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Queen of Fire - Anthony Ryan


john

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Extremely disappointed with Queen of Fire. I absolutely loved Book 1 and thought Book 2 was quite good. But this one is a bloated piece of... Seems Ryan had not really planned any ending for his series. All the revelations about the Ally were quite lame. And I hate the way he neutered Vaelin. By the end of the book, it almost feels like this is more of a story of Lyrna, Frentis and Reva. Vernier was probably the best part of the story.I slogged through it just to see how the story ends. I even reread the first two books before I started this one. What a waste of time..

Yep. Vaelin is one of my favorite fantasy characters ever, but he was quite pointless this time. Agree that after all the building of Ally in 2.5 books, it was concluded quite bad. And it is clear that Ryan didn't planned things in advance (heck in the first book there are no mentions that the Ally is anything but whatever possessed Barkus.

I found the parts with Elverah very bad. She was amazing in the second book but here was quite bad.

Lyrna and Reva became from complex characters to as generic as it can be.

I think that Ryan had a chance to go full mainstream with this book (considering people's exciments) but he didn't deliver. On the bright side, I know that Abercrombie will deliver (as always) next week.

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Yep. Vaelin is one of my favorite fantasy characters ever, but he was quite pointless this time. Agree that after all the building of Ally in 2.5 books, it was concluded quite bad. And it is clear that Ryan didn't planned things in advance (heck in the first book there are no mentions that the Ally is anything but whatever possessed Barkus.

I found the parts with Elverah very bad. She was amazing in the second book but here was quite bad.

Lyrna and Reva became from complex characters to as generic as it can be.

I think that Ryan had a chance to go full mainstream with this book (considering people's exciments) but he didn't deliver. On the bright side, I know that Abercrombie will deliver (as always) next week.

Already pre-ordered on Kindle about a month back and I am reasonably confident that Joe will not let us down.

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Well,i'm 58% done..and it's kind of tepid so far.Elverah has turned into Moustache Twirling Villian .I think Ryan made a huge mistake when he added multiple Pov's from book 2 onwards.As a new author he does not have the chops/experience to juggle multiple Pov's convincingly.This trilogy should have been mostly about following Vaelin around.Wasn't that the reason book 1 was loved so much ? Needs more Vaelin!



Oh well,i hope to finish this soon,hope it gets better and at least has a good ending.


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This book was awful. There is no way I could reread Blood Song again and enjoy it now that I know how awful things end. This book was so bad it completely ruined the series in general for me. :ack:





Extremely disappointed with Queen of Fire. I absolutely loved Book 1 and thought Book 2 was quite good. But this one is a bloated piece of... Seems Ryan had not really planned any ending for his series. All the revelations about the Ally were quite lame. And I hate the way he neutered Vaelin. By the end of the book, it almost feels like this is more of a story of Lyrna, Frentis and Reva. Vernier was probably the best part of the story.I slogged through it just to see how the story ends. I even reread the first two books before I started this one. What a waste of time..





You know, he actually completed the manuscript for this way back in Nov 2013. IIRC, he actually said 'there was nothing else he wanted to change about it' at that time. So even though he had 1 year+ to continue working on it, he looked at this piece of crap and decided that it was just fine. Boggles the mind doesn't it? :dunno:



I know endings are hard to write, even for veteran authors, but holy shit did Ryan botch this one.






I think that Ryan had a chance to go full mainstream with this book (considering people's exciments) but he didn't deliver. On the bright side, I know that Abercrombie will deliver (as always) next week.






I really hope Abercrombie delivers. I need a good series ending to get this bad taste out of my mouth.


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This book was awful. There is no way I could reread Blood Song again and enjoy it now that I know how awful things end. This book was so bad it completely ruined the series in general for me. :ack:

You know, he actually completed the manuscript for this way back in Nov 2013. IIRC, he actually said 'there was nothing else he wanted to change about it' at that time. So even though he had 1 year+ to continue working on it, he looked at this piece of crap and decided that it was just fine. Boggles the mind doesn't it? :dunno:

I know endings are hard to write, even for veteran authors, but holy shit did Ryan botch this one.

I really hope Abercrombie delivers. I need a good series ending to get this bad taste out of my mouth.

He will. After all, he has never failed to deliver.

