passages involving Vaelin, the initial hero of the saga, became the least interesting… odd, right? This overall story arc remained the same, but everything built up in the first book got swept under the rug in favor of these other storylines.
While I understand how this could lead to a lot of disappointment, I admit I enjoyed Tower Lord (book 2) almost as much is the first book. Heck, I even liked about 80% of Queen of Fire (book 3) save one chunk near the end where I was incredibly bored and found it difficult to get through… once I did though, I liked the ending.
Overall, even though my personal experience with the series differs from the majority, I still think the consensus is that Blood Song is worth reading even if you don’t plan to continue on.
Via The Obsessive Bookseller at www.nikihawkes.com
After finishing the first book (and fangirling about it for a few days) I quickly became aware that people weren’t loving the second and third books nearly as much. I have a few theories as to why. The sequels are very different from the first one. What an author puts forth in initially is usually a promise to the reader of what’s to come and readers expect at least a bit of consistency of storytelling (which Ryan failed to deliver because his tale took off in a completely different direction).
His story also went from a single point of view to multiple, bouncing around in a very Game of Thrones manner. I actually liked the different perspectives, each one adding a missing piece to the puzzle and written as well as Vaelin. Ironically, though, the passages involving Vaelin, the initial hero of the saga, became the least interesting… odd, right? This overall story arc remained the same, but everything built up in the first book got swept under the rug in favor of these other storylines.
While I understand how this could lead to a lot of disappointment, I admit I enjoyed Tower Lord (book 2) almost as much is the first book. Heck, I even liked about 80% of Queen of Fire (book 3) save one chunk near the end where I was incredibly bored and found it difficult to get through… once I did though, I liked the ending.
Overall, even though my personal experience with the series differs from the majority, I still think the consensus is that Blood Song is worth reading even if you don’t plan to continue on.
Via The Obsessive Bookseller at www.nikihawkes.com
November 24, 2015
"Raven's Shadow" books for me:
Blood Song - 4,5 stars - excellent debut from a new author, interesting worldbuilding, great lead character, some minor issues with using fantasy tropes (magic school, chosen one, warring kingdoms, secret societies)
Tower Lord - 4 stars - solid sequel, major expansion of worldbuilding, filled with action, less engaging characters and feels like trying to hold too many balls up in the air at the same time.
Queen of Fire - 3,5 stars - good, action packed like its predecessors, ties up all the loose ends, but it feels rushed, like three novels worth of material packed into one. Also feels less original than the debut, more like a generic dark fantasy with a fellowship on a quest to bring down an evil overlord.
That would make it about four stars for the whole series, but math is not really my strong point, especially when it comes down to weighting the pro and cons of epic fantasy. I personally rate Anthony Ryan above Brandon Sanderson or Brent Weeks, for example, but I believe the promise of the debut novel was not realized in its full potential by the end of the story. Part of the problem may still be personal, as I had problems keeping track of who is who in the novel, despite the helpful list at the back. This confusion became particularly annoying when one of these numerous side characters met with an untimely death and I was supposed to be deeply moved by his or her loss. I believe they were underdeveloped for the emotional demands made on the reader. Another personal peeve was the interest I had in the lead from the first book, the Tower Lord Vaelin al Sorna, who started to take a step back from the action already in book two, and who is more like a figurehead in this last installment. Other characters share the lion's share of the action, in particular Queen Lyrna, Reva Munstor and Frentis, but even their storylines are diluted and rushed by the need to establish and follow up on the rest of the cast. As I already mentioned in the intro, maybe a couple of more books would have achieved a better balance between the worldbuilding, the action and the character development.
I say this mostly because I really liked the potential of the multiracial society, with the shamans in the Icy North bonding with wild animals, with the Elf like Eorhil forest dwellers talented, with the pirate / commercial ships of the Meldeneans, with the tribal / matriarchal Lonaks in their mountain fastnesses, even with the three competing empires on the world stage. The rich and diverse history of the world and the intriguing religious systems are also highlights of the series for me, translated in a mix of martial and magical competences for the heroes. Less accomplished are some of the adversaries, with the ever increasing talents of the Volarian slave soldiers stretching the suspension of disbelief to breaking point. I had to concentrate and look at the glossary to make out the differences between Kuritai, Varitai and all the other 'tai's Vaelin and friends fought against. The ultimate adversary is mysterious and powerful in its talent to control the minds of his minions from beyond the veil of death, but
I don't have any quotes saved from the book, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the way Ryan writes. It's more of a case of being too focused on following the plot and keeping track of the names of the cast to concentrate too much on style. The author is still pretty close to the top of my list of new fantasy talents to watch out for in the next years.
