jeriendhal: (Wazagan)
[personal profile] jeriendhal
Phoenix Rising, Ryk Spoor

Summary: In this sprawling fantasy novel by [livejournal.com profile] seawasp, young noblewoman Kyri Vantage must take on dark forces as she investigates and seeks justice for her murdered family, enlisting the aid of a variety of unusual allies.

Review: This is Ryk Spoor's big arsed, doorstop sized fantasy series, which very deliberately combines Western fantasy with a generous helping from Japanese anime and manga (there's even a group of armored knights that bare more than a passing resemblance to the cast of Saint Seiya crossed with Gatchaman). Mostly it's a lot of fun, with a strong female lead and great action. I do have some problems with a couple of secondary characters, one of whom is a major crossover from his other series Digital Knight, which might confuse people not familiar with the series. And there's an immortal wizardly mentor character whose deliberate cloak of mysteriousness is just damned annoying (though to Ryk's credit, most of the other characters don't like him either. But aside from those nits it's great fun.

Recommended.

Date: 2015-09-01 11:29 am (UTC)
seawasp: (Poisonous&Venomous)
From: [personal profile] seawasp
Xavier's crossover is not only important for the plot here and in the final book, but also serves another important purpose: demonstrating that no matter how crucial Kyri's and Tobimar's missions may be, they're just one small group of heroes on a very large world, and saving the whole world is going to require more than one epic adventure. (at least three, in fact: the Balanced Sword Trilogy (Kyri), the Spirit Warriors trilogy (Xavier and friends), and Godswar (Urelle and friends)).

Date: 2015-09-01 03:56 pm (UTC)
seawasp: (Poisonous&Venomous)
From: [personal profile] seawasp
Oh, I should say thank you very very much for the review! I didn't mean to just pop in and nitpick.

Date: 2015-09-03 11:47 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jeriendhal.livejournal.com
No worries, man!

Date: 2015-09-01 03:59 pm (UTC)
seawasp: (Poisonous&Venomous)
From: [personal profile] seawasp
Now I'll also be interested to see how you look at _Phoenix in Shadow_. My beta-readers felt it was better than the first, and you at least will have no more intrusions by Khoros or Xavier (though both are mentioned, and both will show up again in the final book of the trilogy).

Date: 2015-09-03 11:48 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jeriendhal.livejournal.com
Have to see. If it's available in audiobook format I might pick it up with my next Audible credit.

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