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beakerau's review against another edition
2.0
An average attempt at fantasy. The story floats along, with no real sense of direction, and the characters are very one-dimensional.
bookjin's review against another edition
2.0
I really wanted to like Morlock. This book was my introduction to James Enge's work, and the main reason I picked it up was because of the blurb's description of Morlock Ambrosius. He seemed like a compelling character, and this type of storyline is generally right up my alley.
The writing, unfortunately, was hard to get into, and although the plot was interesting enough to keep me turning pages for awhile, it was not particularly engaging. I feel like Enge was trying to accomplish too much in too short a space, and things happened very, very quickly -- not necessarily a bad thing, but in this case, the writing was loose, and character development was left behind in favor of getting the story told. The characters here were one-dimensional, which was a disappointment given how much I was looking forward to them.
I think I'll probably take a look into Enge's short stories. As far as Blood of Ambrose, though, I did find the mix of fantasy elements and the concept of the characters interesting, but they weren't enough on their own to make me finish the book.
The writing, unfortunately, was hard to get into, and although the plot was interesting enough to keep me turning pages for awhile, it was not particularly engaging. I feel like Enge was trying to accomplish too much in too short a space, and things happened very, very quickly -- not necessarily a bad thing, but in this case, the writing was loose, and character development was left behind in favor of getting the story told. The characters here were one-dimensional, which was a disappointment given how much I was looking forward to them.
I think I'll probably take a look into Enge's short stories. As far as Blood of Ambrose, though, I did find the mix of fantasy elements and the concept of the characters interesting, but they weren't enough on their own to make me finish the book.
mferrante83's review against another edition
3.0
I believe that Blood of Ambrose is James Enge’s debut novel; though he was an established body of short fiction. As such about the first quarter of the book was a bit of a rocky start, at least for me, but I stuck with it and I’m very glad I did. Blood of Ambrose opens as King Lathmar flees his own palace to avoid his so-called Protector from there it follow his exploits as he attempts to regain his throne and then consolidate his power over the city of Ontil. It is a bit more than that since, as is revealed early on, Lathmar’s “grandmother” is the ancient sorceress Ambrosia; daughter of Merlin whose brother Morlock is the Master of all Makers and wielder of a cursed magic sword (that curse’s nature is never fully revealed). Pyr is a little better at the “basic” description than I am:
Full review here/
Full review here/
graculus's review
4.0
I've been quite fortunate recently in that my closest charity shop seems to get donations of science fiction and fantasy books I want to read, some of which then get recycled there by me once I'm done with them. This book is another from that source, an unexpectedly good example of the fantasy genre from a writer I hadn't previously heard of...
The basic premise of 'Blood of Ambrose' is that it's the story of two of the children of Merlin and Nimue, who are pretty nigh immortal and have a variety of powers - Ambrosia has been the mistress of a king and her descendants have ruled that kingdom for centuries even as she continues to live among them, while her brother Morlock is something of a bye-word for everything dark and mysterious. When the last of her line is still a child and his future is threatened by the man who's meant to protect both the kingdom and its king, young King Lathmar is forced to flee for his life.
What I really liked about this book, alongside the laconic prose, is that there's clear effort involved to make the main characters three dimensional. It would be easy to make both Ambrosia and Morlock caricatures rather than characters - Morlock in particular manages to escape his own reputation and end up doing things he knows he's probably going to regret, sometimes just because he ought not to do them. We also see Lathmar grow up, both physically and emotionally, to the point where he's ready to take on the role his royal birth has given him.
There are at least two more books already out featuring Morlock - '[b:This Crooked Way|6470948|This Crooked Way (Morlock Ambrosius, #2)|James Enge|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1266713099s/6470948.jpg|6661561]' and '[b:The Wolf Age|8379585|The Wolf Age (Morlock Ambrosius, #3)|James Enge|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1275610094s/8379585.jpg|13235819]' - if they're anything like as good as 'Blood of Ambrose', I'm more than happy to add another author to my list.
The basic premise of 'Blood of Ambrose' is that it's the story of two of the children of Merlin and Nimue, who are pretty nigh immortal and have a variety of powers - Ambrosia has been the mistress of a king and her descendants have ruled that kingdom for centuries even as she continues to live among them, while her brother Morlock is something of a bye-word for everything dark and mysterious. When the last of her line is still a child and his future is threatened by the man who's meant to protect both the kingdom and its king, young King Lathmar is forced to flee for his life.
What I really liked about this book, alongside the laconic prose, is that there's clear effort involved to make the main characters three dimensional. It would be easy to make both Ambrosia and Morlock caricatures rather than characters - Morlock in particular manages to escape his own reputation and end up doing things he knows he's probably going to regret, sometimes just because he ought not to do them. We also see Lathmar grow up, both physically and emotionally, to the point where he's ready to take on the role his royal birth has given him.
There are at least two more books already out featuring Morlock - '[b:This Crooked Way|6470948|This Crooked Way (Morlock Ambrosius, #2)|James Enge|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1266713099s/6470948.jpg|6661561]' and '[b:The Wolf Age|8379585|The Wolf Age (Morlock Ambrosius, #3)|James Enge|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1275610094s/8379585.jpg|13235819]' - if they're anything like as good as 'Blood of Ambrose', I'm more than happy to add another author to my list.
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