Queen of Fire: A Raven's Shadow Novel

I rarely post reviews, so I don't know the etiquette regarding potential spoilers. So, if anyone actually reads this, proceed at your own peril!I was very disappointed in Queen of Fire. Blood Song was a very good story, centered around a very compelling character in Vaelin. We met him as a young child and accompanied him as he grew to adulthood. We watched him learn of his gift and saw his awareness and control over it steadily evolve even into the second book, Tower Lord.After a book and a half spent developing the power and scope of Vaelin's gift, can I be blamed for thinking the author was building it up for some major plot purpose? But, no, instead we read how Vaelin essentially burned out his gift by over-using it in one battle. Even then, his use of it didn't seem to have very major impact -- he pretty much used it to break an opening through a battle line and then, with the aid of several thousand warriors, he fought to the center of the city to rescue his "sister" Reva. Kind of neat, I guess, but other characters throughout the second and third books seemed able to do as well without any gift at all. Reva, Frentis, Davoka, Rensial -- all seemed invincible in fighting no matter the odds. Same as Vaelin.But Vaelin's gift was so essential a component of the first two books, I felt certain he would regain his powers in the final book. I kept waiting for one of the mystical people he met along the way, in particular the shaman Wise Bear, to restore his gift. Never happens. Much is made over Vaelin being the Raven's Shadow of ancient prophecy, come to save the Wolf people of the Ice. But what does he do for them? Arrange battle lines and not much more. Vaelin becomes an afterthought to the plot in the third book, even showing up late to rescue Reva the second time around.There are plenty of other plot holes, some hastily patched and some not, in an effort to wrap up the story. In sum, a trilogy that started with a bang ended with a whimper. I haven't been this disappointed in how a promising first book fizzled into drivel since reading Terry Goodkind's "Wizard's First Rule" series (the only book series to date that I sincerely regret finishing).

Really well developed story!Seems a bit rushed at the end. This book could have been made into 3 more, but still very entertaining series. Enjoyable

Its hard to believe this book was written by the same author as Blood Song. The first book is one of the best books I've ever read and Queen of Fire is probably the worst book I've ever read. And this is a statement I take no joy saying. I really wanted this book to be at least great, but it felt like 3 separate stoy lines happening that never really merged or overlapped in a meaningful way. The ending was disappointing and took way to long to get there.This was a tough read and took me 2 months to finish. Which is a loooong time for me. I just was never motivated to keep reading because the quality of the story and the treatment of the characters progressively just got worse. I could barely put down Blood Song and I would stay away from this book for days before picking it back up again.There are already lots of well earned negative reviews for this book, so there is no need for me to pile on. I'll just say, I agree with them all.I hope The Wolf's Call goes back to the quality of Blood Song. Tower Lord and Queen of Fire really spoiled and wasted all the amazing potential of Blood Song by abandoning all that made it great.

I really enjoyed this series. I hesitated to read book 2 & 3 because some reviewers didn’t like them as much as book 1. I enjoyed the second two books in the series as much as the first.

