Liane MercielRezensionen

In many ways I feel its unfair of me to review this book. The concept is interesting, and I certainly wanted to enjoy it since it promised all sorts of gray morality fun, but in the end it didn't deliver. It should say something that I felt the worst for Leferic, who's intentions were fine and meant for the good of his Kingdom's people, but who went way overboard in his methods. I mean he went from a simple assassination plot to a conspiracy that wiped out an entire village and then just kept growing worse by the minute. And I'm not sure 'dark ambitions' is entirely appropriate since he had the same ambitions any second son of a feudal lord would have--to be the feudal lord.

Also his brother, the heir apparent, sounded like a colossal idiot, so I can't really help but think Leferic had the right idea in assassinating him and taking his position. Whereas his brother may have been helpful as brute force and PR, he didn't think things through nor care what much happened to anyone unfortunate enough to fall in with his plans.

You had the righteously good (Sir Kelland), the mostly good (Brys), the unbelievably evil (the Maimed Witch), the misguided (Bitharn) and then...Odosse, the peasant girl who left her village at the right time and had the misfortune to then run into Brys on her way back. The two extremes were easy enough to keep track of--they stayed true to their alignment without fail, but everyone else was harder to keep track of. Plans changed so often my head swam. Bitharn, the misguided childhood friend of Sir Kelland who stayed beside him to protect him at all costs, can almost single-handedly be blamed for a lot of bad things. Odosse,who shows a lot of pluck and promise at first, had an annoying habit of questioning everything everyone said, claiming she'll do the opposite of what is the better choice and then changing her mind over something inconsequential.

Merciel seemed to have wanted to set this up as an epic in the making, but it doesn't hold up well. Motivations aren't fully explored, multiple characters could have been interchangeable and plot threads were useless and misleading.

loved it very good ending cliffhanger!

Killing time at Weisshaupt, a young elven mage uncovers a manuscript from the Fourth Blight that reveals the Faustian bargain made by the Grey Wardens and their fabled griffons.

I have a low bar for Dragon Age tie-ins generally, but even so, I think Last Flight is an excellent novel, full of bleakness and casual brutality ("Knight-Liutenant Diguier had died a few weeks earlier..."). I would happily read the author's other novels.

De los libros que he leído sobre Dragon Age, este sin duda es el más flojo de todos, lo que me produce mucha pena porque tiene pinta de que el tema de los grifos y su reaparición estará contado de algún modo en el cuarto juego; y a lo mejor vemos mencionada a Valya o incluso aparece.
No he conseguido conectar con los personajes, ni con las protagonistas, Valya e Isseya, y la historia podría haber dado mucho más de sí. Quizás ha sido demasiado narrativo para mi gusto.

For people who saw Evil Hogwarts under Voldemort's sway in "Deathly Hallows" and thought it was far too tame and cuddly. Merciel describes an intelligent and fundamentally decent young man's attempt to preserve some semblance of his soul as he journeys through a sadistic school for evil wizards. It's at its best in the first half, when Merciel revels in describing the Gothic horror of Nidal and its Dusk Hall. The second half, when her protagonist Isiem tries to forge his own path, is a more conventional adventure and so provides less opportunity for Merciel to show off her predilection for setting up environments of baroque evil.

After a mood-setting introductory novel, Merciel's follow-up look at the character of Isiem hews much more closely to the series' roots in a roleplaying game: her conflicted renegade wizard finds a party and goes on a quest.

In broad strokes, much of what happens here will be familiar to people who've read Merciel's original fantasy novel, "Heaven's Needle": a talented but morally diverse group of adventurers band together to fight a greater evil, trying to stay alive while maintaining their sanity as they face off against eldritch horrors. In the specifics, "Nightblade" differs a lot from Merciel's (superior) earlier work: the characters here are more mercenary, they're seeking treasure instead of trying to save the world, the (greater) evil is more stationary. More than any of her books, "Nightblade" feels like it could be an actual RPG adventure — which is ironic, since Merciel is a friend and I know from personal experience that many of her earlier books really were adapted from her RPG adventures. The sort of giant deathtrap dungeon Merciel throws her motley crew of characters through here is right in her wheelhouse, producing an enjoyable read for fantasy fans even if it lacks the evocative horror set-pieces of "Heaven's Needle" or "Nightglass."