July 10, 2023
Oscillating between 3 and 4 stars, there were some things that annoyed me (rushed ending, the arisai being either too strong or easily defeated, secondary characters, rushed and somewhat not really dome ending), need a little time to mull over this..
July 7, 2015
OVERALL RATING = 4.5 (edited my star rating to reflect that.)
Full review over at Fantasy Book Critic
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: I’ve been waiting to read this book since I first finished Blood Song in 2012. There was a line in the book about a Queen Of Fire and of the Darkblade that was to serve her. When I learnt that the trilogy ending volume would be titled the same, I was extremely excited. As an Anthony Ryan fan, we have been waiting to what happens to Vaelin Al Sorna and the other characters from the unified realm and other areas. Be warned that since this is the concluding volume, my review will have spoilers for the preceding volumes as I will have to talk of certain events and characters.
When Tower Lord ended, we were shown that Queen Lyrna was attacked and “saved” by a special person. The Unified Realm is in a precarious situation as the Volarian invaders have ravaged it. However things aren’t lost as Tower Lord Vaelin Al Sorna managed to rescue the Cumbraelians and also saw the rise of Reva Mustor. She turned out to be as deadly a warrior as Vaelin. Lastly there’s Frentis who has been under the mental command of a Volarian assassin called Elverah and has been carrying out a savage murder spree. However her hold was weakened enough for him to regain his person and make his escape. Things however are dire as the unified realm is in shambles and no one knows what will happen next.
At the start of Queen Of Fire, we learn that Weaver has healed Queen Lyrna of her mental and physical scars. Vaelin has lost his song and finds himself much more human for the first time in his life. Reva is feted as a great warrior and championed by her people. Lyrna conscripts her in her campaign to attack Volaria. Frentis journeys back to join his brothers and what’s left of the order to help those afflicted by his actions. He however is very wary of the moment when he will have to explain his actions. Lastly there’s a new POV character in Alucius Al-Hestian who is forced to side with the traitorous Renfaelin lord Darnel. His father is also siding as his only son’s life hangs in the balance. That’s where all the plot threads in this concluding volume begin. What ends up happening is an insane action-packed volume wherein many secrets are revealed and many characters face deaths.
What do I say about this concluding volume, this is an action packed storyline very similar to Tower Lord. There’s a marked change in all of character who survived the events showcased in Tower Lord. Lyrna is far from the tempered character we met at the start of the second volume. Freshly healed, she’s back to her cold, calculating self that we first met in Blood Song and that’s a major plus point. Lyrna in many ways was the perfect foil to Vaelin, her brilliant acumen to his unsurpassed martial skills. Her faith in intelligence to that of his in people. In this volume, we finally get to see how dangerous she truly can be. Vaelin is Vaelin and with the loss of his Blood Song, he seems more conflicted with his choices and actions. Nevertheless he does whatever it takes to be the hero he’s meant to be. His journey is truly the best one in this as it’s via his chapters we get to know all the deep, dark secrets of the world.
Reva has another life-changing arc play out in this book. She’s thought of as a feared warrior equal only to Vaelin however with this book she faces the brunt of the expectations and faith that has been heaped upon her. Her skills get further refined with certain plot twists that happen in the second half of the story. For those who thought Reva had it rough, will be shocked to see what new tests she has to overcome. Then there’s Frentis and we finally get to see him unravel after the events of Tower Lord. Never one to shirk his duty, he does his best to aid his fellow warriors in the fight against the Volarians. However within his chapters we get to see his tenuous connection with the Volarian Empress and it’s via these sections that she is fleshed out to be more than just a caricature-ish villain.
Alucius was a surprise POV character and his arc plays out crucially not only for him but for his beloved. Lastly the surprise package in all of this is Verniers Alishe Someren. Again we only get his account in 5 mini-chapters at the start of each section but I believe his are the juiciest. Infact he even ends up getting one of his fervent wishes granted (for discerning readers, look up Blood Song, especially his conversations with Vaelin.) There’s also various other characters who make quick appearances and have to face various tribulations that see them either dead or refined. The character cast is at its widest in this volume and it will be good for readers to frequently check up the appendix to see who's who.
