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mellhay's review against another edition
4.0
For a day, a night, and a day slave Gereint hide in the two story deep basement while the desert claimed the newly abandoned city of Melentser, hoping to lose the geas connection he felt to his master. On the second night Gereint sat in the broken sandy city and watched the sun set. As he did, he saw the bright griffins fly over him. Feeling no pull on his geas, Gereint heads North East, opposite of the other refugees and his master. Only to fall under geas to another man and see more griffins fly by.
We start off with a whole new story. We follow Gereint through his journey after the destruction of Melentser. We learn more of his life, how he fell into the trap of slavery of the geas. But most of all, we learn of the person Gereint is. I started to understand more of the country Calmantium. If you read the first book, you will remember this is the country where the Griffins first resided, and now have come home.
Through the book you get the feel for how the people and Cold Mage are apposed to the griffins. In more than just dislike. Their is a deeper feeling that these two different magics don't mix very well, and this is shown to you through the acts and feelings of the characters. I learned more of the Cold Mage and of the Makers that are from Calmantium.
This book struck me as it could be read on its own, not having to have read the first book in the trilogy since we are placed in Calmantium instead of Feierabiand and the story doesn't revolve majorly on the happenings of the first book. I felt this book was a story of its own. We do start to touch on the happenings in Lord of Changing Winds around page 72, but remember the people of Calmantium really don't know what happened in Feierabiand, and what you need to know for this story is given to you.
I didn't interact much with the griffins in this read. They are a constant and are visual through the book. But not much interaction between the characters and griffins until close to the end of the book. In this way there is some suspense built to wonder what they are doing and what will happen.
Along with the griffins there is a few characters who come back in this one. The one main character, which I enjoyed in Lord of the Changing Winds, was Lord Bertaud. And we have many new characters. I came to enjoy these new characters very much by the end of the book.
In all I enjoyed this read and will look for the third book of this trilogy. A wonderful classic fantasy style with a new element...griffins.
We start off with a whole new story. We follow Gereint through his journey after the destruction of Melentser. We learn more of his life, how he fell into the trap of slavery of the geas. But most of all, we learn of the person Gereint is. I started to understand more of the country Calmantium. If you read the first book, you will remember this is the country where the Griffins first resided, and now have come home.
Through the book you get the feel for how the people and Cold Mage are apposed to the griffins. In more than just dislike. Their is a deeper feeling that these two different magics don't mix very well, and this is shown to you through the acts and feelings of the characters. I learned more of the Cold Mage and of the Makers that are from Calmantium.
This book struck me as it could be read on its own, not having to have read the first book in the trilogy since we are placed in Calmantium instead of Feierabiand and the story doesn't revolve majorly on the happenings of the first book. I felt this book was a story of its own. We do start to touch on the happenings in Lord of Changing Winds around page 72, but remember the people of Calmantium really don't know what happened in Feierabiand, and what you need to know for this story is given to you.
I didn't interact much with the griffins in this read. They are a constant and are visual through the book. But not much interaction between the characters and griffins until close to the end of the book. In this way there is some suspense built to wonder what they are doing and what will happen.
Along with the griffins there is a few characters who come back in this one. The one main character, which I enjoyed in Lord of the Changing Winds, was Lord Bertaud. And we have many new characters. I came to enjoy these new characters very much by the end of the book.
In all I enjoyed this read and will look for the third book of this trilogy. A wonderful classic fantasy style with a new element...griffins.
jesslynh's review against another edition
3.0
I loved the 1st book, but am finding that this one has middle-book syndrome. Perhaps i'm not far enough into it, but I've put it down for now.
And obviously picked it up again at the right time. There IS a bit of middle book syndrome, but it's well worth plodding thru the 'set up for finale' pieces. If you're gonna do the series, wait for the final book since it's so close to release, as now I'm desperate to know what happens.
And obviously picked it up again at the right time. There IS a bit of middle book syndrome, but it's well worth plodding thru the 'set up for finale' pieces. If you're gonna do the series, wait for the final book since it's so close to release, as now I'm desperate to know what happens.
raeanne's review against another edition
4.0
I read and LOVED Neumeier's Black Dog and am going through her earlier work.
I read these back to back and now it's all kind of blurred together. Only less than usual because this is so different than typical YA trilogies--in the best way. It follows different character POVs each book and there's quite a gap of time between them.
Can't lie, griffins have never really appealed to me before. I love these flying magic cats though!
Love the unique world building with the different magic. Not just the griffin's are different, but the mages and how the countries use them.
AND!!!! There's no threats of rape, insulting base groups of people, or a myriad of other unpleasantries we take as a given. These are pretty decent people all around that we get to follow. There's antagonists, and an overarching plot of villainy, but most people are just doing the best they can. Instead of 50 shades of dark grey-black like in Game of Thrones, we get the lighter end of the spectrum. Which is honestly such a fucking pleasure and relief to read.
