Percepliquis

Riyria Revelations #6

Michael Sullivan

5 Stars

Everything wraps up nicely. A dramatic buildup AND a happy ending.

And none of this “I’m happy, so somebody somewhere must be getting a knife in the back to compensate” angst.

Percepliquis was exciting. It was tense. And while critics and others might have analyzed things and realized things before I did, I had a great trip of discovery.

Man, I am SO glad the SFBC carries these in hardcover. They are a story worth being in hardcover!

And I would like to thank Liviu for introducing me to this series with his review of the first book, the Crown Conspiracy.

So, Michael Sullivan, Thanks! It has been a great ride and I hope to be privileged enough to read more stories by you in the future.

Wintertide

Riyria Revelations #5

Michael Sullivan

4 Stars

A very good addition to the Riyria Revelations series. [do you know difficult it is to remember how to spell Riyria everytime? I usually try about 4 different ways, then give up and copy and paste :)]

This definitely was a much tenser books than the previous 4. Where the other ones were more happy go lucky and madcap capers, this felt tighter, darker and a bit more serious. I didn’t get the feeling that everything was going to turn out ok somehow in the end, like the others.

Now I can’t wait for the final book. And I can’t wait to see what the Boojum actually is…

The Emerald Storm

Riyria Revelations #4

Michael Sullivan

4 Stars

Nice to read a story in which Hadrian and Roy aren’t all powerful 🙂 Really enjoyed this. However, the vague hints of impending doom concern me [since we only have 2 books left]. Looking forward to see how the author pulls it off.

yet another rollicking chapter in the Riyria Revelations tale. Royce and Hadrian get their butts kicked, only they don’t realize it until near the end of the book. Was good to see that they weren’t all powerful characters with no weaknesses. Vague hints portend some horrible Event in the near future, which with only 2 books to go, makes me kind of nervous. The only bad thing I have to say about this was the formatting of the file itself, not the story. There were numerous [over 10] cases where words were kind of piled into eachother, ie, “He would have loto hurt him some” which translated would be “He would have loved to hurt him some”. Also, there were orphan html commands, notably paragraph or line break commands. Will buy another copy sometime and see if it is a store thing or just a bad release by the author/publisher.

Nyphron Rising

Riyria Revelations #3

Michael Sullivan

5 Stars

Splits the story between the empress [who is a puppet:] and Royce and Adrian. The New Empire is taking over, with long term planning help from the Nyphron church. Several revelations are made about the past, and future, of Royce and Hadrian and the true Heir is revealed. Esrahaddon shows his conniving wizardly ways and you still don’t know if he should be trusted, simply because his agenda is unclear. The empress’s story was nicely done. She has gone into a moving coma practically, so the story is really more about a serving maid who draws her out and makes her want to live again. Gave a nice touch and contrasted nicely with the devious scheming of the church.

Avempartha

Riyria Revelations #2

Michael Sullivan

4 Stars

Taking place half a year or so after Crown Conspiracy. The 2 thieves get roped into helping a village being destroyed by a magical construct left over from the man/elf wars. Esrahaddon is involved, the Nyphron church gets involved and a young girl from the village ends up being declared the Empress of the New Empire. I thought this was a good stepping stone up from the previous novel. It was fast paced, exciting and I had a good time reading it. I was very glad that I had the next book available though. The pacing lent itself to reading very fast, without a break.

The Crown Conspiracy

Riyria Revelations #1

Michael Sullivan

4 Stars

A king is killed, 2 scoundrels blamed, a prince kidnapped, a princess indicted, a rogue magician let loose after 1000 years, and a royal uncle with a thirst for power.

All come together in this engaging tale and it even ends happily. It is very obvious that this is the start of a series [6 books in fact, stated by the author], so some of the elements are more setup than storytelling, but overall, a nice light medieval era magic’ish novel.