I nearly gave up on this book after the first chapter. It smacked of someone who was trying too hard. In the synopsis of the first book the author uses the word “epic” twice in close succession. Each time the word was applied to an event that didn’t seem epic in the first book. The first line of the first chapter struck me as trying to be profound but failing miserably, becoming simply a non sequitur. Fortunately, my own natural curiosity and the intrigue of the Council of Elders in the second chapter saved things a bit.

Even so, however, the author seemed determined to drag out every fantasy cliche possible. There were developments that could be spotted from a mile off-such as Sloan, Arya and “Eldest”. Even the name of the King’s group of assassins-the Black Hand—was wildly unoriginal.

Though in his favour I did read the entire book. So it can’t be all bad.

I feel a bit divided about this book. On one hand I found the book fascinating—quite ground-breaking for it’s time and dealing with some very heavy philisophical and moral issues. Yet on the other hand I found the characters quite stereotypical. In fact, I felt the monster was the most well developed character, perhaps by the author’s intention.

Victor Frankenstein in particular annoyed me with his continual swings of emotion. The book seemed someonewhat repetitive with his constant exclamations of “how gorgeous the scenery is! It lifts me up, but I can never fully appreciate it, poor wretched me!” He continually fears he will be thought mad if he confesses to his actions, yet ends up being thought mad anyway. Elizabeth never seems more than an extention of him, so I felt no sadness at her murder.

All in all, an interesting read, but not one I’ll hurry back to.

I don’t often read poetry, so perhaps my reading was affected by my lack of experience. I really enjoyed the poems, but I got the sensation that there was so much going on underneath that I wasn’t quite grasping, that things were tantalisingly out of reach.

Still, I believe that what the reader brings to a poem is just as important as what the writer brings. I look forward to rereading these in the future and bring to bear the weight of new experience, perhaps leading to a new interpretation for me.

I found this book a bit repetitive to begin with, as it covered a lot of the same material as the previous book Positively Wyrd. Thankfully it got better as it went on, with new material to make it more interesting.

However in terms of the wording and phrases it remained repetitive throughout. I got a bit tired of hearing the same ones over and over again.

I also found the punctuation a bit irritating—the author really needs to learn the proper way to use an ellipsis! There were also a few typos, like no space between a question mark and the beginning of the next sentence.

Most disruptive of all was the fact that the book was missing more than a few pages. I’d turn over to a double page of nothingness, then turn over again and the book would resume as if the pages had been printed. This meant there was a fair bit of missing information.

Overall, I though it had some interesting ideas, though I was left feeling like the author had a bit of a beef against a few things (like feminism). I suppose the true worth of the book will only be discovered when I try to put those ideas into practice.

I’m a big R.A Salvatore fan, but the poem at the beginning of the book had me cringing. If that’s the extent of his poetic ability, he should definitely stick to novels.

The sheer quality of the rest of his writing would indicate that the poem was quite deliberately appalling. The initial combat sequence at the beginning of the prelude was a touch confusing, but once I grasped what was going on it was very exciting.

Salvatore has an excellent talent for creating cinematic fights using only his words. I believe that’s a difficult talent to aquire. He also does an excellent job of balancing fighting sequences with intrigue and character development. No matter how many books he writes with the same characters they are always changing and developing.

Similarly, the reader can never be quite sure of all of the characters’ schemes and it keeps the characters intriguing and interesting. I particularly liked the ambiguity over the true motivations and moral alignment of both Entreri and Jarlaxle. I felt the book ended in a very interesting place, leaving me eager for the next book.

All in all, the story kept me fascinated. I would love to write like this.