Book #1: Swept me away. Love Kes, her family, and Bertrand. The griffins are Set in Fierabiand. There seems to be crushing involved, but not much else. It's all about freedom, and friends, and doing the right thing, which is more complicated than people like to think.
Book #2: Threw me for a loop! Set in Casmantium. We find out so much more about their magic, their ice mages, their king, and society. Bertrand is involved like halfway through and we see Kes in the very end. But the main POV's are two nobodies, who are something else. Great love story too! Slow burn, friends to lovers, nothing on the page but the adorable falling.
Book #3: I thought I was prepared after the second book. I was not. Set in Feierabiand and Casmantium, with secret rescue mission to Linularinum. Find out quite a bit about Linularinum and their lawyer-scholar-trickster magic. Again, main POVs are two previous unknowns with different magic than before. Shows the harm critical demeaning family and an MC overcoming anxiety & self-doubt from it. Another slow burn adorable falling in love romance. We get true updates on everybody.
I was NOT expecting the ending each time, and I loved them all.
The German covers are so much better though.
I read these back to back and now it's all kind of blurred together. Only less than usual because this is so different than typical YA trilogies--in the best way. It follows different character POVs each book and there's quite a gap of time between them.
Can't lie, griffins have never really appealed to me before. I love these flying magic cats though!
Love the unique world building with the different magic. Not just the griffin's are different, but the mages and how the countries use them.
AND!!!! There's no threats of rape, insulting base groups of people, or a myriad of other unpleasantries we take as a given. These are pretty decent people all around that we get to follow. There's antagonists, and an overarching plot of villainy, but most people are just doing the best they can. Instead of 50 shades of dark grey-black like in Game of Thrones, we get the lighter end of the spectrum. Which is honestly such a fucking pleasure and relief to read.
Book #1: Swept me away. Love Kes, her family, and Bertrand. The griffins are Set in Fierabiand. There seems to be crushing involved, but not much else. It's all about freedom, and friends, and doing the right thing, which is more complicated than people like to think.
Book #2: Threw me for a loop! Set in Casmantium. We find out so much more about their magic, their ice mages, their king, and society. Bertrand is involved like halfway through and we see Kes in the very end. But the main POV's are two nobodies, who are something else. Great love story too! Slow burn, friends to lovers, nothing on the page but the adorable falling.
Book #3: I thought I was prepared after the second book. I was not. Set in Feierabiand and Casmantium, with secret rescue mission to Linularinum. Find out quite a bit about Linularinum and their lawyer-scholar-trickster magic. Again, main POVs are two previous unknowns with different magic than before. Shows the harm critical demeaning family and an MC overcoming anxiety & self-doubt from it. Another slow burn adorable falling in love romance. We get true updates on everybody.
I was NOT expecting the ending each time, and I loved them all.
The German covers are so much better though.
wordnerdy's review against another edition
3.0
http://wordnerdy.blogspot.com/2014/03/2014-book-67.html
brokebybooks's review
4.0
I read and LOVED Neumeier's Black Dog and am going through her earlier work.
I read these back to back and now it's all kind of blurred together. Only less than usual because this is so different than typical YA trilogies--in the best way. It follows different character POVs each book and there's quite a gap of time between them.
Can't lie, griffins have never really appealed to me before. I love these flying magic cats though!
Love the unique world building with the different magic. Not just the griffin's are different, but the mages and how the countries use them.
AND!!!! There's no threats of rape, insulting base groups of people, or a myriad of other unpleasantries we take as a given. These are pretty decent people all around that we get to follow. There's antagonists, and an overarching plot of villainy, but most people are just doing the best they can. Instead of 50 shades of dark grey-black like in Game of Thrones, we get the lighter end of the spectrum. Which is honestly such a fucking pleasure and relief to read.
Book #1: Swept me away. Love Kes, her family, and Bertrand. The griffins are Set in Fierabiand. There seems to be crushing involved, but not much else. It's all about freedom, and friends, and doing the right thing, which is more complicated than people like to think.
Book #2: Threw me for a loop! Set in Casmantium. We find out so much more about their magic, their ice mages, their king, and society. Bertrand is involved like halfway through and we see Kes in the very end. But the main POV's are two nobodies, who are something else. Great love story too! Slow burn, friends to lovers, nothing on the page but the adorable falling.
Book #3: I thought I was prepared after the second book. I was not. Set in Feierabiand and Casmantium, with secret rescue mission to Linularinum. Find out quite a bit about Linularinum and their lawyer-scholar-trickster magic. Again, main POVs are two previous unknowns with different magic than before. Shows the harm critical demeaning family and an MC overcoming anxiety & self-doubt from it. Another slow burn adorable falling in love romance. We get true updates on everybody.