What are the best points of the story, firstly the author goes all out and lays out all the revelations that are related to the Ally and his machinations. And by everything I mean EVERY THING. We learn where exactly he came from, what did he do to gain his powers and what lead to the Volarians being the blood thirsty lot that they are shown to be. With this volume, Anthony Ryan leaves nothing behind with regards to the magic system, the hinted secrets of the world’s past and plot revelations such as who is Caenis truly and what does he know.
The truth about Caenis is something that had bugged a lot of readers (including me) in Tower Lord as he barely made an appearance and then disappeared from the storyline. In this book, I was expecting him to be a POV character and while that didn’t turn out to be the case. We do get to see his return and learn what he's kept secret for so long. There’s also another character that makes a return from Blood Song however it’s not the person you might think. Another plus point about this volume is the insane amount of action packed into the pages. Across each POV chapter we get to see either huge battles, or intrigue being played out. I was truly surprised that this book wasn’t broken in to two and kudos to the author for managing to combine everything but the kitchen sink into this story.
Now going to the points that didn’t quite make this an all-star read, firstly those readers unhappy with Tower Lord because of the loss of the tight focus found within Blood Song, will be unhappy similarly with this one. Secondly with the first book, there was a lot understated humor to the passages. There was a noticeable decline to that in the second book and it’s even less so in this one. Of course there’s a slightly logical reason, which is that all the characters are facing life-changing decisions and that doesn’t really come across through humor. I still wish that the author could have tried to bring some dark humor in the passages.
Another sticky point for me was the one that I mentioned earlier of Caenis not getting a POV. But the bigger issue is that his role in the book is wildly shorter than what I imagined it would be. Also Sherin surprisingly doesn’t have a role to play and that omission was out of the left field. Lastly the beginning of the book has a rather sedate pace and it’s only after the first hundred or so pages that the story truly gets going. This might hamper the read for many readers who are expecting for it to be fast-paced from the start like Blood Song.
There’s also an extra-ordinary amount of recall needed, as there are many minor characters and events that make an appearance and are referenced from the preceding volumes. I would sincerely recommend that readers at least read Tower Lord before beginning this volume so as to not get lost. I must reiterate how much story Anthony Ryan has crammed within these pages, I sincerely felt that this story could have been split into two and further fleshed out. Some reader might have grumbled but then many (like me) would have enjoyed the deep focus. However even with a single volume, the author brings to a spectacular conclusion the story that he began with his self-published bestseller Blood Song.
CONCLUSION: Queen Of Fire is an epic ending to one of the best debut epic fantasy trilogies that I’ve ever read. I was lucky that my quote graces the US cover and it’s a statement that I still heartily stand by: “Anthony Ryan is David Gemmell’s natural successor and epic fantasy’s best British talent”. Anthony Ryan ends his trilogy with a bang that doesn’t match his beginnings but is still a solid one that will resonate with all his fans.
July 22, 2015
This review DOES contain spoilers for previous books in the series! You have been WARNED!
Queen of Fire is the ending to the trilogy Raven's Shadow, a fantasy series that I felt wasn't groundbreaking but I enjoyed nonetheless. Queen Lyrna is bringing the fight to Volarian soil in order to end the war once and for all. The book is not focused on Vaelin as the first book, but instead follows the same format as book two, jumping between main characters. With book two I found some characters that I truly enjoyed and others that I disliked, but overall it was a great book.
Unfortunately I felt like this book took too long in order to get started, which is why it lost a few stars. For the first 30% none of the POV characters were grabbing my attention and I kept putting the book down. Fortunately it started to pick up with Vaelin, who remained my favorite POV through to the end.
There was one POV that I really disliked.
In the end of the last book Weaver healed Queen Lyrna of her scars, which I actually was quite disappointed in. I felt she made a far more interesting character with her scars, and I felt that after she was healed she fell flat. The scars gave her reason to change from the manipulative woman she was before into a true leader and I enjoyed watching her grow as a character. Once healed, she fell flat, and I couldn't understand why it was done. Does a Queen have to be beautiful and flawless? Can a Queen not be scarred? I couldn't stand her in the first book, and the same was true in this one. She was my least favorite POV.
However, other than this the story was solid, with some great characters that you love, and others you love to hate. This series is a great debut and I'm interested to see what else this author pens.