I ended up being disappointed by this book. I didn’t hate it, and overall, the book was more tolerable than parts of book 2 (Tower Lord, and I’m thinking specifically of the first half of that book). But it was kind of repetitive and it was lacking a lot of what made me really like book 1 (Blood Song).Note: some spoilers for Blood Song and Tower Lord may appear later in this review. It is hard to talk about what I didn’t care for in this book without making reference to certain previous events. I’ll try to be as vague as possible. Also, I’ll take this opportunity to suggest not reading this book without having read the other two first. There is just too much that won’t make sense. (On the other hand, if you do read books 1 and 2 first, you shouldn’t have much trouble following along here.)Once again, we have 4 (maybe 5) viewpoint characters: Queen Lyrna, Reva of Cumbrael (a noble who has inherited the governance of this land), Frentis (who still considers himself a brother of the Sixth Order, which is a military arm of a religious group), and Vaelin, who hands over command of Lyrna’s army so that he can go on a separate mission. (I say maybe 5 because we also have some scenes from historian Vernier.)This is the story of Lyrna’s invasion of the Volarian Empire. In previous books, the Volarians had invaded Lyrna’s Unified Realm, killed and enslaved many people, and committed many other atrocities. She wants to take the fight to them so they cannot threaten her people again. I was never quite comfortable with this goal of hers. I think maybe that was the point, though. At one point, she has to stop herself from going after even more territory. She has to remind herself of her goal in the military campaign. Not all of the allies she’s recruited stay with her, either. And she suffers some pretty devastating losses, not once but several times. You want her to win because her side doesn’t keep slaves, torture and murder people, do things to unnaturally extend the lives of the nobles, etc. But I never really *liked* her.Frentis ends up leading a slave revolt in the Volarian Empire. His story is pretty much a repeated series of episodes involving: defeating some overseers, freeing their slaves, watching the slaves torture and mutilate the overseers, training the freed slaves to fight, and moving on to the next town. He keeps having dreams involving the Volarian Empress and I found these really irritating. (So did he, apparently, as he keept taking a sleeping potion to push the dreams away…) His chapters in this book were a lot like his chapters in the second half of book 2.Reva goes on Lyrna’s invasion trip and gets captured. She’s made to fight in an arena. Of course she always wins. (I think the viewpoint characters are meant to be telling their stories to Verniers later, so we assume they live through the war to tell their stories in the first place.) Her main issue is that she feels guilty for lying to her people, telling them she heard the voice of their god commanding them to join the invasion. But this never really comes back to get her.Vaelin heads into tribal lands looking for a person he met in book 1. I won’t reveal too much of his quest because it involves a plan to defeat the Ally (the super villain controlling the Volarians). He learns some about the Ally’s background. He spends a lot of time recruiting tribespeople to fight the Volarians also.Anyway, we alternate chapters and I just kept feeling like I was reading the same things over and over again. This was less true for Vaelin than the others.Other things that kind of irritated me: Frentis and Verniers both are arrested and imprisoned (in separate incidents). Then they get to leave under similar circumstances.Resources are never an issue. There’s lots of gold and there are willing suppliers of food, ships, etc., for payment. Even after devastating battles, there seem to be tens of thousands of soldiers still available for our good guys to call on.At one point, the Volarians create a new type of soldier. They wear red (so we, as readers, can immediately identify them) and they delight in killing. They are, of course, super-talented fighters. I swear, we have to go through nearly every group of characters fighting all kinds of these people. Where no one could defeat them before, our protagonists always save the day (with losses, of course).The Volarians and the Ally are just too evil. Too much bloodlust, too much hate, no redeeming qualities. I like my bad guys to be more complex. These guys are pretty one-dimensional. On top of that, the Volarian Empress is basically crazy. Crazy antagonists are irritating to me because there’s no strategy involved, it’s more of an excuse for them to do whatever they want.As for character development, the protagonists basically didn’t develop in this book, just like they didn’t in the last book. (Gone was the great development from book 1.) I also had trouble remembering a lot of the side characters by their names alone. There were so many units and commanders that I just couldn’t keep them all straight. (A lot of them had similar names, usually just referred to by a first name or possibly a last name, so I would have trouble with, say, characters all having names starting with “I” or “A.” It was rather like all the minor characters in the Wheel of Time books; I had trouble keeping many of them straight as well.)A few comments on the series title. This is called the “Raven’s Shadow” trilogy but that concept doesn’t even come up in much detail until near the middle of this, the third book. It seems an insignificant detail to give the whole series its name. (Maybe I am just biased against prophecy-driven stories, though.)There were a few things I liked. The prose was pretty good. The pace was pretty good. I didn’t mind the cliffhangers at the ends of a lot of chapters, because it made me interested enough to keep reading so I could find out what happened. Although I wasn’t fond of the execution of the part involving Vaelin and the Ally at the end, I think the concept and strategy were interesting. There were some deaths but not viewpoint character deaths (for reasons discussed above). Many of these deaths *were* sad. And no one left the battle unscarred in any way – some scars were emotional and some physical. But I would not say this book had a happy ending. (Actually, the ending was a bit anti-climactic because it seemed short and easy after all the hardships encountered on the way to the Volarian capital.)I think this could have been a much better book with some editing. I didn’t hate it (read it rather quickly, actually). But it didn’t live up to my expectations, which were set after Blood Song.

Fast paced. Multiple complex storylines and characters. A satisfying ending to the rich tale introduced by the first book. Thumbs up.