I was NOT expecting the ending each time, and I loved them all.
The German covers are so much better though.
I read these back to back and now it's all kind of blurred together. Only less than usual because this is so different than typical YA trilogies--in the best way. It follows different character POVs each book and there's quite a gap of time between them.
Can't lie, griffins have never really appealed to me before. I love these flying magic cats though!
Love the unique world building with the different magic. Not just the griffin's are different, but the mages and how the countries use them.
AND!!!! There's no threats of rape, insulting base groups of people, or a myriad of other unpleasantries we take as a given. These are pretty decent people all around that we get to follow. There's antagonists, and an overarching plot of villainy, but most people are just doing the best they can. Instead of 50 shades of dark grey-black like in Game of Thrones, we get the lighter end of the spectrum. Which is honestly such a fucking pleasure and relief to read.
Book #1: Swept me away. Love Kes, her family, and Bertrand. The griffins are Set in Fierabiand. There seems to be crushing involved, but not much else. It's all about freedom, and friends, and doing the right thing, which is more complicated than people like to think.
Book #2: Threw me for a loop! Set in Casmantium. We find out so much more about their magic, their ice mages, their king, and society. Bertrand is involved like halfway through and we see Kes in the very end. But the main POV's are two nobodies, who are something else. Great love story too! Slow burn, friends to lovers, nothing on the page but the adorable falling.
Book #3: I thought I was prepared after the second book. I was not. Set in Feierabiand and Casmantium, with secret rescue mission to Linularinum. Find out quite a bit about Linularinum and their lawyer-scholar-trickster magic. Again, main POVs are two previous unknowns with different magic than before. Shows the harm critical demeaning family and an MC overcoming anxiety & self-doubt from it. Another slow burn adorable falling in love romance. We get true updates on everybody.
I was NOT expecting the ending each time, and I loved them all.
The German covers are so much better though.
ireadthebooks's review
3.0
Part of what I like about this series is that while the books build on one another, they’re set in different countries and focus on different characters, so I can review this one without giving away the last one. I love it when a plan comes together! Moving on.
Burning Sands takes us to Casmantium and a man named Gereint. For crimes committed twenty years past, Gereint is geas bound – a particular kind of cold magic that enables someone to bind him and forces Gereint to follow their commands. Gereint attempts to escape his cruel master and go to Feierabiand, where the magic of the geas is neutralized. He doesn’t make it, and instead finds himself indebted to a Casmantian judge. The judge tells him about a man who may be able to help him remove the geas rings that keep him bound … but the man is in Bredichboden, the one place most dangerous for him to go.
Whereas book one focused on the magic of calling animals, and the antipathy between earth and fire magic, here Neuemeier delved more deeply into the magic of Casmantium, called “making.” (The third book investigates the magic of Linularium, called “legistry” and having to do with the binding magical properties of written law.) Gereint is a talented Maker – he can persuade a knife to hold an edge or a failing horseshoe to hold together through the end of his journey. He’s skilled at building things with his hands and is extremely intelligent and well-read. I liked that Neuemeier waited to bring Making into the story. Waiting to bring this in reinforced the fullness of Neuemeier’s world-building: this world is just too full and detailed to explain everything at once. I also thought it was interesting how the magic was tied to geographical regions and the inhabitants there. I wondered (and still wonder) what would happen in the event of intermarriage between gifted persons of each nation.
On the whole, I thought the plot and characterization were strong. Tehre, a new character, was charmingly absent-minded, highly intelligent, and a perfect foil for Gereint’s own curiosity and intelligence. After book 1, I was inclined to dislike the cold mage Beguchren, simply because Kes had antipathy for his cold magic. In Burning Sands, we see that he’s a much more complex character, and as Gereint figures out whether or not to trust him, I was doing the same because of the lingering distrust from book 1. I felt that was well done on Neuemeier’s part, to build that into book 1 and then dissect it in book 2. And of course, the trouble with the griffins isn’t quite as over as they thought it would be, and Bertaud and Kairaithin factor heavily in the plot.
The writing and prose were still excellent, and Neuemeier’s descriptive language consistently reminds me of Robin McKinley. She did allow Gereint and Tehre to ramble about psychics and technical questions several times, to the degree that I started skipping entire paragraphs of Tehre’s musings. While this was consistent with Tehre’s character, as a non-technically-inclined reader, I was bored and would’ve benefitted more from a line or two about “Tehre did some math and thought about physics while distractedly eating a muffin.”
On the whole, it was another strong read from Neuemeier. I definitely recommend the trilogy if you like fantasy! 3.5 stars!
