What does everyone think of James Barclay?

If you're not going to read Shadowheart because of the ending to Elfsorrow, you may never read Ravensoul :D
 
Kater, dude you can't do that to me. :eek:
*Man, makin' me sick over here, grumble, grumble, grumble.....*

NOM,
Its beginning to make sense now. I can see how trending toward a central authority would be prime real estate to continue moving the story along. Its likely to be an ongoing struggle, which will always provide stories of interest that necessitate acts of heroism. I'm excited to continue on and get to see more of characters like Auum and his TaiGethen, but I'm still stuck
mourning the death of Ilkar.
 
Actually, I'm really happy that Elfsorrow and THE EVENT has had such an effect on you. Probably means it was written about right... hopefully it won't be too long before you feel you can get into Shadowheart.

NOM
 
That's all right my old moderating chum. They say you cannot miss what you never experience.

They are, of course, completely wrong... :)
 
He keeps killing people off, so whatever it is, I don't see why that would keep you from continuing on in the series. :)
 
KatG said:
He keeps killing people off, so whatever it is, I don't see why that would keep you from continuing on in the series. :)
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Just not The Unknown. Please God, don't let Barclay kill The Unknown. Not The Unknown. Not The Unknown. Not The Unknown. Not The Unknown.
 
Oh sure, go for the big, broody warrior guy.
 
KatG said:
Oh sure, go for the big, broody warrior guy.
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:D
I don't really connect with Hirad. I actually dislike Denser and Erienne, for reasons stated in the review. Ry Darrick is too "new" for me to go either way. The only other member I really like is....Oh NO! Don't kill Thraun. Pleeeaaaase, don't kill Thraun. Not Thraun. Don't kill the doggie-man. :(
 
In all fairness, Ilkar always seemed to be a cardboard character there to fill a necessary role.
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Reading Dawnthief and absolutely disagree with this from the get-go. Like the other Raven characters, Ilkar fills a symbolic role -- the elfen mage -- which Barclay then fills out with a complicated person. Ilkar seems to be the one who has to do all the difficult moral juggling between various factions and circumstances.

You know, I still don't like Erienne or Denser all that much. So much of the suffering, death and destruction on Balaia, and Calaius for that matter, is directly traceable to Denser and/or Erienne. Each has been so self absorbed from the very first, that I'm stunned they seem to suffer so little guilt while bemoaning their own pain and heartache.
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I don't think you're supposed to like them all that much. Erienne pretty much lays out what happens to them: kids who can shape manna are taken from their homes, run through a gauntlet of testing and training that leaves a number of them mad or dead, taught to put the search for magical knowledge above everything and everyone else, alienated from all others who aren't mages and rivals who are, and expected to reproduce to produce more magical children. Which makes them driven, ruthless, selfish, contradictory, tempermental and the people most likely to be able to save the world. I sort of found it realistic myself. What Denser and Erienne can do is learn somewhat, but they make major mistakes because they've been emotionally crippled as mages. Ilkar is first off an elf, comes from a college of a somewhat different bent and lore, and has his work with the Raven, all of which has tempered those traits in him, whereas in Erienne and Denser's colleges, those traits were encouraged and life is cheaper unless you're useful.

because of another glaring implausibility: there is no central, political authority. Whether it is a monarchy, an empire, a republic, or what have you, one would expect a central, governing entity. The complete absence of one in the Raven stories has always been a point that stretched credibility, to what degree each reader must judge for themselves.
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Not if you know your medieval history. Over most of the early part of that age's thousand year span, you only got large, central political governments as authorities sporadically and mostly toward the later years. "France" was a capture of the Franks and certainly was not the country we know now for a long time. There were regularly four or five warleaders who declared themselves king or some other form of leader in Spain/Portugal and ruled over a tiny territory. If you look at a map of Europe at various times, it's divied up into lots of tiny fiefdoms who sometimes allied with each other to avoid being wiped out but certainly were not part of one big country with a king or emperor. The ones who did manage to carve out empires through war and marriage, like the Holy Roman Empire, were constantly losing territories in shifting boundaries, which were independent. And then there was ancient Greece, with its city states. The ancient Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire were the exceptions, not the rule, until the late medieval and Renaissance periods. (And to a lesser degree in Asia as well.)

In Balaia, none of the barons has enough men to bring the other ones to heel and declare themselves king, so they just raid each other and trade with each other, which is pretty typical for medieval times. The Colleges have enough power to keep the barons from attempting to take them over, but not enough power individually to try to build an empire over one another. And expansion of territory except in limited trade is cut off because the west of the continent is covered in Wesmen (though that may change in the series.) Essentially, the land doesn't have a king because the balance of power doesn't allow the advantage needed for it, and because the use of magic effects the system. When the balance of power shifts, as seems to happen in the series, then you get wars over who will rule. Anyways, it made sense to me so far.
 
Katg,

Very thoughtful and well constructed response. Your elaboration on the characters of Denser and Erienne, particularly the lives of Balaian mages, sheds new light on them for me.

On Ilkar, I know what you mean. He was the guy between Hirad, Sirendor Larn and The Unknown, as well as characters coming in later, as the conscience of the group. I'm not convinced the role of elven mage is very relevant. In any case, I agree with you that he was there to take up a part within the group, but until Elfsorrow his individuality seemed ethereal to me.

