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3.74 AVERAGE
3.74 AVERAGE
This was Patricia Briggs' first published book, and it shows. The edition that I read had later been edited by Briggs, but it was still fairly mediocre. The story is predictable, although enjoyable, and there's a distinct lack of tension. Even reading the last fifty or so pages, I wasn't drawn in. Important things were happening, but I felt an almost complete emotional disconnect from it. To put it bluntly, the climax of the book was anticlimactic. However, if you're a fan of the Mercy Thompson books, this still might be a worthwhile read, as it contains some of the elements of that series, such as a wolfish love interest and a shape-shifting protagonist.
For me, the best part of the book was seeing all the traditional fantasy elements come together. There's nothing exciting or groundbreaking here, but the elements are varied enough that I got a lot of enjoyment out of them. I also enjoyed the characters, although I felt no particular emotional attachment to them. The villain was suitably evil as well, and the truly reprehensible things he did helped to raise the emotional stakes past what they might have otherwise been.
On the downside, the pacing is pretty bad. There are a lot of scenes where the main character just reads book, and although it advances the plotline, it's not really exciting. As I mentioned earlier, there's no sense of urgency to the end of the book. I keep putting it down and then forcing myself to pick it back up, even though I was only thirty pages from the end, and in the thick of the ending action. Sometimes it feels like the emotions of the characters are just as detached from the plot as mine were; when one of the characters discovers a spell that they believe will be instrumental in defeating the villain, there's no more excitement to them than there was when Aralorn read a particularly interesting folktale.
Overall, I thought this was about what you might expect from a first novel. Pretty mediocre in a lot of ways, but with the seeds of later success.
For me, the best part of the book was seeing all the traditional fantasy elements come together. There's nothing exciting or groundbreaking here, but the elements are varied enough that I got a lot of enjoyment out of them. I also enjoyed the characters, although I felt no particular emotional attachment to them. The villain was suitably evil as well, and the truly reprehensible things he did helped to raise the emotional stakes past what they might have otherwise been.
On the downside, the pacing is pretty bad. There are a lot of scenes where the main character just reads book, and although it advances the plotline, it's not really exciting. As I mentioned earlier, there's no sense of urgency to the end of the book. I keep putting it down and then forcing myself to pick it back up, even though I was only thirty pages from the end, and in the thick of the ending action. Sometimes it feels like the emotions of the characters are just as detached from the plot as mine were; when one of the characters discovers a spell that they believe will be instrumental in defeating the villain, there's no more excitement to them than there was when Aralorn read a particularly interesting folktale.
Overall, I thought this was about what you might expect from a first novel. Pretty mediocre in a lot of ways, but with the seeds of later success.
I feel like I wouldn't have picked this up had I just read a description, but I was stuck waiting somewhere and needed to find whatever ebook I could get from the library. (I still don't like ebooks, but in case of emergency, they'll do.)
The edition I read opens with almost an apology from Patricia Briggs about how it's her first novel and she's pretty embarrassed about it. So maybe that disposed me to expect it to be much worse than it actually is. I don't know enough technical things about writing to describe it, but it felt like it was paced a bit weirdly. Not necessarily weirdly clunky like, say, I remember [b:The Big U|2204615|The Big U|Neal Stephenson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1380170455s/2204615.jpg|1973059] being. But I'm not sure I would've even noticed if I hadn't known that it was the first novel.
Non-cliche fantasy with a female heroine. I approve.
The edition I read opens with almost an apology from Patricia Briggs about how it's her first novel and she's pretty embarrassed about it. So maybe that disposed me to expect it to be much worse than it actually is. I don't know enough technical things about writing to describe it, but it felt like it was paced a bit weirdly. Not necessarily weirdly clunky like, say, I remember [b:The Big U|2204615|The Big U|Neal Stephenson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1380170455s/2204615.jpg|1973059] being. But I'm not sure I would've even noticed if I hadn't known that it was the first novel.
Non-cliche fantasy with a female heroine. I approve.
Masques is Patricia Briggs first writing endeavor and she admits it has flaws. I have read a slightly cleaned up version that got rereleased after the success of her shape shifting coyote woman series. A lot of fans of that series reviewed this was screeching ‘don’t judge her by this book,’ and I’m thinking wow, this book isn’t that bad. It’s your standard swords and sorcery style fantasy book. It’s neither great nor horrible. It does have some very rough patches here and there and maybe it has a bit too much romance for the standard fantasy reader (and not enough romance for the romance reader who likes a touch of fantasy). Overall I enjoyed it well enough.