This is the first Dragon Age novel I can confidently say I really enjoyed. I have nothing but respect for the work Gaider and Weekes have done on the games, but for whatever reason their skills just didn't translate to writing a good novel, in my opinion. I love that this was told from the perspective of Garahel's sister, instead of his own. I love that there was no forced romance between Isseya and her mentor in magic/comrade in battle. This is really a 3.5 star book for me because of some small continuity errors here and there and one glaring mention of the Champion of Kirkwall made by Isseya, who lived 400 years before the events of Dragon Age II. That mistake took me out of the story for a bit, but other than that it was a beautiful tragic tale of what really happened during the Fourth Blight.

The Last Flight is a DA story about unintended consequences. It's split into two parts that go back and forth as the book progresses. The first part takes place during the Mage/Templar rebellion and after the events of DA Origins. The Gray Wardens are recruiting and Valya, a young elvish mage, is sent to the Warden stronghold in the Anderfels where she is assigned to do research on the Fourth Blight. The alternating story is of the research she's doing when she finds a journal detailing events that took place during that time. The Fourth Blight was when the darkspawn invaded Antiva, Rivain, and the Free Marches, held back only by the Gray Wardens and their Griffons. While Griffons have long disappeared from this world, Valya is fascinated by the story she finds in Isseya's journal. Isseya is an elvish mage, Gray Warden, and griffon rider and also sister to Garahel, the only elf to defeat an Archdemon and put an end to a blight.
I found the Valya parts of the book a little weak, but the story of Isseya and Garahel which was fascinating and more than made up for any structural weakness in the other sections. I can only hope that griffons may once again appear in Thedas.

After reading all the Dragon Age books, I can definitely say I've saved the best for last. Both the characters and the exploration of actions, morality and suffering were on a whole different level here when compared to, say, Asunder, which was my first Dragon Age book and almost turned me off from reading them any further.

It was also fun to see some "real" Gray Wardens in the middle of their duty: as amazing as the Warden ends up being in Origins, there is still definitely the feeling of playing it by the ear as far as Gray Warden things go. Here, we get to see some more of their actual hierarchy and methods, for better or for worse.

Den femte romanen satt i Biowares Thedas, Dragon age: Last flight, är den första som inte skrivits av en författare som annars skriver för spelen, Liane Merciel. Det märks inte. Historien utspelar sig tämligen långt från allt man som spelare gör, uppe i Anderfel, där en liten grupp magiker söker skydd hos de grå väktarna. En av dem, Valya, hittar en journal som skrevs av Isseya, också hon alvisk magiker, syster till Garahel, den legendariske väktare som dödade ärkedemonen och satte punkt på den tio år långa hemsökelse som var det fjärde fördärvet.

Isseya var liksom de flesta väktare på hennes tid gripryttare. De nobla, kraftfulla djuren var en gång sinnebilden för väktarna, och när man betänker att väktarnas viktigaste uppgift är att försöka ha ihjäl en fördärvad Gammal gud i form av en drake så är det knappt man förstår vilken tur man hade i första spelet när detta lyckades utan denna flygförmåga. Efter fjärde fördärvet dog dock alla gripar ut; officiellt på grund av att för få fanns kvar efter striderna, men Isseyas journal avslöjar en bistrare sanning. De grå väktarna gör vad som måste göras, men ett sådant tänkesätt tycks också bjuda in till att man alltför snart vänder sig till alltför extrema metoder.

Det är inte någon oäven bok, och den sitter ordentligt fäst i världen (de inkonsekvenser som ibland finns i fråga om t.ex. vad som är känt om väktarorden är inte värre än annat man sett tidigare). Även om Gaharel i efterhand ses som en stor hjälte, en förebild och ett bevis på att även de förtryckta alverna kan stiga fram och frälsa världen, så visas här att den faktiska bilden kanske inte var riktigt så skinande, att hans blanka fasad delvis bars upp av andras offer och betydligt mindre heroiska val. Boken lägger sig väl inom den fåra som redan har plöjts.

Another fantastic look into the world of Thedas! This novel was written in two time periods, present and 400 years ago during the 4th Blight. A young mage looking to escape the mage-templar war goes to the Grey Wardens. She finds an ancient journal that turns out to have been written by Isseya, sister of the Grey Warden hero Garahel. It's a tale of both Grey Warden heroism, and their bond with Griffons. An absolutely excellent novel, and it leaves me sincerely hoping that the outcome of this book is included in the next game!

