Book Review: Fortress of Dragons by C.J. Cherryh

EOS

409 pp.

 Fortress of Dragons ends the story arc that began in Fortress in the Eye of Time. In this book, Tristen makes many discoveries about himself, Cefwyn continues to battle treachery among his nobles and Ninévrisë has to deal with her husband’s wild oats. Mixed into the action and political intrigue is Cherryh’s usual arcs of character growth, interactions, and relationships.

Book Review: Fortress of Eagles and Fortress of Owls, by C.J. Cherryh

Harper/Prism

Fortress of Eagles

335 pp.

Fortress of Owls

394 pp.

Fortress of Eagles is so transitional, it might as well be cut into halves and stuck to the end of Fortress in the Eye of Time, and to thefront of Fortress of Owls. Eagles mostly addresses the veryaftermath of the events of Eye, where Cefwyn has returned to the capitol of Ylesuin with his fiancé Ninévrisë,Tristen and Emuin and plans for war. Owls continues the story, and adds existential angst for Tristen, who technicallyspeaking, is less than a year old..  

Book Review: Pegasus, by Robin McKinley

Putnam

404 pp.

Robin McKinley does some interesting things with the “psychic link with magicalanimals” theme in Pegasus. The main characters are Sylvi the fourth child of the king, and Ebon, the pegasus she is friends with. In Sylvi’s country, due to the terms of an Alliance made with the pegasi, the royal family is bound to the royal family of the pegasi via a spell which is supposed to create a bond that will help them understand each other. Oddly enough, these spell brokered friendships do not seem to create much in the way of mutual understanding, and in the normal course of things, most pegasus and human pairs only meet on special occasions.

Book Review: Fortress in the Eye of Time, by C.J. Cherryh

HarperPrism

568pp.

It usually takes me a while to get into a book, or even consider reading it. Even if the writer is familiar, and one I like a lot, there is no guarantee that even familiarity with the writer will get me to read the book. Fortress in the Eye of Time turned up when I was going through one of my “no high fantasy” phases, so I ignored it,when it came out. (I also ignored Hammerfall by the same author, which I also ended up loving, even though Hammerfall  was a Big Rock Falls Everyone Dies kind of book.) But I finally got around to reading it–and it pulled me right in.

Book Review: Bayou Moon by Ilona Andrews

ACE

447 pp.

Bayou Moon is the sequel to On the Edge. William, one of the minor antagonists in the previous book (and the friend of Declan and Rose from the previous book) has settled down in the Edge between the alternate earth referred to as “the Weird” and the real world which is known as “the Broken” He is living a quiet life working in construction, and collecting action figures. Said quiet life is interrupted when his home kingdom’s version of the secret service (called The Mirror) show up to ask him to go on a mission.

Book Review: 1635: The Eastern Front, by Eric Flint

Baen
364 pp.

I have mixed feelings about the Ring of Fire series. On one hand, I loved the first few books, especially the first book in the series, 1632. On the other hand, I began to lose interest due to a combination of not liking the collaborative author, and problems with the way the stories and other novels jumping around within a three year period of time, and showing the results of a situation, without showing out the results came about. (This in particular was deeply annoying to me, and ended up making me reluctant to read the series duet o the confusion.)