Friday, April 18, 2014

Sky of Swords (A Tale of the King's Blades)


Sky of Swords: A Tale of the King's Blades - Dave Duncan This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot.wordpress.com by express permission of this reviewer

Synopsis
The story of Princess Malinda and how this and the previous 2 books completely revolve around her without us even knowing it.

And all the points that don't make sense fall into place and the puzzle is a complete picture now.

My Thoughts
This follows 2 timelines, one when Malinda is growing up and one when she is imprisoned later in life.

I didn't care for the first half of the book. Malinda was a spoiled brat as a kid and as a prisoner. I almost gave up to be honest, it was that bad.
Then things got completely awesome! Malinda changed. She matured and the story was around her but not necessarily about her. In many ways, this was just setup to explain the other 2 books.

When I realized what was going on, around the 300 page mark, I started exclaiming, loudly and vehemently and laughing. Because everything suddenly made sense! All the inconsistencies, the direct contradictions, the things that couldn't BOTH be true? It worked.

And while many authors would have made a real hash of this trilogy, Duncan does it awesomely. He writes well, he writes internally consistently and the story is exciting and enjoyable. I borrowed the first 2 books in paperback from my brother. After I read the first book, I bought the whole trilogy in hardcover.

I HIGHLY recommend this to anyone who wants a taut, exciting, suspenseful and political story.

Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Author: Dave Duncan

No comments:

Post a Comment