While this book had a few elements that I found a bit annoying, it was good! This game based fiction, based in the world of the Pathfinder (D&D 3.75) game using the game classes. The heroine is a Hellknight, a very lawful warrior that normally spends her days investigating crimes. She discovers a trio of hellspawn (humans with devil ancestors) with no hearts - but they are still alive! Eventually she joins forces with a paladin and a sorceror to track down the perpetrator and the forces behind the attacks. The action is good though unbalanced. In places it felt a bit derivative of Dragonlance, but not terribly so.½

I enjoyed this book, in large part because of two very interesting settings, and a memorable main character that underwent an internal journey as much as in external one.

Raised in the horrific dark land of Nidal, Isiem is a gifted spellcaster uncomfortable with the torture his life is built on. But will he be able to extricate himself from it, before it extricates his various organs?

There are two clear parts to this novel, but they never feel disjointed under Merciel's accomplished hand. She covers a lot of chronology in a way that feels efficient and aerodynamic.

The world of Nidal and the wild west Chelaxian outpost Isiems ends up in are both rendered well, but more impressive is how Merciel conveys Isiem's outsider status in both locations without descending to cliche.

He is an easy character to root for and it gives the book an emotional centre which is satisfying. In some ways, I was reminded of Hobb's Forest Mage trilogy with this novel, which shares many of the same ingredients, but thankfully skips the hundreds of pages of filler and teenage angst.

Inventive in the right ways, but also textbook where it counts - novel construction. I was impressed by this book and will definitely read more of Merciel's work.½

3.5 Stars

I claimed R. Scott Bakker's White-Luck Warrior was horror in the guise of epic fantasy, but the White-Luck Warrior would take one look at one page of Heaven's Needle and run away crying.

Which is why, despite it being marketed as high fantasy, Heaven's Needle is my review of choice for Hallow's Eve this year.

That's a warning, by the way, that the following review will contain disturbing imagery and if you aren't up for that, especially if you're currently eating tasty food, feel free to visit a different webpage).

The prologue includes a nice grisly bit about people exploding, proving this is going to be far more twisted than previous The River King's Road if nothing else. Of course, we should expect more twistedness, given the Sun Knight Sir Kelland has been kidnapped and imprisoned by the sadomasochistic Thorns, whose magic depends on their worship of the goddess Kliasta through disfigurement and torture. His friend and would-be lover, Bitharn, is on her way to rescue him. But doing so involves deceiving and betraying their own order of paladins serving the sun goddess Celestia. She frees Malentir, a Thornlord imprisoned by the Celestians, in order to have a prisoner exchange.

Meanwhile, Kelland is discovering moral complexities of his own in conversation with the leader of the Thorns, called the Spider. Here the Thorns rise above standard villain fare by revealing discipline and philosophy. For one thing, these vicious clerics are truthbound, which the Spider explains is because "the truth hurts worse" than any lie. It's still interesting that the villains of the previous book are suddenly revealed as...not exactly trustworthy, but more complex than they were at first. The Spider is also deeply in love with her husband (and their relationship has definite consensual BDSM undertones, which is confusing to the chaste Sun Knight but not represented as a sign of their Evilness. Although, alas, I miss the days of R.A. Salvatore's sadistic sorceresses and their captive elves, it was refreshing to see BDSM as a humanizing element to an evil character, rather than Bad People Having Bad Sex). Speaking of confusing the chaste Sun Knight, the Spider further sends Kelland for a spin by teaching him of a Celestian heresy that allows sexual activity within a committed relationship. In short, only casual sex is bad for Celestians. Given Celestia is the moral arbiter of this story's universe, I feel like She's going both too far (celibacy, according to my Catholic upbringing, is the sacrifice of emotional as well as sensual intimacy) and not far enough (what's so wrong with casual sex?).

This is all extremely interesting to me, if the thick paragraph above hadn't tipped you off. Unfortunately, one of my pet peeves from The River Kings' Road carried over--the flashbacks. "Have you heard of this fortress?" Character A asks. Character B has heard of the fortress, and now we the readers will to, in the form of a 2-page flashback/lecture. Then Character B replies to A, "Yes, I've heard of it. "

Enjoying this series involves some level of acceptance of the fact that every chapter or so will contain a mini-short-story setting up background information that is perhaps 30-50% relevant. I get some fantasy fans really enjoy the worldbuilding. I usually do, too, but I like it to be subtler and more connected to the action of the story. Especially because there's enough to unpack in this story.

