Queen of Fire (Raven’s Shadow) Paperback – July 2, 2015
Author: Visit ‘s Anthony Ryan Page ID: 0356502503
Review
An epic ending to one of the best debut epic fantasy trilogies that I’ve ever read Fantasy Book Critic
About the Author
Anthony Ryan lives in London and is a writer of fantasy, science fiction and non-fiction. He previously worked in a variety of roles for the UK government, but now writes full-time.
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PaperbackPublisher: Orbit (July 2, 2015)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 0356502503ISBN-13: 978-0356502502 Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1.9 x 9.2 inches Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds Best Sellers Rank: #207,390 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
If I had to describe Queen of Fire in one sentence it would be: "It was…ok?"
I would rate QOF 2.5 stars if possible, but on the strength of my man-crush for Vaelin, I’m bumping it up to three. If I had to guess, most of the "real" reviews will be giving it two stars. And by "real", I mean the reviews with detailed criticisms, and not the upcoming massive flood of one-liners that will be rating it five stars. Let’s be clear: This is not a five star novel, but it isn’t a one star novel either. I would say mostly twos and threes. Which of course is a PROFOUND disappointment! Like many of you, I fell in love with Blood Song. It still remains the best novel I’ve ever read. It is the standard to which I compare other fantasy novels and almost all of them fall short.
Anyway, I loathe spoilers so I’ll try to stay away from anything major. In fact, I’m not going to go into many plot specifics at all. This is simply an honest opinion from someone who knows nothing about what it takes to write a novel or write a thorough review.
One of the major problems from Tower Lord resurfaces here in Queen of Fire, and that’s the complete and utter lack of character development. It’s essentially non-existent, which is a great shame because that’s one of the things AR did so well in Blood Song. After 100 pages in Blood Song, who would have thought that pompous jerk Nortah would have turned into the man he eventually became? But we watched it unfold through Vaelin’s eyes and it was 100% believable (I picked Nortah because he’s an easy example, but anyone will do). There’s none of that in Tower Lord, and it’s even worse in Queen of Fire.
There is no other way to say this other than this book broke my heart. I have been disappointed before, but when I read the final page of Queen of Fire, I wanted to literally cry and I don’t mean that in a good way. I understand that endings are hard, especially in fantasy, but with Blood Song, the first book in this trilogy, Anthony Ryan created something special and although the second book in the series Tower Lord was a slight misstep , I still enjoyed it, but to say that Queen of Fire disappointed me would be the understatement of the year.
For the uninitiated, Queen of Fire picks up right after the ending of The Tower Lord. The United Realm has been invaded by the Empire of Volar, a sadistically evil nation who outwardly practices slavery and appeals to the worse base of human nature and cruelty. You think something is barbaric and cruel and dehumanizing, well the Volarians feel that is just the way of doing business. Not only are they evil, but they are ruled in the background by a dark and mysteriously powerful being termed the Ally who pulls the strings of the ruling council while also granting said members near immortality, mysterious abilities and wealth beyond their wildest dreams. At the start of our novel, the people of the United Realm have just crushed a large Volarian army at Alltor, the capital city for one of the provinces of the realm and are now making plans to remove the Volarians from their capital city Varinshold and the remainder of the realm while taking the fight to Volaria itself in order to ensure that the Volarians stay gone forever.
The strength of the first book of this series, Blood Song lied in the characterization of the characters. Every character in that book felt unique, believable, and tangible and they spoke with their own voice.
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