Female Fantasy (Books)

This was a decent book that I was tempted to read further. It felt like there was some significant history/ backstory, but if I understand correctly that backstory might just be referencing earlier novels. I liked the transition of Marla, the main character from a bit of a naive, air-head to a ruthless ruler. On the other hand, there's something about it that didn't sit right with me. Fallon is going for a 'dark/ grim' story line in the same sort of vein as GRRM. But sometimes it felt over-cruel without feeling gritty.

Elezear the Dwarf's Rules of Gaining and Wielding Power- while I'm sure he's just making them up just so he can survive another day- it just sounds silly. Like those get rich, self-help books that those multi-millionaires always try and sell you.

The political intrigue was interesting, but I was disappointed the young mage guy got derailed by some Greek-type trickster god and wound up a thief.

While I had some problems with it, the best I can best I can say is that I was tempted to read more. But she's not breaking my top 10 any time soon.

I'm glad I didn't read more of Fallon, because I wouldn't have across Hobb as fast. And I understand from Goodreads, Dragon Keeper isn't her best work.

Hobb presented a new world that I was fascinated with from the outset. I guess this is deep into her long running series, but I could jump in to this book easily. I loved how thought out the dragon life-cycle from serpent to dragon was. And the grim feeling the line of dragons is failing. The contemporary dragons end up being so gimpy, but I genuinely felt for these dragons that knew they were not all that they should be.

I liked how Hobb had thought out what impact a giant brood of dragons would have on the local environment and economy when the dragons that are supposed to be able to fly away, just stick around, wasting away.

I was a little meh with Thymara, the 11 year wild child with claws and the merchant captain Leftrin. But I quite liked Alise, a woman trapped in a loveless marriage of convenience, who is perhaps the most competent scholar on dragons, but is hindered by societal expectations. I was so relieved on her behalf when she could finally DO some of the things she wanted.

Every chapter starts with these little messages that are sent by pigeons between two of the major cities. At first I thought it was a rather neat way to provide big picture information outside of the restricted points of views. (Especially because I had just read Bernhard Cornwall's The Fort that began each chapter with actual, historical quotations from his sources. Very good book, btw.)

But then it got HILARIOUS because each note had an official message and then the pigeon keepers were having their own private converstion back and forth. But then two-thirds one of the messages goes to the wrong city and a third keeper chimes in with 'Hai guis, you're not supposed to use official communication for your own private use' and then the other two messengers get super pissy with the third keeper. Fun times.

The 'ending' is rather abrupt, but I guess it is a trilogy. I would definitely read more of Robin Hobb.

This was super confusing to figure out which was the first book in the series. I finally figured out that the original series had been renamed and then reissued in the States, but there was little to indicate that. In the meantime, I had bought one from a second hand bookstore (big mistake) and signed out another. (I thought I could risk it because I was having such good success so far. It couldn't be THAT bad if I ended up not liking it...)

The beginning was intriguing enough with some creepy times in the snowy storm with a really gross birthing of some demon child and then other ice ghost type things.

...And then. This book. First the names.
Axis the BattleAxe of the Battle-Axes. That sounds really silly. The Minas Tirith equivalent is called Gorkenfort. How does that not sound gorky? That might not seem a big deal, but bad names bother me. Then you get StarDrifter and StarMan. Dunno. Just doesn't seem right. But then you get Priam along side Timozel and Jayme and Gilbert. The names are just all over the place from Greek to modern to fantastic.

I don't mind books with prophecy. But this one is touching on all the tropes and was not very enjoyable. One prophecy requires the principal female character to get married off to some jerk simply so two brothers don't go to war and off she goes with little protest. You might think she's going for the 'life sucks and everyone dies' and grey morality thing, but the characters are pretty clearly divided into white hats and black hats in my opinion. And not a very interesting female character.

The other thing that really through me for a loop is the PoV switches. It didn't bother me for awhile and maybe she was going for third person Omnisicient, which was novel as I'm not sure I've read Omniscient before. But I don't think it was well-executed if it was intentional. I found it very disconcerting leaping from one character to the next between paragraphs without (it seemed to be me) much rhyme or reason. I think the book would have been far stronger had Douglas limited her view points and really thought about how to get across the same information without whiplashing the reader from character to character.

The cover had always intrigued me when browsing the libraries, but I'm afraid it is a waste of good cover.

I did not enjoy the story; it was a chore to complete. I regret buying this book and sent the library book back unread.

This was a light read- more in the vein of Narnia. I enjoyed it, but we ended in a very different place then we started. MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD

I guess the introduction should've tipped me off. I almost thought I was reading the wrong book, because it was describing a very sci-fi backstory. We start with a dying breed of dragons/ dragon riders in medieval type castles and end with time travelling dragons and flamethrowers. I was along for the ride because it was well told and McCaffery was careful to set up her twists that they certainly didn't come from nowhere.

I don't particularly care for time travelling books, but it was well told. I just wish I knew where that spunky Lessa had disappeared by the end of the book. The beginning was very interesting as we basically had the true heir to the throne undermining her conquerors like Chinese water torture, small drips at a time. But once Lessa get's recruited by the dragon riders... that version of the girl just vanishes. Honestly, I could have read an entire book of Lessa undermining the palace from the inside to finally overthrowing her enemies at the end. This is actually a common issue I've noticed- by the third act, the previously spunky female runs out of things to do. (See the film Dragonslayer for example- though it is an otherwise interesting film.)

As an aside, all the apostrophe'd names bothered me. Maybe just because, but I don't really like apostrophe in the names. Maybe because I've read too many Grand and Not So Grand lists of Fantasy cliches.

I'm not sure I would I would read anymore just due to time travel, but I don't regret reading it.

I was looking for a different book and just grabbed this one at random from the library. Gah. This was terrible. I got 50 pages in and abandoned it. How she is a "National Bestseller Author" is beyond me.

Again. Names. How does a world have Prince of Tajrana and Queen of Nharkhava along side a 'distant cousin Aaron?'


"Some call me... Tim?"

And I guess "Saeton Daemon SaDiablo" is supposed to be bad? (Actually possibly not given the story.) But more than the highly fantastical names along side mundane modern names, all the Random capitals was really too Much. Whether it was Black Jewels or Craft of Coach or Blood, it seemed every other sentence had a random Noun capitalized. Possibly because they are Important, but I found it annoying similar to the random bolded words in Archie-type comics.

But far worse than that is the amount of vocab of concepts that require background knowledge that I had little idea what was going on. This is deep in the series, though I don't think the series is very deep. But unlike Robb or even Fallon I was not eased into this world in away that allowed understanding of what all these words mean. The author, I guess, just assumed I would know? I started understanding what it all meant by the end, but it was poorly done.

But by far the worst of it was the lack of description. Bishop would give mention to a Hall I guess basically in demon land, but no mood was given. Given the names, I thought maybe comic. Given the people's 'race', maybe creepy. Perhaps the Hall was some sort of Civil War era creepy mansion? But I had nothing to go one. No description of the Gateways, nothing. All I could think of is how much more atmosphere I could give this book and how poorly the story was executed. The characters basically exist in blanks space and that is hardly interesting to me.

Then things got squicky/rapey and then I stopped.

I do not recommend and I would never try her again.