Our villain (or at least one of them), Corban, starts down the road to ruin by trying to democratize magic, which has previously been the realm solely of the gods. Unfortunately, he decides to democratize war magic, as that's where the greatest popular demand is. Even more unfortunately, this magic isn't actually free of the gods after all--it comes from Maol, god of Madness. This is why tracing your supply chain is important, everyone.

That said, the idea of god-free magic is very tantalizing to those of a more agnostic strain of thought, and I feel the theocracy of the Celestian Sun Knights goes unexamined. Especially as Bitharn goes to prove the Celestians are not flawless avatars of the good.

I said about the previous book that this world's Viking-analogues were very close to historic Vikings, but I was incorrect. They turn out to be more misogynistic (not hard, actually, as the Vikings allowed women to own property, divorce, and many other useful rights) and this paves the way for a new character, the gender-role-crossing Sword Maiden Asharre. Asharre is mourning the loss of her sister, a Celestian cleric, when she is given the job of playing bodyguard to two new clerics as they travel to their first assignment.

It doesn't go well.

Kliasta, the goddess of the Thornlords, has driven her followers to pluck out their eyes, disfigure themselves, and devise some really amazing torture devices. Thorns still flock to her in steady numbers. The followers of Baoz, god of war, are the topic of some really horrible visions inflicted on Asharre as she crossed a booby-trapped bridge. Boaz is still pretty popular among solider types, who come to him willingly. But Maol, bloody four-armed Maol, is so wrong that he doesn't have volunteer converts; instead His spirit just sort of comes where it will, inflicting body horror and insanity.

He's taken over the town where our baby clerics and babysitter Asharre are going preaching.

If the scene where a ferret claws out its own guts hasn't proved enough warning, I'll just lay down the line: do not eat, and be careful of drinking, anything at all after page 200. I giggled through MangaMinx's Amnesia playthroughs, and this book was too much for me (not literally too much, but...I'm pretty sure you understand what I mean. If this were a movie I'd be hiding behind the couch). Body horror transformations, torture porn, and scary creatures chasing the protagonists through the night abound. There's also helpings of sexual assault (consider yourselves trigger warned), no child immortality, and pleas from mercy coming from orifices that shouldn't even work as mouths.

To defeat this haunting/manifestation/curse, Kelland and Bitharn find themselves working alongside Kliastans, who are not only safer than the alternative but also more stylish. You know it's bad when I prefer the aesthetic of missing-eyeball body modifications, although for the record, Malentir's thorned bracelets? Stylish.

Aside from the Amnesia games, this book also reminded me of C.S. Friedman's Coldfire trilogy, if only for the surface similarity of sun clerics fighting the powers of darkness against a fantasy-horror background. Coldfire, though, had much more depth and the worldbuilding felt more rigorous--appropriately, as among its mash of genres there was a healthy dose of science fiction. Heaven's Needle seemed to miss the chance for deeper examinations of its premises in places like Celestian theocracy (also, Celestia appears to be the only benevolent deity in this universe). There was a nice bit of mindfuck, a twist I'm not even sure was played straight or not, when Asharre's horrific visions turn out to be helpful in defeating Maol, who uses terror to distract her from a path to salvation. Or maybe it was a double-blind taking advantage of reverse psychology. I'm not certain.

The Celestian plotline inflicts a specific cruelty masterfully in a way Coldfire also achieved and R. Scott Bakker's opus, though brilliant in other ways, hasn't managed: it holds out cosmic virtue alongside cosmic evil, revealing a right path that is neither good nor easy. Given Celestia exists, and Her precepts are good, and Her servants seek to ease suffering, and all this is self-evident, there's no excuse for Asharre, Bitharn, or Kelland to turn away from the frequently gruesome demands of their quest in Her service. In Bakker's universe you (especially as the reader, but as a character to) can toss up your hands at an especially grotesque im/moral scenario and live on in a selfish state of apathy. Perhaps some children have to be sacrificed so you can keep living, but oh well; the universe sucks and once you accept that, things make a sort of sense. Not so here. Serving Celestia may require you to let some children be sacrificed, and that makes it your duty to let them die, and this is a fact that coexists with the goodness of Celestia and, holy heck, my Catholic upbringing didn't prepare me for this (lies, it totally did and I'm drinking it up).