Aralorn is a half-breed spy and mercenary. She is part human and part shape shifter (if there’s a race name for them I missed it). She can use a little human magic (most humans can in this world) and a little of the ‘green’ magic of the shifters. Her predominate forms are a mouse and a goose. The story opens when she rescues a wolf trapped in a pitfall with an injured leg. The wolf is sentient and then the story cuts to a few years down the road. Aralorn is a captive in the ae’magi’s castle. This man is sort of the leader of the mages by proxy of being the best of them. What the ae’Magi doesn’t know is that Aralorn let herself be captured to spy on him.
Once she returns home, learning that not only is the ae’Magi exquisitely cruel, he might have killed Prince Myr’s parents to secure his own power over Reth. However, when she gets home she learns that the ae’Magi has begun his next power grab and everyone has been magically influenced to love him and she is one of the few immune ones.
She finds others just like her holed up in the caves in the Northland, an area where magic works poorly. Now-King Myr is there, accused of murdering his followers and accompanying him is Wolf. Aralorn throws in with her old friend and the displaced king as they try to find out a way to end the ae’Magi cruel reign and to restore order to the world.
As they work on this, Aralorn, a consummate storyteller, learns more of the history and the stories of their world, learns just who and what Wolf is and they slowly fall in love. It is a source of confusion and distress for the misanthropic Wolf but none of them may live long enough to deal with these newfound emotions.
As I said, overall I liked it. Aralorn is a likeable character, as is Myr. Heck we hardly ever see female leads in a fantasy story so that was nice. Yes, she naturally gets captured for real at one point but at least she went down fighting as opposed to just standing there waiting for it. Wolf is interesting, if a bit harder to like.
Problems, yes there were a few. Sometimes the writing is a bit choppy and occasionally confusing. For instance, I had no idea Wolf had a human form and when it happened that Aralorn encounters him in that form several chapters in, it’s like huh? He’s human…oh he’s an advanced shape shifter. Okay, a little warning might have been nice but in retrospect I should have known. There were a couple places like that where I had to go back and reread to see if I missed something. The ending is rushed. It’s a bit obvious Briggs isn’t comfortable (at least at this early point in her career) writing fight scenes. They weren’t all they could be especially the final battle. Still, if you like fantasy, you’ll probably like this.
Aralorn is a half-breed spy and mercenary. She is part human and part shape shifter (if there’s a race name for them I missed it). She can use a little human magic (most humans can in this world) and a little of the ‘green’ magic of the shifters. Her predominate forms are a mouse and a goose. The story opens when she rescues a wolf trapped in a pitfall with an injured leg. The wolf is sentient and then the story cuts to a few years down the road. Aralorn is a captive in the ae’magi’s castle. This man is sort of the leader of the mages by proxy of being the best of them. What the ae’Magi doesn’t know is that Aralorn let herself be captured to spy on him.
Once she returns home, learning that not only is the ae’Magi exquisitely cruel, he might have killed Prince Myr’s parents to secure his own power over Reth. However, when she gets home she learns that the ae’Magi has begun his next power grab and everyone has been magically influenced to love him and she is one of the few immune ones.
She finds others just like her holed up in the caves in the Northland, an area where magic works poorly. Now-King Myr is there, accused of murdering his followers and accompanying him is Wolf. Aralorn throws in with her old friend and the displaced king as they try to find out a way to end the ae’Magi cruel reign and to restore order to the world.
As they work on this, Aralorn, a consummate storyteller, learns more of the history and the stories of their world, learns just who and what Wolf is and they slowly fall in love. It is a source of confusion and distress for the misanthropic Wolf but none of them may live long enough to deal with these newfound emotions.
As I said, overall I liked it. Aralorn is a likeable character, as is Myr. Heck we hardly ever see female leads in a fantasy story so that was nice. Yes, she naturally gets captured for real at one point but at least she went down fighting as opposed to just standing there waiting for it. Wolf is interesting, if a bit harder to like.
Problems, yes there were a few. Sometimes the writing is a bit choppy and occasionally confusing. For instance, I had no idea Wolf had a human form and when it happened that Aralorn encounters him in that form several chapters in, it’s like huh? He’s human…oh he’s an advanced shape shifter. Okay, a little warning might have been nice but in retrospect I should have known. There were a couple places like that where I had to go back and reread to see if I missed something. The ending is rushed. It’s a bit obvious Briggs isn’t comfortable (at least at this early point in her career) writing fight scenes. They weren’t all they could be especially the final battle. Still, if you like fantasy, you’ll probably like this.
Clearly this is her 1st novel. It has some rough edges and the editing isn't superb, but her talent for engaging readers is already evident. A fun and interesting fantasy novel. If you like classic fantasy, you should enjoy it.
** Note: This novel is an updated edition of Patricia Briggs first book. It includes an introduction by the author herself explaining the updated edition. **
I’m a huge Briggs fan and wanted to try out her other works. I love her Urban Fantasy series Alpha & Omega along with Mercy Thompson. This is nothing like those series. This is high Fantasy. We are treated to action, intrigue, mercenaries, mages, wizards, shape-sifters and engaging characters. All of this made it a highly entertaining story to listen to and I can’t wait to pick up the next.