This is the third in the trilogy and, although still very good, I enjoyed this just a little less than the second book. which wasn't quite as good as the first. It is impossible to read these as stand alone books and they must be read in sequence. As previously, there is no preamble or recap on the story so, if like me, it is some months since you read the previous book, it takes a while to catch up and remember characters.The world in which this story is set is rich in detail and, like the other books in this series, it helps enormously in giving the story context. The cast of characters is huge and this can be a bit of a problem as, when combined with the fact that a character can switch between villain and hero several times and the extremely unfamiliar names, it can become difficult to remember what's happening with some of the lesser characters.The battle action ramped up significantly from the first to the second book and here, in the third book, it is maintained at a frenetic pace and with a body count that most video games couldn't match. So too, the level of magic increases with each book until, in this book, it dominates. This isn't, really, to my taste but, given the main plot line, I see why it's necessary. By the end of the book, I had, pretty much, given up trying to follow some of it so I imagine that the clever plotting of the story might have been a bit lost on me; to me, it wasn't a clever story, just an action adventure. I'm not normally prone to such actions so I'm sure that, in this case, it was just that I wasn't in the mood for this type of story rather than any inherent flaw in the author's work. I rate Anthony Ryan as one of my favourite authors and, despite my becoming fed up with 'Queen of Fire', I will read his next product.

If you look on Amazon or Goodreads, you will see a surprisingly low star rating for this last book in the Raven’s Shadow Trilogy. The other two books got high ratings, but the ones for this are lower. If you are wondering why I think it’s because it’s just a really depressing book. The book is filled with war, bloodshed and trauma.Normally with fantasy books we expect to receive a happy ever after at the end. We expect good things for our characters after they undergo their trials but the ending for this book is sadly lacking in good things.The book follows the Queen’s campaign to destroy The Ally and the Volarian Empire. There are three main strands to the story with Lyrna taking ships to Volar, Vaelin going across the ice to find the Eternal Man and Frentis and a small band of fighters working their way across the Empire towards the capital city, changing the Empire as they pass.There are so few happy moments in this book, but that does not mean it is not well written. It contains the same well structured plot and well rounded characters, it’s just that plot and those characters explore the darker side of humanity during the course of a war. Writing about how war changes not only the individual but the face of a nation is not an easy or pleasant task and Anthony Ryan does not shy away from this difficult subject. This ability of his to reveal the depths of human emotion is probably what makes this book so depressing. All the characters we have come to love, all lose so much. The loss often includes compassion and empathy in the face of anger and the desire for vengeance.As I say, it really is a very good book, I just wouldn’t recommend it if you are in a depressed state of mind, or conversely a really happy one.

I thought this was just me not enjoying this third book in the trilogy, until I read some of the other low star reviews. I so enjoyed the first book, really got into the characters, brilliant story, couldn't put it down in fact and couldn't wait to read the next one. Second book good although slightly harder going and not so easy to keep track of each character. By the third book, so many characters in the story, some of whom had more than one name, I struggled at times to keep on track. What with Varitai, Arisai, Garisai and Politai I got confused as to who was fighting who and got totally bored of the repetitive battle scenes. Sadly I never made it to the end of the book, with just 20 pages to go to the conclusion I fell asleep whilst reading and decided enough was enough. Very disappointing indeed.

Having read Anthony Ryan's previous two I was -desperate- for the concluding installment to come through - I bought it on release day.Good points;- All the major plot players remain so throughout the book, no annoying asides or frustrating three-four chapters intervals before you find out what happens to 'such-and-such'- The characters you have accompanied throughout take on even fuller depth and a few extra key players - sometimes humorous - come through too. You get to see a bit more of the 'texture' of the people in the plot, understand them and their motivations more- The plot builds and builds... you gradually get to know who the Ally is, what his power is, and gradually you begin the realise the extent of his power...- All of this in a world which is basic, but evocativeBad points;- As with the previous books about 90% of the book is buildup and the good bits make up a matter of chapters. In typical Ryan style the ploy and the truth is all revealed just as the book ends. I think he's let himself down; he's gone to all the trouble to make his world and character and he's only gotten the full benefit of what he's created for a few short sections- There are sections which just don't make sense - either due to editing or because even he forgot what he was doing with the plot- There is a lot of wordiness, as with previous books. There are a good few sections you can skim read because in between 30 pages of descriptions there are 10 lines of text which tell you all you need to know about what's happening. This probably could have been cut down by 30%Overall, hey, what can I say, great achievement finishing this, but the whole serious could have done with some edits to bring more intrigue up front and get more value out of a fantastic cast.

I concur with most of the complaints however I still personally found it enjoyable enough for 3 stars.It becomes barely coherent at the end, an unsatisfying and often confusing finale where the main protagonist of book one becomes a sideshow while everyone else saves the day.Too many characters rammed in to this book make keeping up fairly irksome.The deaths of one of the main characters from the first book should have meant so much more, I barely cared after the group of boys we came to love in book one became filler in the sea of characters from book two and three.A shame really but I will still recommend this series to any fantasy fan.