I was hoping for more tie in with The River Kings' Road, which I didn't feel had concluded the stories of all its characters, but Bitharn and Kelland are the only ones who carry over. I think the Thornlady in Road was acting as part of a long-term plot the Thorns had to capture a Sun Knight, all so they can secure Kelland and Bitharn's cooperation against Maol, but I'm not actually sure. Meanwhile, Brys Tarnell isn't ever gonna get his redemptive arc, is he (which is fine, but then why all the backstory?). I'm not even certain if the series will continue or rest as a duology. If there is a third book coming, I hope it's a bit lighter in tone--maybe fluffy scenes of the Spider and her husband beating each other up and conquering the world. Yes, that would be a great deal cheerier.

Final judgement: I haven't read a really horrifying book in a long time, and it was oddly fun to give in to the occasional urge to whimper Liane Merciel, NO, have mercy!. It was also an interesting book to compare/contrast with The White-Luck Warrior, which I thought was scary at the time but is now regulated to merely grimdark swords and sorcery ("merely" meaning "on an unprecedentedly epic scale," but it didn't touch me in the deeply, emotionally violating sense Heaven's Needle did).

Read it if: you want to prove your toughness, enjoy some twisted dark gods, and, yes, see Kelland and Bitharn get their happy ending--whether or not you feel they deserve it after everything they allowed to happen in this book.

Do not read if: you dislike dead children, have extreme triggers for gore, and never want to picture intestines as a mode of locomotion. Oops, sorry, that mental image is here to stay. I don't see why I should suffer it alone.

This review is cross-posted from Story Addict.

This is exactly the kind of fantasy I love: a potentially epic setting but with "low fantasy" focus on the actual people within it. Peasants have the chance to determine fate for a change. Like Saladin Ahmed, I also want "fewer kings and starship captains, more coach drivers and space waitresses" in my spec fic.

Beyond class diversity, the spec fic genre also needs progress in racial diversity. It's something I try to do in my own writing and also something I consciously keep an eye out for in my reading. I was pleasantly surprised to discover the paladin in The River Kings' Road, Sir Kelland, is from the African-analogue of this fictional universe. Although an orphan raised by Sun Knights, he connects with his heritage by braiding his hair in the fashion of its warriors, and the common folk view his dark skin as a manifestation of the Sun Goddess' favor, making him the "Burnt Knight." He's also the subject of a wants-to-be-but-bound-to-celibacy romantic subplot with his assistant, a woman warrior, and I was happy to see that these two will have a bigger part in the sequel.

I hasten to add that the story itself is less of an essay on class and racial diversity than the paragraphs I've written here--I was just impressed at how, while not groundbreaking, this story is able to quietly model that sort of diversity with a cast of well-rounded characters, albeit in a fairly standard fantasy setting.

Although there are some unique and flavorful additions--the sadomasochistic Thorn witches (and that's sadomasochism in the not fun, safe, sane, and consensual manner), Sir Kelland and his background, and even the River Kings' gleaming Road itself--ultimately the setting is a medieval world, complete with analogues to the Vikings. One nice thing is that it's a medieval world written by an author who clearly did historical research: there's a throwaway line about a family losing its milk cow when their house is burned down, because during winter they keep the livestock indoors with them. Again, there's these down-to-earth details of daily lives and what it's like to be an average person in this world. I hasten to add that these are throwaway lines; the main plot isn't bogged down by trivia.

Which isn't exactly to say doesn't get bogged down.

The plot starts with a bang--technically, with fire and Bloodmist, which is exactly what it sounds like--and the story moves forward steadily, without any wasted scenes. Yet, in the middle particularly, there are a lot of flashbacks to provide background information that rarely rises above standard fantasy fare. Wars, evil wizards, hard-bitten mercenaries, strange curses, and those Viking analogues I mention call the undead they fight Skraelings, which is an actual Viking term (meaning "wretch," and applied by them to Native Americans. Specifically the Native Americans who drove them out of Newfoundland. I highly doubt Merciel intends anything racially loaded by the term; that's just interesting trivia I want to bog my review down with).

In contrast to my parenthetical comment above, the characters' flashbacks are generally germane, and frequently help to develop the backstory and personality of individuals. Sometimes I wonder whether the background information could be more gracefully presented, but on the whole it is a fast-paced story as the worldbuilding gets fleshed out. All the same, aspects of the world still feel a bit thrown together--the Thorn Witches, despite some genuinely creepy body modifications, are in many ways a generic evil sorcerers empire to the east with exotic naming conventions, while the Western European main setting has a mixture of names that feel English and French--which makes parts of it feel more constructed than inhabited. Ang'arta especially--I do not know how that country works, and it does not feel like a real place. To be fair, none of the characters have actually been there yet, mostly because in true evil empire fashion it's a place few people go to and survive.

