Scan barcode
dathan's review against another edition
3.0
Finally Nest has hit her stride. As a twenty-nine year-old, she's a little careworn, a little sad, and a lot more complete a human being. In A Knight of the Word I couldn't help but wonder why she hadn't practiced her magic more; as a tender of the forest, shouldn't it be her duty to develop the talent that makes her fit for that purpose? Here, she has good reason to fear her talent -- because it risks releasing the demon within. But some demons must be confronted eventually...
The demon quartet in this book never felt all that real to me. Only Findo Gask really had any depth -- Twitch and the Ur'droch barely play bit parts, and Penny Dreadful just came across as a slightly psychopathic bimbo, not the deeply disturbed and dangerously unstable timebomb she was supposed to be.
A real weakness of this book is Nest's relationship with other people. We see that she's civic-minded and active, and well-loved by at least Robert, but we see deeper relationships between her and Bennett Scott or John Ross and Josie than between Nest and any of the people she lives around. She's supposed to be lonely -- never quite fitting in with or around people -- but given how friendly the few acquaintances she has are, it just evokes a feeling of shallowness in the book, rather than a feeling of deep and abiding loneliness in her life.
It's probably telling that I basically forgot to write about the gypsy morph until right now. The little boy has no presence, and when we finally see the morph's true form and how happy Nest is about it, it just feels hollow -- I can't feel invested in their relationship or how it ends.
It's the plot and a few moments of really deep feeling that drive this book. A worthy read, but not one that'll go at the front of my queue to read again.
The demon quartet in this book never felt all that real to me. Only Findo Gask really had any depth -- Twitch and the Ur'droch barely play bit parts, and Penny Dreadful just came across as a slightly psychopathic bimbo, not the deeply disturbed and dangerously unstable timebomb she was supposed to be.
A real weakness of this book is Nest's relationship with other people. We see that she's civic-minded and active, and well-loved by at least Robert, but we see deeper relationships between her and Bennett Scott or John Ross and Josie than between Nest and any of the people she lives around. She's supposed to be lonely -- never quite fitting in with or around people -- but given how friendly the few acquaintances she has are, it just evokes a feeling of shallowness in the book, rather than a feeling of deep and abiding loneliness in her life.
It's probably telling that I basically forgot to write about the gypsy morph until right now. The little boy has no presence, and when we finally see the morph's true form and how happy Nest is about it, it just feels hollow -- I can't feel invested in their relationship or how it ends.
It's the plot and a few moments of really deep feeling that drive this book. A worthy read, but not one that'll go at the front of my queue to read again.
hotsake's review against another edition
3.0
A disappointing and unsatisfying ending to the trilogy.
boleary30's review against another edition
4.0
Decent end to the trilogy, where the first book, Running with the Demon, was incredible.
kleo11's review against another edition
2.0
Waaaaay to long for all the things that happen in the story.
vaderbird's review against another edition
4.0
5 star - Perfect
4 star - i would recommend
3 star - good
2 star - struggled to complete
1 star - could not finish
4 star - i would recommend
3 star - good
2 star - struggled to complete
1 star - could not finish
camscampbell's review against another edition
3.0
Not bad as a fantasy trilogy for walking the dogs. It reads very much like a Stephen King novel, although he'd have made the trilogy into one big ass book. The character of Pick really annoyed me, but the concept of the gypsy morph was pretty cool and I'm looking forward to seeing what becomes of it, knowing as I do that that's the title of a later-written book.