Tag: Books: American

The Way of Kings

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The Way of Kings
,

, Book # 1
Tor Books
August 31st 2010
Hardcover
1007
English

I long for the days before the Last Desolation.

The age before the Heralds abandoned us and the Knights Radiant turned against us. A time when there was still magic in the world and honor in the hearts of men.

The world became ours, and yet we lost it. Victory proved to be the greatest test of all. Or was that victory illusory? Did our enemies come to recognize that the harder they fought, the fiercer our resistance? Fire and hammer will forge steel into a weapon, but if you abandon your sword, it eventually rusts away.

There are four whom we watch. The first is the surgeon, forced to forsake healing to fight in the most brutal war of our time. The second is the assassin, a murderer who weeps as he kills. The third is the liar, a young woman who wears a scholar's mantle over the heart of a thief. The last is the prince, a warlord whose eyes have opened to the ancient past as his thirst for battle wanes.

The world can change. Surgebinding and Shardwielding can return; the magics of ancient days become ours again. These four people are key.

One of them may redeem us. And one of them will destroy us.

From Brandon Sanderson-who completed Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time-comes The Stormlight Archive, an ambitious new fantasy epic in a unique, richly imagined setting. Roshar is a world relentlessly blasted by awesome tempests, where emotions take on physical form, and terrible secrets hide deep beneath the rocky landscape.

Speak again the ancient oaths
Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.
and return to men the Shards they once bore. The Knights Radiant must stand again!

About the book

It is a little difficult for me to summarise this monumental book. Partly because I didn’t like it as I thought (but I will explain why later) and partly because it’s long and remembering everything is impossible and it would be an understatement anyway.

The book is the first in a series of 10 books called The Stormlight Archive and is divided into parts, like all Sanderson’s books apparently and each part it is divided into chapters narrated more or less by a single character. The main characters are essentially 3 or 4 and we follow their story independently of the others or while it is intertwined with the others.

We have Shallan who has an independent story but who intertwines with Jasnah who is the King ‘s sister Elhokar. We have the king’s uncle, Dalinar Kholin and his son Adolin, we have Kaladin to whom a big portion of the book is dedicated and a murderer, Szeth, with whom the book begins, but apart from a few scenes he doesn’t have much space in the story.

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The Obelisk Gate

Laura1 Comment on The Obelisk Gate
The Obelisk Gate
,

, Book # 2
Orbit
August 16th 2016
Paperback
413
English
April 22, 2020 April 26, 2020

This is the way the world ends... for the last time.

The season of endings grows darker as civilization fades into the long cold night. Alabaster Tenring – madman, world-crusher, savior – has returned with a mission: to train his successor, Essun, and thus seal the fate of the Stillness forever.

It continues with a lost daughter, found by the enemy.

It continues with the obelisks, and an ancient mystery converging on answers at last.

The Stillness is the wall which stands against the flow of tradition, the spark of hope long buried under the thickening ashfall. And it will not be broken.

About the book

First of all I would like to thank Oscar Vault (Italian publisher) for the ARC copy of the book.

The Obelisks Gate is the second book of the trilogy The Broken Earth by N.K. Jemisin. The first book review is here. The whole series talks about a broken world, where climate change has reduced humanity to organise itself into castes and to fear the fifth season, a long season triggered by a cataclysm. In the second volume we are in the fifth season (while in the first we see how we got there) and here the sun is darkened, it rains ash and it is difficult to survive. If you are not killed directly by natural disasters, hunger will eliminate you.

We follow the point of view of a unique narrator, but who mainly tells the story of two women, Essun and her daughter Nassun, who are surrounded by other characters that we come to know along the narration. The book begins where the first one ended, but chapter 1 is at the same time as the first book as we understand what happened to Nassun during the first book. Then Essun and her daughter’s stories coincide temporarily.

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A Court of Mist and Fury

LauraLeave a Comment on A Court of Mist and Fury
A Court of Mist and Fury
, ,

, Book # 2
Bloomsbury USA Childrens
May 3th 2015
Hardcover
626
English
January 16, 2020 January 25, 2020

Feyre survived Amarantha's clutches to return to the Spring Court—but at a steep cost. Though she now has the powers of the High Fae, her heart remains human, and it can't forget the terrible deeds she performed to save Tamlin's people.