Even if the evil empire which never appears onscreen could be better realized (and when you put it like that, it's obvious), the villainous characters themselves are as well-rounded as the good guys. There does seem to be more character development on their part, with redemptive arcs or at least tragic ones. In fact, I wound up feeling more sympathy for the most decent of the villains than the most antiheroic of the heroes--and I think that's a feature, not a bug. There are enough genuinely kind people for me to care about and root for, like the peasant mother Odosse and Sir Kelland, who are respectively trying to survive and keep two babes in arms alive while fleeing a Thorn Witch through border territory that might at any moment erupt into war, and launching an investigation into a massacre that might wind up triggering said war. Unlike the typical epic fantasy where we're supposed to be cheered at the prospect of a nice war to get the heart pounding and the lungs inflated, here war is shown as terrible as it generally is when you're, say, one of the people who might drop dead when the Bloodmist is unleashed.

Of a fairly large cast, one of the least interesting characters happens to be the one we start off with--Brys Tarnell, the brilliantly green-eyed swordsman featured on the cover, and pretty much a standard antihero. I actually expected more character development from him than I got. He's a perfectly well-rounded standard antihero, with the street smarts to get Odosse and two babies across enemy territory and the occasional sarcastic barb, but he hasn't hit the full swing of his redemptive arc yet (some might find this refreshing). Odosse, though, is instantly sympathetic without being nothing but a victim, despite being a peasant, a young unmarried mother, and unattractive in more than the "Hollywood Homely" sense. She has to make her own choices in this novel, some of them surprising.

The Thorn Witch and her magic, which relies largely on mutilation, is genuinely terrifying, and while I wish we learned more about her motives, it looks like those will come up in the sequel. All of the backstory dropping and the slow character arcs appear to be in preparation for a much larger story arc--and this book is clearly the first in the series, with much tantalizingly unresolved at the end. I've already ordered the next, Heaven's Needle.

This review is cross-posted from Story Addict.

good start, wait for sequel

Summary: The ruined castle of Duradh Mal lurks in the hills above the town of Carden Vale. Ever since its destruction, the fortress has been a place of fear and menace, gripped as it is in the throes of the Mad God's power, but now something dark has been loosed, and Maol's influence has begun to spread from Duradh Mal into the surrounding mountains. The high priest of the goddess Celestia was unaware of how bad things were when he sends two young Illuminers to minister to the people of Carden Vale, guarded only by a exiled woman warrior from the northern tribes. Also headed to Carden Vale are Kelland, the Sun Knight; Bitharn, his lifelong friend and partner; and Malentir, a Thorn of the Spider of Ang'arta, a cult dedicated to the goddess of pain. They are unlikely - and uneasy - allies, but they will need all of their separate powers if they are to have any hope of escaping from Duradh Mal with their minds and bodies intact against the taint of the Mad God.

Review: Heaven's Needle improves on the first book in the series, The River Kings' Road, in a number of ways. Its focus is tighter, giving Merciel more room to develop her characters and their stories, instead of the sprawling surplus of POV characters that overwhelmed the first book. She also does a better job of spinning her worldbuilding and history into a convincing and complete backdrop for the action of the story. Even her prose, which I already thought was smooth in The River Kings' Road, has matured even further.

However, while I can objectively recognize that Heaven's Needle is better-written and better-plotted than The River Kings' Road, I liked it less. The tone of the book veered away from the high fantasy of the first book and straight into heavy horror - gory torture-based horror, to be specific. It's a dark, dark book - not just emotionally dark, but physically, painfully dark - and a lot of parts are exceptionally disturbing. It's not a style that I go for (at all), and by the midway point, it had gotten to be too much for me; I had to steel myself to push through some of the more gruesome bits. So, while Merciel's definitely gaining skill as an author, this book was just not for me. 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: Although this is technically the second book in the series, there's very little plot overlap with The River Kings' Road, and only Bitharn and Kelland appear in both, so it could easily be read independently. It'd probably be best for established horror fans, though; I normally don't mind dark fantasy, but I found this book to be too disturbingly gory.½

