The Burning Stone

Can't remember what exactly inspired me to start a re-read of this series but I'm not sorry I did. It's a fantastic medieval European fantasy series (truly a great depiction of a medieval Europe -inspired setting) that feels so real; from the most desperate of war refugees to the daimones of the Upper Spheres to the working economy... Do yourself a favor and read this series if you haven't already.

Liath and Sanglant remain loyal to each other in Book Three but that loyalty costs them pretty much everything else. This doesn't mean as much to Liath since her tenuous safety was wrapped up only in her job but Sanglant is a prince being cast out. The surprising appearance of Liath's mom (Anne) gives them a safe haven but Anne's motives and show more colleagues are not always straightforward or supportive. Sanglant's mom makes an appearance in this one, too, and I admit her mercenary practicality makes her a favorite with me even if she's not exactly admirable in all her dealings.

We also get to welcome some steppe nomads into the mix which always makes me feel at home in an Elliott novel. In this case they are a formidable foe representing yet one more threat to Wendar & Varre. Will Liath understand her power in time to help? Will the royals stop bickering with each other long enough to recognize the threat? show less

Kate Elliott has found her stride with this series. Each book builds on the previous one, deepening characterisations, delineating with absorbing complexity the political and magical interrelationships.

With this book she also adds further dimension by tying in the world's history, and by affording glimpses of other worlds and alien paradigms. Yet she does not lose sight of the concrete details that make her characters live and breathe.

I’m off to start book 4 …

Definitely a mid-series book, there are a lot of things being set up and slowly uncovering things that will change the future. It's interesting but really does not stand alone and to be honest I was lost occasionally because it's been a while since the last book, and it will be a while until I can get around to the next one in the series. But I am curious about what is going to happen to several of the characters and if they will survive the events that are rolling forward towards them.
It's a complex and involving read with several points of view and a lot of politics in this world where women are in many ways held superior to men, it almost feels like Europe but it's different and the magic is complex. People also don't recover from show more trauma quickly and they have echoes for a while.
I do want to know how this resolves. show less

This starts out - well, about two hundred pages in, I think, but it's an eight hundred page book - bringing together threads from the previous volumes to create a credibly intractable knot of conflicts, loyalties, passions, obligations and enmities which shape the various storylines that follow as much as the plot does, then it all goes rocketing off to battles, tragedies, bad marriages, forbidden unions, religious zealotry, magic-learning, magical conspiracies and dark secrets and hidden heritages revealed. Yes, there's a lot and it's still only the third volume in a seven volume series.

The 3rd book in the Crown of Stars series continues where the previous book left off. It goes much deeper into the overall plot of the series, hinted at in the previous books. I enjoyed this book the most of the 3 so far. The main problem with this book is that a decent part of the book is written in italics. I find italics difficult to read, especially when it is pages and pages of it. I often found myself skimming through those parts.

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

The Crown of Stars series is well-thought out and obviously well-planned. It's epic in scope and it's got a lot of texture. There are many complex characters who we follow in parallel, as in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. Some of them are very likable, and there are some really excellent villains (e.g., Hugh). Ms. Elliott's creatures are imaginative and enjoyable, and I especially liked the way they interact with the humans. Ms. Elliott uses a lot of description and therefore her plot moves very slowly (again, similar to WOT).

The writing was inconsistent throughout the series. Sometimes it seems brilliant, but at other times I'd think "why did she tell me that?" or "this could be moving a little show more faster." It's often wordy. Her editor could have almost arbitrarily taken out a third of the sentences with no ill effect. Sometimes she over-explains what a character is feeling or his/her motivation when it would have been better to let the dialog or action speak for the character. Sometimes she tells me something too many times (e.g., "but his voice always sounds like that"). I wonder if the inconsistency is due to different editing processes, because it's not like that in all the books, and even some individual books are internally inconsistent. I thought the fourth book, especially, was not well edited.

The pace of these novels is so slow that I found my self bogged down in the middle of book 5 with not much desire to go on, so I decided to quit. I struggled with that decision because I really did want to find out what happened to the characters, but it was taking me too long to get there and the writing style wasn't good enough to make up for the crawling pace (unlike Wheel of Time).

Overall, these books entertained me for a while, especially the first couple of novels. The plot was interesting and the characterization was particularly notable, but it eventually got too slow. I quit in the middle of book 5.
Read more Kate Elliott book reviews at Fantasy Literature . show less

I grew frustrated by the numerous characters and slow patches, and gave up on the series after this book. I liked many of the characters and the world building, but this series fell into too many of the traps of Epic Fantasy (I'm looking at you, Robert Jordan, Terry Goodkind, and even GRRMartin) for me to perservere. Perhaps someday I'll go back to it.