Queen of Fire is the ending to the trilogy Raven's Shadow, a fantasy series that I felt wasn't groundbreaking but I enjoyed nonetheless. Queen Lyrna is bringing the fight to Volarian soil in order to end the war once and for all. The book is not focused on Vaelin as the first book, but instead follows the same format as book two, jumping between main characters. With book two I found some characters that I truly enjoyed and others that I disliked, but overall it was a great book.
Unfortunately I felt like this book took too long in order to get started, which is why it lost a few stars. For the first 30% none of the POV characters were grabbing my attention and I kept putting the book down. Fortunately it started to pick up with Vaelin, who remained my favorite POV through to the end.
There was one POV that I really disliked.
In the end of the last book Weaver healed Queen Lyrna of her scars, which I actually was quite disappointed in. I felt she made a far more interesting character with her scars, and I felt that after she was healed she fell flat. The scars gave her reason to change from the manipulative woman she was before into a true leader and I enjoyed watching her grow as a character. Once healed, she fell flat, and I couldn't understand why it was done. Does a Queen have to be beautiful and flawless? Can a Queen not be scarred? I couldn't stand her in the first book, and the same was true in this one. She was my least favorite POV.
However, other than this the story was solid, with some great characters that you love, and others you love to hate. This series is a great debut and I'm interested to see what else this author pens.
July 29, 2015
I wish I'd waited for this book to be nearly out before starting the series. I suspect I may have enjoyed it more if I listened to the series back to back.
I was going to reread the first two books first - and then realised, I would have loved book one all over again - but I couldn't bring myself to read book 2 again. I enjoyed book 2 first time around but I doubt I would have enjoyed it twice round.
So I started this having lost connection with the main story and never quite reconnecting emotionally with the plot. There seemed to be a whole set of new characters as well and I found myself not knowing if these were really new characters or if I had just forgotten who they were. I didn't care either way.
The book does have it's highlights. Frentis tearing his way across Volar...and then there was...no...how about...and then there was Frentis tearing his way across Volar.
I did like the ending and not just because I was wishing for vast tracts of the book that it would just end. Steven Brand's audio narration left me falling asleep. I went back to my reviews of the other two books to check my comments and ended up wondering what person wrote those reviews. This time around I just found him bland. Same tone of voice for most characters. I suppose it works better if there's only a single POV like in book one.
Having read the series now my recommendation would be read book one. In fact I highly recommend you read book one. It's on my favourite's shelf. And then stop. Forget the rest. You don't need to keep going.
I'm giving this one
2.5 stars - upgraded to 3 stars because I did finish the book and a lot of people will probably like it better than I did.
My review of Book one
I was going to reread the first two books first - and then realised, I would have loved book one all over again - but I couldn't bring myself to read book 2 again. I enjoyed book 2 first time around but I doubt I would have enjoyed it twice round.
So I started this having lost connection with the main story and never quite reconnecting emotionally with the plot. There seemed to be a whole set of new characters as well and I found myself not knowing if these were really new characters or if I had just forgotten who they were. I didn't care either way.
The book does have it's highlights. Frentis tearing his way across Volar...and then there was...no...how about...and then there was Frentis tearing his way across Volar.
I did like the ending and not just because I was wishing for vast tracts of the book that it would just end. Steven Brand's audio narration left me falling asleep. I went back to my reviews of the other two books to check my comments and ended up wondering what person wrote those reviews. This time around I just found him bland. Same tone of voice for most characters. I suppose it works better if there's only a single POV like in book one.
Having read the series now my recommendation would be read book one. In fact I highly recommend you read book one. It's on my favourite's shelf. And then stop. Forget the rest. You don't need to keep going.
I'm giving this one
2.5 stars - upgraded to 3 stars because I did finish the book and a lot of people will probably like it better than I did.
My review of Book one
Want to read
January 28, 2015Who do I have to kill to get this one?????
August 3, 2018
*** 3.5 ***
May 20, 2022
An excellent conclusion to what ,for me, has been a fantastic trilogy. I know some readers didn't like the fact that the focus was away from Vaelin in this book but I have to say that I liked the attention was on some of the other characters, especially Frentis. Great world building, fantastic characters and big set piece action sequences ,this was epic fantasy at its best.
August 2, 2020
***I reviewed this book some time ago. I simply found a typo and corrected it.***
What can I say here? The rating speaks for itself.