Summary: Tensions between the neighboring kingdoms of Oakharn and Langmyr have been high for as long as anyone can remember. After a terrible attack on a Langmyr village, in which an Oakharne prince was visiting, the only survivors are Brys Tarnell, a mercenary man-at-arms, and the infant son of the prince. The attack was committed using bloodmagic, the specialty of the Ang'artan Maimed Witches, a group of terrifyingly dangerous sorcerers. Brys plans to take the baby to Oakharn, and he soon encounters a homely young woman with a son of her own to help him care for the infant, but the witch does not like leaving a job unfinished. Meanwhile, the perpetrators of the attack are being hunted by the religious knight Kellan, who may be the only man alive who has a chance of killing of killing the evil sorceress.

Review: This book has a lot going for it - a compelling story, some interesting bits of worldbuilding, and an effectively terrifying bad guy - but it faltered by trying to do too much, too fast. By epic fantasy standards, it's not a particularly long book, and its 400-odd pages are split amongst four storylines and five points of view. Multiple POV characters is something that can be used to move a story along (see: George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series), but in the case of The River Kings' Road, Merciel hasn't yet obtained nearly that level of mastery. Instead, too long is spent on each segment, leaving a hundred pages between successive installments from each character, and effectively keeping me from being too involved in any one story, or from ever becoming particularly attached to any one character.

Merciel also doesn't quite have the grip on her worldbuilding that I would have liked. The raw materials are there, for sure, but there's so much going on in her story that all of the details of the worldbuilding don't always get worked into an organic whole. As a result, there are a number of elements (including the road of the title; a relic of an ancient civilization) that seem to be there only because they sounded good. Perhaps these elements will get picked up and explained in the sequel which the ending is so obviously setting up.

Overall, this was an enjoyable read; Merciel's prose is smooth and her story has a lot of potential to become very interesting. I just think this book was overambitious - too many characters, worldbuilding too complex, etc. - for what it was able to achieve. I'll be reading the sequel, in hopes that as Merciel matures as an author that she manages to take the reins on this sprawling story. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: I enjoy epic fantasy, and am always interested to see a fresh take on it, particularly if it's not a pigboy parable, and particularly if it's written by a woman. The River Kings' Road is not the most astounding debut I've ever come across, but it definitely shows promise, and is therefore probably worth checking out for other fans of epic fantasy.½

Fantasy fans that like their stories in medieval settings are likely to enjoy this debut novel by author Liane Merciel.

They'll have to be patient first though, because in the first half of the book things move slowly as Merciel introduces places and characters (lots and lots of characters -- enough that my head was swimming). In the last 1/2 of the book though, the story takes off and ends in as satisfying a fashion as the first book in a series can end.

As far as the narrative goes, it doesn't appear to be the tale of any one person -- at least not so far. The story is told from the perspective of pairs. There's a young unwed mother and a surly churl of a knight. A religious knight and his female childhood friend. AND the bad second son prince and his faithful follower.

Out of this group the best characterization has got to be that of the bad prince who has his brother and his brother's family murdered. Merciel does a marvelous job of making his actions understandable and almost reasonable. The rest of the characters, though well drawn, aren't nearly as innovative and might possibly even sound familiar. But for the first book in a series -- which I generally never like -- it shows true potential.

TALKING POINTS:::
Medieval, knightly setting with magical/religious elements.

Slow to begin as world structure is built up.

If you like to follow only one character, leave this one alone. I follows several groups.

Some violence, but nothing stomach heaving. No bad language that I can recall. Some mild 'adult' situations; one character is an unwed mother afterall.

Two occurrences where I was incredulous which I found distracting-- but hey, that could just be me; I'm pretty scrutinizing.

Suitable for YA (young adults) although that's not the target market.

Pam T~
(booksforkids-reviews)

An impious mercenary witnesses, and avoids an attack in a bordertown between two fractious medieval fantasy kingdoms, Langmyr, the site of the attack, and their implacable enemy, Oakharn. Also surviving the attack are a young woman, and the heir to the Oakharn lord killed in the massacre.

This sets the stage for a complex web of alliances, struggles and strivings, as forces not only on both sides move to investigate and take advantage of the attack, but powers from beyond Oakharn and Langmyr as well. Godtouched champions of good and light maneuver against each other, and those caught in the middle simply try to survive, and wait to see if this massacre will lead to yet another conflict on already blood-soaked ground.

