Unlock Now Fortress Of Owls (Fortress, #3) Articulated By C.J. Cherryh Published As Digital Copy
on Fortress of Owls (Fortress, #3)
going this one! Decided not to move forward with the series! Like this series Second read Aug,More of the same for this series.
Definitely a middle book, but a good one, felt very much like a continuation of the last book, and the fact that it ends on a cliffhanger is a little bit annoying.
The Fortress series does tend to wander a bit, less about a particular singular story than exploring the world granted there is the overarching theme of impending war that does serve to push things along.
And there's absolutely nothing wrong with exploring the world
a bit when it's such a beautifully crafted one, Each book in the series gets better, "I Dreamed of Owl. That Means Wizardry is Near, "
Tristen is a weapon in an ancient war between wizardry and sorcery, He is a summoning and a shaping, brought to life by a wizard, And his sword is a weapon as well, Its keen blade, marked Illusion on one side and Truth on the other, once helped Tristen win the throne of Ylesuin for the young king Cefwyn, gaining Tristen the stewardship of the brave country of Amefel.
Tristen's rule in Amefel is blessed with two extraordinary friends: one a stalwart and simple warrior, the other a young rebel with royal blood.
But the scarlet banners of war are unfolding again, and far more than a kingdom is at stake, Now Tristen must take up the swordas well as the Sihhë magic he has forsworn, He is destiny's own, created a combatant in a far older and more fearsome conflict than any ever imagined by mere mortal man.
And he is about to do battle once more,
Rich with magic, intrigue, and adventure, this high fantasy series from the acclaimed C, J. Cherryh brings to life an enchanting world as real as, yet far more wondrous, than our own, They're getting slower and worse, Sigh./
Although the ending is completely unsatisfying, the book itself was wonderful, Cherryh's language always matches the storylinedreamy, confused, ominous, clear, joyous, wondering, crafty, . . as the plot changes, so the language seems to change to fit,
Tristen, still an enigma, still a wonder and a danger, becomes more and more himself through the course of the book.
Cefwyn and his wife also mature and wield statecraft in halls both great and small, And Emuin, wizard and adviser, also becomes more of a person and less of a character,
Each book in this series fills in more of the puzzle while managing to pose new questions, I fear for Cefwyn, Tristen, and the othersnot so much that they may die in some battle, but that they will betray themselves or their friendships.
Emuin warns Tristen that he is not Tristen's friend and Tristen should not be histhey need to keep an eye on each other, to keep up their guard.
I'm afraid of not bones, but hearts being broken, It started out strong, and just kind of finished poorly, Not my kind of book I guess,
"I was Shaped, not born," he said bluntly, "and some say I'm Sihhë and some say I was Barrakêth.
That may be. But I say my name is Tristen, and while I say so, not even a wizard's wish can turn me to any other creature.
"
Oh, . . Cherryh. I said the last book was interlude and praised its internal plot and momentum, but I spoke far too soon.
This is the 'middle book,' the hinge of the overplot that guides the series, It's fallout from events past and setup for events to come and, like a hinge, is relatively meaningless except that it joins and turns other things.
This is Cherryh on politics, on alliances, on the accounting of grain and the movement of oxcarts, and the scandal of singlepetticoats.
. . All of which I personally find interesting, and touched with humor of which I am admittedly fond, Still, I know that not all readers share my love of detail, and this installmenthowever critical to the seriesis not as strong taken on its own merits.
Which is not to say it's bad! Far from it,
Left to his own devices in Amefel, Tristen insists on making waves, taking charge and building up as he can.
His intentions are good, but all the while the prophecy of the King to Come lingers over his head, He's still learning, and has some amusing lapses what is coinage, but lessandless is he the boy of starryeyed wonder, and more and more the fey lord.
Meanwhile, Cefwyn's Guelen court grows increasingly hostile, The King faces opposition on all sides: political, military, and religious, Cefwyn struggles between the desperate need to pull the Northern Baronies in line, and the shadow of his tyrant grandfather's reign of fear.