I don't know what happened here. The first book in this series is probably one of the best fantasy works I've ever read. Well crafted and even enthralling. I had trouble putting it down, I sat up late reading. I've read it more than once. The second book was simply good. I still rated it 5 stars though it wasn't as good as the first.
Now we have the third. For some reason Mr. Ryan seems to have simply let the story run on in different directions with little control of what's actually there. the view points bounce around from one to another with the story losing all direction at times, plot strings flailing out in all directions with very little relation (at times) to the original plot line(s). Where I had trouble putting the first book down this one I had to make myself go back to...and even finish. On multiple occasions I simply wanted to put it down and move on to something else.
Vaelin our "erstwhile" protagonist vacillates in character from what he has been established to be but then never settles down to an actually "new" character. I use the word erstwhile as he is now "mostly" just one of several points of view. The Enemy (or The Ally depending on where you are in the story) was in the end of the first novel the center of Vaelin's quest (so to speak). That focus has gone by the wayside. We do finally get back to it but oh the side roads, diatribes, wandering conversations, speeches, info dumps etc.
I am sorry. I don't like to give reviews this negative, especially on books by writers I know can be excellent story tellers. Thus my statement "I don't know what happened". I tend to wonder if maybe the story lines were all just so important to Mr. Ryan that he couldn't let anything be left out. Maybe he just wanted the story to go to a certain place and found he had to bend things and drag them out to get there. I have no idea how the book was edited. Could it have been saved (or if you don't "feel" it needs saving, "made better") by a more thorough editor? Again I don't know.
I know this is a subjective review and reflects my own reaction to and view of the book. If you disagree and like or even love the book I'm happy for you. I can not recommend it.
I'm sure one reason I am so disappointed in this novel is that I loved the first. That book Blood Song is still one of the best beginnings of an epic fantasy I've ever read. Happily this book does not ruin that one. It does however (in my humble opinion) fail to fulfill the promise made there.
With a heavy heart I can not recommend this novel.
What can I say here? The rating speaks for itself.
I don't know what happened here. The first book in this series is probably one of the best fantasy works I've ever read. Well crafted and even enthralling. I had trouble putting it down, I sat up late reading. I've read it more than once. The second book was simply good. I still rated it 5 stars though it wasn't as good as the first.
Now we have the third. For some reason Mr. Ryan seems to have simply let the story run on in different directions with little control of what's actually there. the view points bounce around from one to another with the story losing all direction at times, plot strings flailing out in all directions with very little relation (at times) to the original plot line(s). Where I had trouble putting the first book down this one I had to make myself go back to...and even finish. On multiple occasions I simply wanted to put it down and move on to something else.
Vaelin our "erstwhile" protagonist vacillates in character from what he has been established to be but then never settles down to an actually "new" character. I use the word erstwhile as he is now "mostly" just one of several points of view. The Enemy (or The Ally depending on where you are in the story) was in the end of the first novel the center of Vaelin's quest (so to speak). That focus has gone by the wayside. We do finally get back to it but oh the side roads, diatribes, wandering conversations, speeches, info dumps etc.
I am sorry. I don't like to give reviews this negative, especially on books by writers I know can be excellent story tellers. Thus my statement "I don't know what happened". I tend to wonder if maybe the story lines were all just so important to Mr. Ryan that he couldn't let anything be left out. Maybe he just wanted the story to go to a certain place and found he had to bend things and drag them out to get there. I have no idea how the book was edited. Could it have been saved (or if you don't "feel" it needs saving, "made better") by a more thorough editor? Again I don't know.
I know this is a subjective review and reflects my own reaction to and view of the book. If you disagree and like or even love the book I'm happy for you. I can not recommend it.
I'm sure one reason I am so disappointed in this novel is that I loved the first. That book Blood Song is still one of the best beginnings of an epic fantasy I've ever read. Happily this book does not ruin that one. It does however (in my humble opinion) fail to fulfill the promise made there.
With a heavy heart I can not recommend this novel.
May 7, 2023
Looks like I'm in a minority here, but I loved this last volume too. The characters, their quest , their struggles on the way, the numerous tribes and their customs, the magic, their values and determination - loved them all.
Yes, it's bloody, filled with gore and torture (and I usually resent that, main reason for which I'm not fond of grimdark, but perhaps it's all about the story, the characters, and the writing, not the actions in it), however, all these made me want Ally and his puppets I literally needed that.