Such is the fodder for River Kings' Road, a fantasy novel debut by Liane Merciel. The broad lines of the world and conflict she creates is nothing new for experienced fantasy readers. Medieval fantasy, magic based on devotion to one of a pantheon of deities, the basic trappings of a typical fantasy world. Digging a little deeper, the novel features a variety of multidimensional characters on a decidedly complex chessboard of groups seeking to quell or enflame, the fires of war and conflict between the two kingdoms. Merciel does a good job at the shades of gray between the the two characters who really are black and white. She also has clearly read and grokked the Anderson essay "On Thud and Blunder". She gets underpinnings right that many authors completely and utterly forget. Horses in her universe, for example, are *not* treated as motorcycles. The medieval feel of the world is pervasive and palpable. Faith has a role in this world that feels authentic and nuanced rather than "Crystal Dragon Jesus" .

My only major complaint is that it is not extremely original. I've read much fantasy like this before, of varying qualities, degrees and shadings. Its familiar territory. Kingdoms with ambitious vassals, sorceresses, paladins, and so forth.

Oh, and the novel really could have used a map and a glossary or concordance. While these two features in a fantasy novel are practically cliche by this point, when you have a novel geography and world, it is often useful for really getting a handle on who is where, where they are going, and how people are related to each other.

It's a decent debut, even if not groundshattering. Merciel has ideas here that I would like to have explored further, and I hope her novel does well enough that readers such as myself will have the opportunity to discover them.½

I read Fantasy novels about 3 or 4 times a year. Usually because their worlds are so full of life that I can't delve into too many. I've got to say, I am so glad I picked this one! By page two, I was hooked!

Fantasy books usually take me a bit to read because their background it epic in nature. Lots of places, people, battles, magic etc. This book had all that and yet instead of taking days, I devoured it. I literally read the majority of it in one day. I just had to know it ended.

The storyline is interesting. A race to save the infant son and heir of a dead lord. On the run from people and forces trying to stop them and finish the job they started. Who wouldn't enjoy this story? I really enjoyed the characters, even the ones I loathed. All the characters were very well developed.

My only gripe and it's a small one, is there was no map to refer too. Fantasy worlds are usually so vast and lands are rich in detail. There are kingdoms, villages, rivers, bridges, mountains, etc. I find it helpful to have a map to refer too as I follow the characters on their journey, especially if their journey takes them to many different places as this book did.(blog tour)

I do not normally delve into the fantasy genre when choosing books. The number of pages, detailed plots/characters/worlds, and the commitment involved when there are 7 books in a series can be very daunting. I jumped at the opportunity to read The River Kings’ Road by Liane Merciel – a debut work and what may be the first in a new series – for a book blog tour.

The story captured my attention from the start. An entire village is destroyed by forces of great evil. A mercenary/former knight rescues a baby who is the sole survivor of a visiting royal family and therefore heir to the family throne. The journey of this mercenary as he attempts to deliver the baby to his home is the main focus of the story. The road is dangerous full of rivals, bandits and thieves. Not to mention the Thorn (sadistic evil witch) that is close behind. Too add some excitement to the mix, a blessed Knight is trailing the Thorn with destruction on his mind.

The book is full of rival kingdoms, archery contests, clandestine visits to the inns, knights, and plenty of well-defined characters to keep the reader’s attention and imagination running at high speed. I did not find myself confused at any time when the chapters would jump from one set of characters and story-line to another. The pace never faltered. What I really enjoyed were the array of characters Ms. Merciel created; some are truly good, some are truly evil. Yet there are those that are not so easily defined. Overall, a great read!

It has been quite a while since I've had the pleasure of reading a really, really good fantasy, and "The River King's Road" was a fantastic read. In a way, I find this reminded me of "The Lord of the Rings". It had all the wonderful and scary things I crave... magic, witches, knights, good -vs- evil, murder, lies, deceit, treachery, love and loyalty. I found the storyline exciting with lots of twists and turns and the characters reacted just as I would expect for the setting and made them very realistic.

Yes, I loved this book! I found it to be a captivating read that draws you in from the beginning. The main characters are few, and the story jumps between viewpoints, creating a very interesting and well rounded tale. This is the first book of the series, and does a wonderful job setting up for the next book. Yes, you can stop here at this one, but really, why would one want to? I can't wait for the next book in the series, "Heaven's Needle".