James D. Macdonald (1) (1954–)

The sequel to The Price of the Stars continues the pulpy thrills of a galaxy one stop removed from Star Wars. Decades after being broken and humiliated, the Mageworlds are planning a conquering comeback -- but they reckoned without the Rosselin-Metadi clan. Adept Owen discovers the reawakening remnants of Mage power; Medic Ari stumbles into mutiny and betrayal within the Space Force; Captain Beka goes undercover to find evidence of the Mages' new military power. Yet all that information may come to nothing if the three siblings -- obstructed by friends, foes, and fate -- are unable to alert the rest of the universe.… (mehr)

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot, & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: The Gathering Flame
Series: Mageworlds #4
Authors: Debra Doyle & James Macdonald
Rating: 1 of 5 Stars
Genre: SFF
Pages: 371
Words: 136K

Synopsis:

From the Publisher

The Mageworlds are plundering the civilized galaxy. One planet at a time. First, their scoutships appeared above the outplanets. Raiding parties followed, then whole armadas bent on loot and conquest. The Mages break the warfleets that oppose them. They take entire planets. Who can stop them?

Not Perada Rosselin, Domina of Entibor. She's the absolute ruler of a rich world and all its colonies, but Entibor's space fleet is too small to mount a defense. And Perada herself, just back from school on distant Galcen, is almost an outworlder in her own court.

Not Jod Metadi, the most famous - or notorious - of the privateers of Innish-Kyl. Jos can fight the Mages and he can best them one on one, but his preferred targets are cargo vessels, not the dangerous and unprofitable ships of war. Metadi stays clear of the Mageworlds' battle fleet - when he can.

Not Errec Ransome. He understands the Magelords better than anyone. But there are some things he'll never tell - and some things he's sworn to himself that he'll never do again.

Now, the Mages have attacked Entibor. That was their first mistake...

My Thoughts:

Overall, I enjoyed this prequel about the parents of the characters in the previous three books. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy it as much and in some ways I was very disappointed.

Perada's two sons aren't Joss Metadi's. They were conceived for political reasons. In fact, one of them is Eric Ransome's and Metadi just shrugs it off. I REAAAAALLLLY disliked both parts of that.

By the end of the book Entibor is a slag heap and the mages did it by using hundreds of mage circles on Entibor to move the tectonic plates and thus destroy the surface of the planet. It was pretty cool if you think about it.

Then there were the 2 women who I thought were just friends. So that line got crossed and put the authors on my to avoid list. Honestly, I'm almost glad that happened so I didn't have to muster up some fake enthusiasm to continue on with the rest of the series.

While this series started really strong for me, it has gone downhill with each successive book and with this one stepped right off the cliff face. Well, time to go find another series to try.

★☆☆☆☆… (mehr)

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot, & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: By Honor Betray'd
Series: Mageworlds #3
Authors: Debra Doyle & James Macdonald
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SFF
Pages: 359
Words: 123.5K

Synopsis:

From Isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?6211

The war is over. The Magelords have won.

Galcen has fallen. The Space Force is broken and scattered. The planets of the former Republic are rushing to make peace with the victorious Mages.

All that remains is mopping up. Minor details. A privateer or two, a few Adepts who remain alive and on the run, and the hereditary ruler of a lifeless planet.

Beka Rosselin-Metadi, the last Domina of Lost Entibor, possesses little more than a famous name and a famous ship. With them she must salvage what she can from the wreckage of the Republic. Her enemies are too many to count, her friends too few to make a difference. She can trust no one except herself, her crew - and the family she ran away from years before.

Beka has resources few suspect: a hidden base, a long-forgotten oath, and a dead man's legacy. But she has problems as well; for in a universe gone mad neither friends nor enemies are all that they may seem.

A play that began in treachery and blood five hundred years before has reached its final act. A broken galaxy will be sundered forever, or else made whole.

My Thoughts:

So, while there are 7 books in this series, these first 3 books comprise the whole of the Second Mage Wars. And it's not really much of a war either. Both sides have highly placed individuals secretly working towards peace with the other side.

This paragraph will contain spoilers. Not that I care about such things, but on the 1000 to 1 chance that somebody who follows me would ever read these, I wouldn't want to spoil it for them. Because the Grandmaster of the Adepts turns out to be the badguy who had Beka's mother killed. Only she wasn't really, but was placed in stasis by a Magelord and it was up to Beka to revive her and up to her Adept brother and Mage sister-in-law to bring her mind back.

It was a whirlwind of revelations and counter-twists and everything gets wrapped up in a bow. I'm usually not one to complain about that but this time it felt kind of deus ex machina than if it had organically happened. Now I'm wondering what the next 4 books will be about?

A good bit of my enthusiasm waned, dramatically, when it was revealed who the badguy all along had been. It was too cliched. Makes me wonder if the final Star Wars trilogy stole their Grumpy Dispeptic Luke idea from this.

There was still a lot of action. Beka almost gets killed on public tv, Ari gets married, Owen takes over the Adept Order and gets his own apprentice and the Mage Worlder General is revealed to be a peacemongerer. Shocking!

I enjoyed this overall but I won't be beating the drum the same way unless the next books are super fantastic. Good space opera but not excellent space opera.

★★★✬☆… (mehr)