My only complaint, but this isn't enough to lower the rating, was with the Volarian names, which to me sounded all alike, and Ally - he could have had a better name for being the ultimate villain.
Yes, it's bloody, filled with gore and torture (and I usually resent that, main reason for which I'm not fond of grimdark, but perhaps it's all about the story, the characters, and the writing, not the actions in it), however, all these made me want Ally and his puppets I literally needed that.
My only complaint, but this isn't enough to lower the rating, was with the Volarian names, which to me sounded all alike, and Ally - he could have had a better name for being the ultimate villain.
August 16, 2015
3 stars
It wasn't as bad as I expected from low ratings and reviews. That said it is still the weakest book in the trilogy imho. It keeps the same structure as Tower Lord with multiple Povs and suffers similar issues.
Vaelin's story takes a backstage again and readers who hoped to see more of him are likely to be disappointed. My main issue was emotional disconnection. Our main character finds love but it's presented in such an off-handed manner I found it hard to care or be happy for him. It happens without any preamble not once even mentioned he felt any attraction to the woman. How the reader supposed to emotionally connect with the character when we don't even know how he feels?
I was also somewhat disappointed with how Lyrna was presented in this book. Tower Lord made me understand and care for her character - even like her, whilst here she seems again colder and more distant, some of her decision not entirely justified and some thoughts uncharacteristically bloodthirsty.
Frentis storyline is the most interesting and offers the most action and excitement with Reva being in the second place. I believe these two were the driving characters in QoF.
Book takes time to pick up the pace, there are some rather slow chapters in the beginning: Reva gathering troops, Vaelin travelling, Lyrna preparing army for war. I felt between 40% and 80% was the most enjoyable part of the book that offered good balance of action and intrigue.
Last 20% was a bit too gruesome and bloody for me. I like grim-darks but they tend to have more humour mixed in to balance out the darkness.
Ally's story and end of war got rounded up well, Gifted explained and Weaver's story developed nicely. But not one of the mc found happiness, and they all I was hoping for a happier ending at least for a few of them. Not something I would expect from epic fantasy - ending felt unnecessary grim.
In spite of some drawbacks it was an interesting enough read. I think if you enjoyed Tower Lord and want a closure - you are likely to appreciate it. Trilogy doesn't finish with the Bang I was hoping for, nevertheless QoF gives story an ending.
It wasn't as bad as I expected from low ratings and reviews. That said it is still the weakest book in the trilogy imho. It keeps the same structure as Tower Lord with multiple Povs and suffers similar issues.
Vaelin's story takes a backstage again and readers who hoped to see more of him are likely to be disappointed. My main issue was emotional disconnection. Our main character finds love but it's presented in such an off-handed manner I found it hard to care or be happy for him. It happens without any preamble not once even mentioned he felt any attraction to the woman. How the reader supposed to emotionally connect with the character when we don't even know how he feels?
I was also somewhat disappointed with how Lyrna was presented in this book. Tower Lord made me understand and care for her character - even like her, whilst here she seems again colder and more distant, some of her decision not entirely justified and some thoughts uncharacteristically bloodthirsty.
Frentis storyline is the most interesting and offers the most action and excitement with Reva being in the second place. I believe these two were the driving characters in QoF.
Book takes time to pick up the pace, there are some rather slow chapters in the beginning: Reva gathering troops, Vaelin travelling, Lyrna preparing army for war. I felt between 40% and 80% was the most enjoyable part of the book that offered good balance of action and intrigue.
Last 20% was a bit too gruesome and bloody for me. I like grim-darks but they tend to have more humour mixed in to balance out the darkness.
Ally's story and end of war got rounded up well, Gifted explained and Weaver's story developed nicely. But not one of the mc found happiness, and they all I was hoping for a happier ending at least for a few of them. Not something I would expect from epic fantasy - ending felt unnecessary grim.
In spite of some drawbacks it was an interesting enough read. I think if you enjoyed Tower Lord and want a closure - you are likely to appreciate it. Trilogy doesn't finish with the Bang I was hoping for, nevertheless QoF gives story an ending.
Currently reading
July 31, 2015Buddy read with Desinka , Gavin , Dan 2.0 and Chant
July 28, 2015
Pre-read thoughts
I already know a lot about this book. That's the curse(or the blessing?) of starting a highly anticipated book not on its release date but 3 weeks later .... . I have stumbled upon friend's reviews/updates(some good, some disappointing) and that's probably better because I have adjusted my high expectations to ....well ....I'm not sure. I still hope to love this book.