Masques is the first book in the Sianim series and the first in Aralorn.
Aralorn is a mercenary with a bit of magic, who rescued a Wolf. She’s got magical gifts that make her a great spy/mercenary. Her latest mission takes her to a powerful mages house to spy and learn of an attempted assassination, but what she discovers is much worse. So, Aralorn sets off on her adventure with a mysterious shape-shifting wolf and a young king who is impervious to magic to fight against the evil that wants to control the world. I enjoyed Aralorn. She cleaver, skilled, and compassionate. She has depth, courage, and is an engaging heroine. She likes to go her own way and work alone, but knows this time she is ill-equipped to do it alone.
Wolf is an interesting puzzles. Who is he? Is he a man, a wizard, or is he more? His past is not good and we learn about him and who he is. I loved Wolf. He’s so complexed. His past is slowly revealed and he must face it; before he can move on. He also must learn to trust.
WOW, the world is vast and in-depth. Their’s a lot of storytelling and information to digest. The lore and legend is beautifully weaved into the story and they play a strong role in helping Aralorn and her friends against the evil taking over the world.
I was captivated and devoured this novel from the first to the last word. The storytelling was wonderful, but also a bit overwhelming at times. Their is also a dose of romance, but the fantasy, action, and intrigue take up the story.
Narration: Katherine Kellgren did a fabulous job with her narration. The story is mainly in Aralorn’s view, but we do get Wolf and a few others. The storytelling was majestic and the fight scenes were great. The voices where nice and distinctive. I have to say I’m glad I listened. If I’d read I would have been to overwhelmed. Not saying I wasn’t, but I digested it better in this formate.
Rated: 4.5 Stars
I’m a huge Briggs fan and wanted to try out her other works. I love her Urban Fantasy series Alpha & Omega along with Mercy Thompson. This is nothing like those series. This is high Fantasy. We are treated to action, intrigue, mercenaries, mages, wizards, shape-sifters and engaging characters. All of this made it a highly entertaining story to listen to and I can’t wait to pick up the next.
Masques is the first book in the Sianim series and the first in Aralorn.
Aralorn is a mercenary with a bit of magic, who rescued a Wolf. She’s got magical gifts that make her a great spy/mercenary. Her latest mission takes her to a powerful mages house to spy and learn of an attempted assassination, but what she discovers is much worse. So, Aralorn sets off on her adventure with a mysterious shape-shifting wolf and a young king who is impervious to magic to fight against the evil that wants to control the world. I enjoyed Aralorn. She cleaver, skilled, and compassionate. She has depth, courage, and is an engaging heroine. She likes to go her own way and work alone, but knows this time she is ill-equipped to do it alone.
Wolf is an interesting puzzles. Who is he? Is he a man, a wizard, or is he more? His past is not good and we learn about him and who he is. I loved Wolf. He’s so complexed. His past is slowly revealed and he must face it; before he can move on. He also must learn to trust.
WOW, the world is vast and in-depth. Their’s a lot of storytelling and information to digest. The lore and legend is beautifully weaved into the story and they play a strong role in helping Aralorn and her friends against the evil taking over the world.
I was captivated and devoured this novel from the first to the last word. The storytelling was wonderful, but also a bit overwhelming at times. Their is also a dose of romance, but the fantasy, action, and intrigue take up the story.
Narration: Katherine Kellgren did a fabulous job with her narration. The story is mainly in Aralorn’s view, but we do get Wolf and a few others. The storytelling was majestic and the fight scenes were great. The voices where nice and distinctive. I have to say I’m glad I listened. If I’d read I would have been to overwhelmed. Not saying I wasn’t, but I digested it better in this formate.
Rated: 4.5 Stars
This first novel by Briggs makes a fascinating comparison to the updated version, published in the Fall 2010. Largely rewritten on the same framework, it provides a wealth of insight into Briggs' maturation as an author!
My original review related to the 1993 edition of Masques, which was Briggs' first published novel. The new edition, entirely rewritten based on the same framework, is the re-edit of a wonderful story by a much more skilled and experienced author writing almost 20 years after the work was first published.
Reading the two side by side offers a fascinating look into the maturing of an author's talent and well-honed hand with narrative.
Reading the two side by side offers a fascinating look into the maturing of an author's talent and well-honed hand with narrative.
This was my second time reading this great book. Another wonderful example of PB's amazing story telling.
This is very much like many of Ms. Briggs' other pre-Mercy stories. Considering this is her first story, it's quite good. A glimpse into her seemingly limitless imagination. There was a bit of a love story between the two main characters, but as with many of Ms. Briggs' stories, it's all quite chaste. Murmured I-love-yous and fade-to-black. But it was still a very interesting story.