Burning Sands takes us to Casmantium and a man named Gereint. For crimes committed twenty years past, Gereint is geas bound – a particular kind of cold magic that enables someone to bind him and forces Gereint to follow their commands. Gereint attempts to escape his cruel master and go to Feierabiand, where the magic of the geas is neutralized. He doesn’t make it, and instead finds himself indebted to a Casmantian judge. The judge tells him about a man who may be able to help him remove the geas rings that keep him bound … but the man is in Bredichboden, the one place most dangerous for him to go.
Whereas book one focused on the magic of calling animals, and the antipathy between earth and fire magic, here Neuemeier delved more deeply into the magic of Casmantium, called “making.” (The third book investigates the magic of Linularium, called “legistry” and having to do with the binding magical properties of written law.) Gereint is a talented Maker – he can persuade a knife to hold an edge or a failing horseshoe to hold together through the end of his journey. He’s skilled at building things with his hands and is extremely intelligent and well-read. I liked that Neuemeier waited to bring Making into the story. Waiting to bring this in reinforced the fullness of Neuemeier’s world-building: this world is just too full and detailed to explain everything at once. I also thought it was interesting how the magic was tied to geographical regions and the inhabitants there. I wondered (and still wonder) what would happen in the event of intermarriage between gifted persons of each nation.
On the whole, I thought the plot and characterization were strong. Tehre, a new character, was charmingly absent-minded, highly intelligent, and a perfect foil for Gereint’s own curiosity and intelligence. After book 1, I was inclined to dislike the cold mage Beguchren, simply because Kes had antipathy for his cold magic. In Burning Sands, we see that he’s a much more complex character, and as Gereint figures out whether or not to trust him, I was doing the same because of the lingering distrust from book 1. I felt that was well done on Neuemeier’s part, to build that into book 1 and then dissect it in book 2. And of course, the trouble with the griffins isn’t quite as over as they thought it would be, and Bertaud and Kairaithin factor heavily in the plot.
The writing and prose were still excellent, and Neuemeier’s descriptive language consistently reminds me of Robin McKinley. She did allow Gereint and Tehre to ramble about psychics and technical questions several times, to the degree that I started skipping entire paragraphs of Tehre’s musings. While this was consistent with Tehre’s character, as a non-technically-inclined reader, I was bored and would’ve benefitted more from a line or two about “Tehre did some math and thought about physics while distractedly eating a muffin.”
On the whole, it was another strong read from Neuemeier. I definitely recommend the trilogy if you like fantasy! 3.5 stars!
panxa's review
4.0
I liked this one much better than the first in the series, mostly because I really liked Gereint and Tehre. The griffin issues seems pretty settled, so it will be interesting to see what book three brings.
kvalenagle's review
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.0
Without spoiling anything, if you left Lord of Changing Winds wanting more gryphons and more Kes, you're in for a disappointment. This isn't a Kes story. You won't get any gryphon points of view. They're more background characters. So if you're just reading for gryphons, you may want to stop with the last book.
That said, I'm not saying this is a bad book. At once, it feels both like a standalone that just happens to take place in the same world as Changing Winds and also like a book that examines the terrible implications of how the first book ended. Too often, fantasy endings are left unexamined. What are the real consequences for the ending of Changing Winds? Well, we find out here.
So if you want more of the world and enjoy unintended consequences, definitely pick up this book! If you were only reading for Kes and the series-titular gryphon mage, you're only going to get a couple of pages.
For me, personally, I was reading for Kes and the gryphons. I was hoping Rachel Neumeier would turn her talents towards the two of them, so this book was a let down for me when I read it. I don't think that's the author's fault. Her writing is great, and the '90s fantasy intro pacing problems of the first book didn't really bother me here. It's just that she did such an amazing job with Kes in the last book that it broke my heart not to get any time back in Kes's PoV in this one. The one character I didn't want more time with from book 1 is the only real recurring character for book 2.
That said, I'm not saying this is a bad book. At once, it feels both like a standalone that just happens to take place in the same world as Changing Winds and also like a book that examines the terrible implications of how the first book ended. Too often, fantasy endings are left unexamined. What are the real consequences for the ending of Changing Winds? Well, we find out here.
So if you want more of the world and enjoy unintended consequences, definitely pick up this book! If you were only reading for Kes and the series-titular gryphon mage, you're only going to get a couple of pages.
For me, personally, I was reading for Kes and the gryphons. I was hoping Rachel Neumeier would turn her talents towards the two of them, so this book was a let down for me when I read it. I don't think that's the author's fault. Her writing is great, and the '90s fantasy intro pacing problems of the first book didn't really bother me here. It's just that she did such an amazing job with Kes in the last book that it broke my heart not to get any time back in Kes's PoV in this one. The one character I didn't want more time with from book 1 is the only real recurring character for book 2.
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