It's a difficult path to tread, and treason lurks in every shadow,
The book is a slow pivot, The old challenges fall away, the new challenges rise, stronger and more dire than expected, What it lacks in pacing it makes up for in substance, There is weight to the action here, and a sense of cresting a hill,
I've already bought the next book,.to this one, rounding up because there no fluff to be had, I find still tiresome the repetition of information, but the book is entertaining! What I expected:
I have read booksandof this series and found them engaging and entertaining.
This book continues the series, so I expect more about Sihhe Lords and their magic and the key characters of the series Tristen, Cefwyn, Ninévrisë, Idrys and Emuin.
What it was:
This book continues Tristen's and Cefwyn's adventures as two separate threads through the book, with messengers occasionally flitting between them, treacherous as it may be for the messenger! Cefwyn is king and settled in Guelessar while Tristen has been set as lord in Amefel and they both must manage their lives and those of the people around them as best they can with danger lurking close by.
However, the past reaches back to Tristen and he is uncertain of his future and whether he will continue past Midwinter!
The book does get a bit political in places, I guess that is to be expected where one of the main characters is a King and another is a Lord of a province! And in places I have struggled to follow exactly what is going on, for example, towards the end of the book Tristen goes somewhere avoiding spoilers here by being vague sorry! and I ended up reading one portion about five times to gain some sort of comprehension of what was happening.
Nonetheless I have enjoyed reading about the further development of Tristen's abilities and his growth and development as a person in the world in which he lives.
I will read the next book to see how things develop for him and the other key characters in the book in due course.
This one is hard to review, The first book in the series could almost have been a standalone book, albeit leaving you wanting to know more
The second book in the series, while definitely a sequel and hard to follow without the first, had a beginning middle and end.
This third book is one of the better ones, . but is missing an ending,
I can only assume a marketing / publishing deadline came up and her editors decided this was good enough and people can wait for theth.
edited up toStars but you really must have Fortress of Dragons ready to go before you even pick up this book.
. they are meant to be read together
This series, like others from this author, is more about unfolding a mystery like layers of an onion than about the action or plotline.
. Every time you think you have unpeeled all the layers, at the end of the book you find another one.
She also has veerrry sloooooooow pacing, I like that, but if I had bought this book at the time of publication and found she hadn't finished it.
. . I would be a very unhappy camper,
The book starts out with an overly long prologue, The firstpages of which is historical background which originally was only very slowly revealed in the first book , Fortress in the Eye of Time.
I guess this was helpful if you read the first book and were still very confused, although the readers who finished that book and were confused still, tend not to like the authors writing style and not get this far anyway.
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The nextpages recount the plot lines of the first two books for you, . a good catchup if you are reading this series with months long breaks,
The rest of the book is political intrigue set both in Amefin with Tristen, and Cefwyn back in the capitol.
A gathering of forces before the anticipated war/invasion of bordering Elwynor, . . and last minute assassinations and evil workings from forces within and without the kingdom against our protagonists, . . and then no ending, just a couple of unexpected reintroduced characters coming back at the climactic moment you don't expect and a lot of unanswered questions.
see review of Fortress of Dragons The series and characters continue to get better, Really looking forward to the next book, Stuff happened, but honestly it just set up the next book, It was almost by accident that I discovered this amazing series by Cherryh, who rather quickly has become one of my favorite authors.
I have noted in previous reviews that this very definitely is a series that should be read from beginning to end in order to follow the action with any sense of understanding, you must start with the first volume and proceed forthwith.
There are two reasons for this, One is that the central character, Tristen, is in effect created anew by an aged wizard at the beginning of the first book and is looking at life was completely fresh eyes and a blank mind, and part of the very charm of the first book was how life unfolded to him in his innocence, and how that very innocence affected the people he met if you do not understand this from the very beginning, you will simply have no real understanding of Tristens character.