Nor has Feyre forgotten her bargain with Rhysand, High Lord of the feared Night Court. As Feyre navigates its dark web of politics, passion, and dazzling power, a greater evil looms—and she might be key to stopping it. But only if she can harness her harrowing gifts, heal her fractured soul, and decide how she wishes to shape her future—and the future of a world torn apart.

About the book

A Court of Mist and Fury is the second book in Sarah J. Maas’ series started with A Court of Thorns and Roses reviewed a few weeks ago on the website. If you have not read the first book please do not read further, I have to write some events from the previous book to write this review.

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A Court of Thorns and Roses

Laura3 Comments on A Court of Thorns and Roses
A Court of Thorns and Roses
, ,

, Book # 1
Bloomsbury USA Childrens
May 5th 2015
Hardcover
419
English
January 1, 2020 January 3, 2020

Feyre's survival rests upon her ability to hunt and kill – the forest where she lives is a cold, bleak place in the long winter months. So when she spots a deer in the forest being pursued by a wolf, she cannot resist fighting it for the flesh. But to do so, she must kill the predator and killing something so precious comes at a price ...

Dragged to a magical kingdom for the murder of a faerie, Feyre discovers that her captor, his face obscured by a jewelled mask, is hiding far more than his piercing green eyes would suggest. Feyre's presence at the court is closely guarded, and as she begins to learn why, her feelings for him turn from hostility to passion and the faerie lands become an even more dangerous place. Feyre must fight to break an ancient curse, or she will lose him forever.

About the book

A Court of Thorns and Roses is the first book in a trilogy series named as the first book by Sarah J. Mass. It’s a retelling of the Beauty and the Beast and that’s what attracted me the first time.

It is set in a fantasy world. This lend is called Prythiam and the world is divided in 7 courts, plus a small piece of land where human are confined.

We follow Feyre’s story, a 19-year-old girl who goes hunting quite often, to help her family, father and two sisters. In fact, the mother passed away when she was very young and on her deathbed Feyre promised to take care of the remaining family. Now, why a mother makes an 8-year-old daughter promise that, I don’t know, but that’s what guides the girl in her life. Shortly after the woman’s death, the father makes the wrong investments and loose everything, forcing the family to live in poverty and misery. This is why Feyre hunts, for the sustenance of the family. During one of these hunts, she kills a wolf which was about to eat her food (a deer). Once killed the wolf, she manages to kill the deer and feed her family for several days. But unfortunately, the wolf is not a normal wolf, it is a magical creature and one night after Feyre sells the fur of the two animals, earning a lot of money for her family, another magical creature breaks into her modest home and wants her in place of the wolf’s life (and his friend), because this is the Treaty that humans and the Fae have (a life for a life). Treaty signed many years before, when there was a war between humans and the Fae, which ended with the liberation of the human world and its confinement in the earth to the south of an invisible wall that divides the two worlds.

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Mistborn: The Well of Ascension

LauraLeave a Comment on Mistborn: The Well of Ascension
The Well of Ascension
,

, , Book # 2
Tor Teen
August 21st 2007
Paperback
748
English
October 17, 2019 October 25, 2019

The impossible has happened. The Lord Ruler is dead. But so too is Kelsier the man who masterminded the triumph. The awesome task of rebuilding the world has been left to his protege Vin; a one-time street urchin, now the most powerful Mistborn in the land.

Worryingly for her Vin has become the focus of a new religion, a development that leaves her intensely uneasy. More worryingly still the mists have become unpredictable since the Lord Ruler died and a strage vaprous entity is stalking Vin.

As the siege of Luthadel intensifies the ancient legend of the Well of Ascension offers the only glimmer of hope. But no-one knows where it is or what it can do...

About the book

Second book in Brandon Sanderson’s epic series, Mistborn. Please if you haven’t read the first book stop here. I have to say some things that happened in the first book.

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