Despite the fact that I know something about someone which saddened me a lot(trying to stay spoiler free here, duh!) and I'm not talking about precious people dying because I know there is a lot of this in the book too. No, I'm talking about something else. Anyhow....
Let's get this party? started! :)
August 3, 2017
I did see a few disappointed comments surfacing on Goodreads throughout my reading of this book but I tried to keep an open mind. But alas, this was indeed a disappointment to the Raven's Shadow series.
Anti-climactic doesn't even begin to describe how I felt at the end of the trilogy. It was literally a drag trying to finish this - almost every POV felt boring or too drawn out. Oddly enough, my favourite POV was Vernier's! Vaelin was a shadow of the character we've met in Blood Song and that was a real shame! While I liked Lyrna in Tower Lord, I couldn't stand her in Queen of Fire.
If you have read the first 2 books, chances are you will have to read this especially with the cliffhanger in Tower Lord. Some might still enjoy this final instalment, but sadly I am not one of them.
Anti-climactic doesn't even begin to describe how I felt at the end of the trilogy. It was literally a drag trying to finish this - almost every POV felt boring or too drawn out. Oddly enough, my favourite POV was Vernier's! Vaelin was a shadow of the character we've met in Blood Song and that was a real shame! While I liked Lyrna in Tower Lord, I couldn't stand her in Queen of Fire.
If you have read the first 2 books, chances are you will have to read this especially with the cliffhanger in Tower Lord. Some might still enjoy this final instalment, but sadly I am not one of them.
May 15, 2017
2.5 Stars - Spoilers below
Short review:
Meh
Longer review:
I love Blood Song. I also love Tower Lord. But I don’t love Queen of Fire.
Not really sure what went wrong here. I was pretty happy with the book about halfway through, but found it harder and harder to carry on. There were some good things about it: Frentis and his crazy girlfriend. Reva. Lionen backstory. There were some bad things about it: Vaelin without his song. Vaelin never getting back his song. Pointless deaths. The mystery of Sherin. The evil Queen of Fire. Lack of Davoka. Not much tension. Anti-climatic. Over abundance of new characters in a final book.
Super long review:
*Sighs and stares off into distance for 20 minutes.
Overall still a very good series, but ending with more of a whimper than a bang.
Short review:
Meh
Longer review:
I love Blood Song. I also love Tower Lord. But I don’t love Queen of Fire.
Not really sure what went wrong here. I was pretty happy with the book about halfway through, but found it harder and harder to carry on. There were some good things about it: Frentis and his crazy girlfriend. Reva. Lionen backstory. There were some bad things about it: Vaelin without his song. Vaelin never getting back his song. Pointless deaths. The mystery of Sherin. The evil Queen of Fire. Lack of Davoka. Not much tension. Anti-climatic. Over abundance of new characters in a final book.
Super long review:
*Sighs and stares off into distance for 20 minutes.
Overall still a very good series, but ending with more of a whimper than a bang.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 18, 2015
3 stars?
3.5 stars...
3 stars?
I'm still not sure about the rating of this book...
Let me explain:
It is a good book.
It's a consistent book!
It's the book I think should have been written...
It's just not the book I wanted.
Around 25% I found myself being annoyed with the amount of characters being introduced or characters I had to remember (please note that I re-read Tower Lord the week before reading this, so I SHOULD have remembered)
Around 50% I found myself skipping some of the battle parts.
Around... 75%? I found myself disappointed with the rush of the revelations about the Ally.
And overall I felt annoyed about the romance part of the book, which was no shock since that was the low point of book one...
Overall I did like it and I think is a great trilogy!
3.5 stars...
3 stars?
I'm still not sure about the rating of this book...
Let me explain:
It is a good book.
It's a consistent book!
It's the book I think should have been written...
It's just not the book I wanted.
Around 25% I found myself being annoyed with the amount of characters being introduced or characters I had to remember (please note that I re-read Tower Lord the week before reading this, so I SHOULD have remembered)
Around 50% I found myself skipping some of the battle parts.
Around... 75%? I found myself disappointed with the rush of the revelations about the Ally.
And overall I felt annoyed about the romance part of the book, which was no shock since that was the low point of book one...
Overall I did like it and I think is a great trilogy!
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