[Shehzad]

Let the discussion begin...

[Sammie]

Oh god - haven't been keeping up with this at all lately, but seeing as it's THIS one - shall grab a copy asap!!!

[ChrisW]

I got Fortress Draconis, does that count?

[Shehzad]

Come ON people.... join in...

[Erfael]

Working on it, Shehzad. Read it, but haven't had sufficient time to post yet. Give me three more days, and I'll definitely get it in there somewhere.

[Nimea]

:( Am ill, with fever and a bad cough that hurts like hell. Stayed in my bed for the last three days and could not read even one page of anything because my head and my eyes hurt . . .

But the month has still some days left, he? ;)

Sorry for the OT; just had to express my frustration.

[alan empty]

I'm on page 70 - I'll come back when I've finished.

I'm enjoying it so far.

[Shehzad]

Am rereading it currently.

Going through it once again, I love how Stackpole alternates the story of how Nolan became a Talion with his current mission. It's an interesting tactic which explains a lot of what's going through Nolan's mind, and brings Nolan more to life.

[FicusFan]

I am reading it, about half way through I think. I feel like I have been reading it forever. It is one of those books that the end can't come soon enough.

Not sure what the problem is. I like the Idea of the Talions, and the Justices - but the reading is like slogging. The story of young Nolan seems to be a continous story, but the first part of Nolan the Justice reads like one of the old episodic westerns that were on TV when I was growing up - Have Gun Will Travel comes to mind.

Very one dimensional good guys and bad guys, evil and tragedy, thrills and tears -- all made right by the end of the episode or the chapter. It is a very plastic feeling I get from the story of Nolan chasing Moari. And talk about including useless details that don't imrpove the story. I feel like I am drowning - as though to the author all events and items are equally important.

I am at the point where Nolan is going undercover to protect the king and I hope the story starts to behave like 'Young Nolan' in structure - a continous thread. Unless the book picks up dramatically I can't see myself reading anymore Stackpole books.

[Erfael]

Okay, made it through another week. And now for some thoughts on Talion.


I thought Stackpole brushed up against a few really nice ideas here, but only slightly. I think he lost them somewhere in "I-used-to-write-for-gaming-companies" Hell.

I really liked the ideas of Talions and especially the different kinds of Justices. I think he presented several different views of Justices, which he could have used to really explore authority and control. The differences between Ring and Nolan were interesting as were the descriptions of different factions within the Talions which held differing views on how things should be dealt with in the outside world.

However...it didn't seem like he was really interested in dealing with any of this. He seemed to structure his chapters around nothing so trivial as character development or plot advancement, but "adventures." I think, Ficus, this is what gets so terribly tedious about the first half of the book, especially. Every single chapter seems structured around some fight or challenge that the hero has to face, and none of them are any more or less important than any others. Either it's a fight with some ruffian or the Fifteens or a series of tests that needs to be beaten.

No matter what it is, you can almost read right through to the RPG conventions that he's using in each situation. In the test to become a Talion, it's evident where he was thinking, "Here, our hero passes his perception check to see into the woods to the flag. And here our hero passes his wisdom check to realize he's jumping into a pit and then passes his dexterity check to save himself from falling in." I found that it got extremely tiresome.

That said, the flow got a lot better toward the end. There was a stretch for a few chapters in a row with no "challenge," and all of a sudden for that time it was an enjoyable read.

I did think that it was a little stretched to try and tie in young Nolan with old Nolan. There just didn't seem to be enough connections between their two stories until the very end. And then those ties seemed like he could have tied them in in a much more convincing way, and explored Talion society much more in the process.

All in all, I would have rather been reading something else. It had far too much of a DnD book feel for my tastes.