The other reason is that Cherryh has created for this series an extraordinarily complex society, and the average reader would be unable to comprehend that milieu except by reading it in the same sequence by which Cherryh developed it.
I have noted before that Cherryh has an incredible ability to create such fanciful worlds, and that when she is at her best writes prose that reads like poetry.
I find myself often reading her sentences aloud simply because I love the way the words sound in sequence, Having said that, I find that this particular book is slightly less poetic than the preceding two, but makes up for it by having a great deal more action.
I felt a little gypped by the fact that the longdelayed marriage between King Cefwyn and Ninevrise took place between two chapters at the beginning of the book, effectively happening offstage.
But there is enough of other activity to sate almost any reader, I am not even going to attempt to summarize the storyline through this novel, as there is so much going on throughout the book that it would be extraordinarily difficult to summarize it without getting into explanatory detail that could not be followed by someone who has not read the previous two books.
In gist, the story occupies the first half of the winter following Tristens creation, with Cefwyn sending Tristen back to Amefel as its new Duke, there to keep the southern inhabitants of the kingdom strongly opposed to the militant force being raised by the kingdoms enemies across the river, while Cefwyn fights his own political battles in the northern part of the kingdom, and we read the story in more or less alternating chapters showing what is happening to one or the other of these two heroes.
Amongst and around that simple storyline, Cherryh continues to weave her everexpanding tale of wizardry,
I ended my review of the previous book by a brief diatribe against the cover artwork, which portrayed in minute detail a scene that did not occur in the book and indeed could not have occurred.
I find I have to do that again it seems an absolute puzzle to me that a publisher would contract with an artists to do a scene as the cover art for a book and not have it be a correct portrayal of the scene described in the book.
It is almost as if somebody made an offthecuff remark about one of the scenes in the book and certainly far from the most important scene, which makes it even more irritating, and the artist then went off to do his own thing without at least reading the page or two in which that scene occurred and with nobody in the publishing office ever bothering to note the discrepancies.
This is so foreign to my experience of working with artists in the technical publishing field that it is incomprehensible to me.
Fantasy I really liked this book and I like the series, It emphasizes court politics over action but there's plenty of that, too, Tristen is an intriguing character, I also like watching Cefwyn rise to the occasion from profligate prince to King with a big learning curve, Rather quiet book with lots of intrigue and bits of humor, Cliff hanger ending. I have roughly the same things to say about volumesof the Fortress series: I enjoyed spending more time with Tristen and his crew, and watching him go from strength to strength, and Cherryh's slowburnbigpayoff storytelling style.
But I grew increasingly frustrated with Cefwyn, who seems to perpetually create his own problems by not following the coldblooded advice of his righthand, Idrys, to be less merciful and just kill the guys causing the problems.
The reason given is always that Cefwyn wants to be more merciful than his predecessors, and to give in to utilitarian killing would be to cease to be himself, but that stops being a relatable trait after you continue to see the consequences of his lighthanded approach spiral out over four books and cause all of the major conflicts.
It distanced me from the story because I kept thinking, "none of this would have happened if you'd just, . " And the magic system continues to be too looseygoosey, lacking an internal logic that makes it clear what is dramatic about magical events, what the costs or consequences of its use or abuse are.
/into therd book of this series and I have to call it quits, I love political fantasy with many moving parts but in thesebooks I can count only a very small handful of things that have actually happened.
Cherryh insists on having entire chapters revolve incredibly mundane things such as where Tristen is going to get grain for his men or whether Emuin should keep his windows open or closed.
Or have entire chapters based on if a group of people should be moved to point a or poimt b.
You almost forget that this is a fantasy tale, This, mixed with Cherry's slow burn approach, results in nothing of much consequence actually happening, I will always love the first book and will always remember Tristen and Cefwyns relationship but in overpages of this tale the only event that has had any real impact happened in the first book and I think I'll leave it at that before I become even more jaded by continuing on.
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