James Mallory (1) (1945–)

There is nothing I love more than a long, winding fantasy tale that gives the characters room to develop. This is the first series I have read my Mercedes Lackey and has thoroughly convinced me to read everything she has ever written. If you are accustomed to reading short books or lack patience, this series is not for you. But if you love a good trilogy wit books similar in length to the works of Robert Jordan or Terry Goodkind, you will not regret picking them up. Magics, races and ideas found throughout a lot of fantasy books are reinterpreted in a way that does not seem tropey and the characters are endearing and entertaining.… (mehr)

A nice and simple epic fantasy story. It felt a bit like a simplified and sedate LotR, with many different types of creatures, a few people staying behind, others travelling to an evil place, elves, etc. Typical Mercedes Lackey with the pace and the coming-of-age, young-person-learns-about-own-powers theme. What I'm not used to from her is that the writing was at times decidedly clumsy. I've seen several instances of repetition of words within a sentence, or even repetition of whole sentences. It was not so often that it ruined the book, but it was really noticeable. Overall, it was nice, but it could have done with a few less pages. I'm all for describing every day life in a fantasy world, but I think she took it a bit too far this time.… (mehr)

This book could have conceivably been a series of short stories tied together by the fact they're stories of Clarice. There's several different "arcs" throughout the book that have a beginning, middle and end making this feel more serialized at times in fact. There's Clarice's decision to leave home and seek adventure as far she could travel (culminating with her finding passage on the Asesino), the precursor to the mutiny, after the mutiny and lastly outwitting a demon spawn witch.

In all fairness time is so weirdly mentioned or figured that while the above sounds like quite a bit, I couldn't tell you exactly how long it was (except that it wasn't a full year as the book began on Clarice's birthday and we didn't pass her next one).

Clarice is a likeable, if rather a Mary Sue, main character. She's pragmatic almost to her detriment and has a thirst for knowledge that is kept sharp by her perceptiveness. For all that she is still a tad young (18) and comes off as naively lucky. She mentions at one point she was happy that she thought to disguise herself as a boy, since no one gives her and her sword two looks that way so she's had a relatively safe journey from home. That strained my credulity a little bit to be honest. Even a young boy (Clarice guessed she looked about 15 or 16) traveling alone, with relatively high quality though not flashy apparel and sword would attract attention.

Aboard the ship as Clarence, our dear princess splits her idle time between fraternizing with Dominick (the ship's required but mostly ignored navigator, who's only a couple years older then her, charming, tragic backstory and vow of resilience (Beyonce was his spirit animal singing "I will survive" constantly) or hanging out with the crabby, but tender-hearted ship's doctor. She spends a good deal of her time avoiding the Captain, his first mate and the preacher on board as well however.

World building is...sketchy at best I'd say. Its sort of, kind of set in an alternate history Earth somewhere in the late 1700's/early 1800's. Common enough fantasy adventuring details are included and the only really interesting things to me were Clarice's oddly liberal and forward thinking ancestors/family and the Pirate island hangout place. The Pirate island fared better in the detailing, though even that is stifled in lieu of Plot Convenient Evil Other Woman appearing.

Overall there's nothing particularly wrong with the book, but it won't stand out to long time fantasy fans. If you're looking for an interesting pirate fantasy book I'd point you at CHILD OF A HIDDEN SEA by A.M. Dellamonica and better sketched out world building Lackey books exist in the "Elemental Masters" series she writes solo.… (mehr)

Wanted to give a review from someone who read this without reading Book 1. As an aspiring author I am curious on how others balance re-introducing characters in a second book without a new reader feeling lost while at the same time not over-regurgitating the contents of book one. I feel here it was done remarkably well. It did take me awhile to realize one of the characters was a talking unicorn yet that added to the immersion into this fantasy world.

As for the plot I did feel some of the powers came too easily. e.g. when the elf immediately bonds with the dragon and immediately can cast powerful spells. Towards the end it became more of what out-of-nowhere spell would someone cast to stop the baddies instead of true character development. All in all though it is acceptable fantasy, and I would probably read Books 1 and 3 if I run across them.… (mehr)