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These books are so damn forgetful. It's been only a year since TL, and I barely remember a detail. I really don't feel like re-reading either because I wasn't too impressed with it. hmm, should I bother with the new one? Based on your reviews maybe not, but I've slogged thru Paolini's book just because I had already invested time in them, so maybe I will.


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Jeesh...I pre-ordered this based on (mostly) digging the first two books so I guess I have to read it at some point, but y'all aren't giving me much hope. :stunned:

I know - I so wanted it to be the outstanding novel Blood Song was. The only saving grace(s) were the Vaelin & Vernier POV's.

Roll on the July 16th when John Gwynne's novel Ruin comes out (in the UK).

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I know - I so wanted it to be the outstanding novel Blood Song was. The only saving grace(s) were the Vaelin & Vernier POV's.

Roll on the July 16th when John Gwynne's novel Ruin comes out (in the UK).

I'll check that one out!

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About a day removed from finishing it now, so the bitter disappointment has faded a bit. Will try to point out some things that were done wrong with this book, spoilers obviously, don't read below if you haven't finished.



In no particular order:



- The info dumps at the end were atrocious. They made me think about Ultron's little quip in the movie 'now let me tell you my evil plan'...except he said it sarcastically, these villains actually did it. Some major eye rolling from me during the Ally's (and to a lesser extent the Messengers) looong speeches. There had to have been a more organic way of revealing that stuff. :bang:



- Vaelin's trek across the ice was interesting, but the problem was that it happened while the rest of the United Realm's forces were invading Volaria. So the major war of the series is taking place, and Vaelin takes no part in it. Vaelin not being apart of the main action is the same fucking issue Tower Lord had, but worse here because he didn't even get an awesome scene at the end. He showed up after all the fighting was done, dragged Frentis aside to drop a little knowledge bomb about the ally on him, then they took out the Ally in a totally pedestrian and lackluster manner.



- Volaria was a paper tiger. The most fearsome country in existence and it went down like a house of cards. Aside from the Empress's little tricks with the storm and that river, the Realm's forces were never in any serious danger of losing, even without the great Vaelin. The excuse given for this? Volaria's best soldiers died in the realm and their internal political situation was so messed up that they couldn't organize an effective defense. Plausible? Maybe, but also an extremely anti-climatic way to set up the final war, not sure what Ryan was thinking.



I could easily say much more, but I don't really want to think about it anymore. I will not read any series by this author again unless it is complete, and all the entries have great reviews (especially the ending). Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice... :dunce:


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Not sure how much people take away from Amazon reviews anymore but out of the 15 or so reviews looks like HALF of them are ONE star.

Yikes. Dunno if people legit think this book deserves a one star score or if it's 'Blood Song' fanboys just trolling the author for changing the format, but still.

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Not sure how much people take away from Amazon reviews anymore but out of the 15 or so reviews looks like HALF of them are ONE star.

Yikes. Dunno if people legit think this book deserves a one star score or if it's 'Blood Song' fanboys just trolling the author for changing the format, but still.

Well, if you read this thread you will see that people genuinely didn't like the book.

I gave 2 stars in goodreads and in comment here I said that it is a weak 2/5 (compared to a strong 3/5 for the second book and a strong 4/5 for the first book). It is worthy to be read cause it will bring closure to a nice story, but the book in its own is spectacularly weak.

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Not sure how much people take away from Amazon reviews anymore but out of the 15 or so reviews looks like HALF of them are ONE star.

Yikes. Dunno if people legit think this book deserves a one star score or if it's 'Blood Song' fanboys just trolling the author for changing the format, but still.

When I picked up the first book at a price that was a joke, it was because it had about a hundred reviews on Amazon, all of them good to great. And the book delivered. I haven't read it, yet, but between this thread and Amazon, I'm inclined to believe the criticism.

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Well, if you read this thread you will see that people genuinely didn't like the book.

I gave 2 stars in goodreads and in comment here I said that it is a weak 2/5 (compared to a strong 3/5 for the second book and a strong 4/5 for the first book). It is worthy to be read cause it will bring closure to a nice story, but the book in its own is spectacularly weak.

Sums up my sentiments exactly, although I gave the first book 4.5/5

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It's getting just killed. Out of 22 reviews 11 are ONE star. If I've read the first 2 books in a trilogy I'm reading the 3rd as well no matter what. I'm considering passing on this one though. I've never seen a book get ripped apart quite like this.

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