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hspindlew's review against another edition
3.75
A little over a solid 3.5 because I just think Roberson is such a deft writer. I've read her books from the 80s on and it's just nice to read someone so assured of their craft they can pretty much do anything
tessisreading2's review against another edition
3.0
This book needed some editing. It has all of Roberson's usual stylistic tics, which I think you just have to adjust to (sentence fragments, HIGH DRAMA, etc.), but sometimes it read as though the paragraphs/chapters had been moved around and no one had thought to correct the problems this caused. For example, we don't get a description of the not-quite-human Shoia until about chapter 3; until then we just know vague things that people think about them, but have no idea what we're actually looking at. We don't get a description of Ilona (age, appearance - any of it) until chapter 11. It makes it hard to get into the book when you feel a little adrift. Additionally, this book has kind of a sequential feel - things are happening but you don't see how they're connected or whether they are necessary to the book/series as a whole. This works well in e.g. the Tiger and Del books, but less so in what seems to be an attempt at a sweeping epic. It reminded me a little of beginning to read Kate Elliott's Crown of Stars series, but where Elliott seems to have a good grasp on her reasoning and purpose for each viewpoint character and storyline, Karavans just felt disjointed. The premise is interesting and once I got into the book I was into it enough that I would have been happy to keep reading, but less-than-stellar reviews for the next two books combined with the fact that the final book of the series still hasn't been published mean that I don't think it's worth the frustration. Sequences frequently end in cliffhangers (some of them pretty egregious - ), and the book itself ends on a giant cliffhanger, too.
Spoiler
e.g. when a character is in the process of being raped - and can I mention how much I wish Roberson would write a book without rape in it?g8girl's review against another edition
3.0
I quite like Jennifer Roberson, however I was actually unable to finish this book. I felt as though the story was dragging and just couldn't get into it. However being hat she is an author I usually enjoy I might give it another chance.
missazane's review against another edition
3.0
Listened to this on audiobook, which I think made it more difficult to follow that’s physical book would have been.
Nice into to the world but felt pretty drawn out.
Nice into to the world but felt pretty drawn out.
circus_of_damned's review against another edition
4.0
It may have taken me forever to read this but that wasn't because it was bad it was because it was just a slow read for me, but was still good. But I won't deny that it wasn't perfect by any means I can find flaws. Some of those are flaws in the timeline and it can be alittle conviluted ad broken at parts like your missing a partof the story. But there are a lot of positives to this story,while it can feel like your missing part of the story this isn't really such a bad thing 99% of the time it makes you feel lik a character in the book not in a characters head of omipitant like in other books, which makes it very diffrent and special from other books that I've never read before. But isn't just the way the story told that diffrent the characters themselves are special and individual and there interactions a treat. Also the old gypsey feel of the story mixed with middle eastern and native american touches makes everything very special individual and diffrent in this book. As can be seen positives out way and out do the negatives. I recommend this book to someone wanting a diffrent and special read that a diffrent and cut above the rest. I can't wait to read second book inthis trilogy.
whiteraven191's review against another edition
3.0
There is a scene of sexual assault in this book for no reason. It doesn't add anything to the characters, it doesn't change any character dynamics. A character who's never been mentioned before tries to rape Ilona out of the blue and then gets killed for it later. The only reason the scene exists, as far as I can tell, is because there was a lull in the narrative. That's not a good reason to put something like that in a book.
Other than that it was a perfectly solid fantasy novel. The world of the karavans was interesting and the constant, looming threat of a magical forest that can pick up and move whenever it wants to was cool.
Other than that it was a perfectly solid fantasy novel. The world of the karavans was interesting and the constant, looming threat of a magical forest that can pick up and move whenever it wants to was cool.
beegurl16's review
2.0
Part of my problem was quite possibly the narrator as I listened to it with Audible. I'm going to read the next one to see if maybe I should give it another try.
terminatee's review
5.0
Wishing I had Roberson's imagination! Interesting characters, and the ending was a real page-turner.
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