Concerning the power vacuum existing on Balaia, I should have clarified the matter. What I meant by "complete absence" was that while there was no central governing authority, there didn't even seem to be an attempt, unless you count the invasion of the Wesmen. In Elfsorrow, we start to see Dystran unfolding his scheme for conquest on Balaia, and even beyond considering his attitude toward the shard of Ynnis.

Don't get me wrong, I liked the first three books, but I liked Elfsorrow a great deal more. The characters and world contained in the Raven books really began to crystallize for me in Elfsorrow in a way that they had not thus far.

I definitely be going back to Balaia once I finish up my Abraham read. I just don't know if my Abraham read will last through just Shadow & Betrayal, or if I'm going to complete the series (kinda hooked at the moment).
 
Finished Shadowheart on the 12th, and am ~100p from finishing Demonstorm. My take on Shadowheart:

PW's review said:
I was concerned with Elfsorrow being a step up from the previous three Raven books. My concern centered on Shadowheart being able to follow in the path of Elfsorrow and being, inevitably, compared to it. I can safely say that I had nothing to worry about. Shadowheart is as good as Elfsorrow, and even goes one better.

Story Summary: The underlying tension between the four colleges of magic finally reaches critical mass and the intrigue goes overt, spilling out into total war. Xetesk, in its bid for continental, if not total, dominion sees its first order of business as being the destruction of Julatsa, a college of magic left all but desolate in the wake of the Wesmen wars. Julatsa, already severely diminished, must survive Xeteskian aggression, as well as raising the buried Heart of Julatsan magic.

Like a moth to flame, such a destabilizing conflict will attract the presence of the Raven. The colleges of Lystern and Dordover debate the custody of the Raven’s practitioner of the One magic, once: 1) the remainder of the Raven have been successfully incarcerated and, 2) Julatsa is destroyed by Xetesk, leaving a battered Xetesk ripe for destruction by the Dordovan-Lysternan alliance. A tired and weakening dragon, responsible for the greatest of all dragon broods, gets no younger while enduring his debilitating exile in Balaia. If all of this isn’t bad enough, beyond the mass grave of Black Wings at Understone, a power in the western portion of the continent is reviving. A power dedicated to a Balaian continent free of the magic, or rule, of the easterners. A power that begins taking an abiding interest in a total war where mages remain committed to killing each other.

In daring to overtly pursue the dominion of Balaian magic, and thereby Balaia itself, Xetesk has effectively gone “all-in.” There will be no sympathy for the college that opened the door for such continental wide destruction. Knowing that they will be given no quarter if turned by an alliance, Xetesk stands ready to perpetrate the unpardonable.

My take: The setting is familiar to readers of the Raven, no surprises here. The same goes for the characters of this story. The story itself follows a pace of terminal velocity. Indeed, at the time of this writing, I have already proceeded into Demonstorm and am approximately 100p from finishing that. I’ve read everything by Barclay now, except for his novellas (one of which I have and will read soon) and Ravensoul. I am confident and certain in maintaining that Elfsorrow-Shadowheart-Demonstorm is Barclay at his best.

The ending here is of a more natural variety. That is to say that there are no cliff-hangers and one could comfortably stop here, if they wanted to walk away from Balaia and believe that the Raven ride off into the sunset, retire to the islands and exhaust their 401k plans, suddenly and miraculously gigantic, on rum and extraordinarily amicable island women (my doctor told me about this, I'm projecting again). Unfortunately, such a reader wouldn’t have the opportunity to discover what havoc Xetesk’s ‘nuclear option’ may yet bring.

Verdict: Highly recommended
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It would have been interesting to see how your summation would be affected if you'd read all of Demonstorm before writing the review.
 
Thanks for the review, Peter. I really appreciate you taking the time to put it together.

And naturally, I agree with everything you say. We await your Demonstorm thoughts with baited breath...

NOM
 
I'll have something in on Demonstorm by the end of the weekend. I'm approaching the end of the tale with some trepidation.
 
Finished Demonstorm on Friday. I'm glad to still have the Unknown, but I want my shape-changer back.

PW's review said:
I was very excited to get through Demonstorm. The setting and characters are all familiar to readers of Barclay’s Raven series. The story was the best yet.

My Summary: Xetesk has perpetrated the unpardonable by implementing their ‘nuclear option.’ Unfortunately for Xetesk, and everyone else in their dimension, the dragon dimension of Beshara and the dimension inhabited by the peacefully resting dead, it backfires. Badly. Colleges of magic come under constant siege. The remaining population of eastern Balaia is ranched by the invaders. The Raven, and friends, devise a strategy to defeat this enemy. A strategy that involves the highest sacrifice.

My Take: The Raven discover that all of life, as they are aware of it, faces two possible outcomes: 1) victory and survival or, 2) defeat, followed by enslavement and extinction. The enemy involved in this fight unites every faction, as they each face their collective end. It’s barely enough.

The body count from Demonstorm dwarfs every previous book in the series. The population of Balaia, after the previous 10-15 years worth of struggle and war, has got to have been dramatically reduced. In this book alone, the four colleges of magic are reduced to tatters. One college, it is revealed halfway through the book, has only four mages remaining!

The ending of the book doesn’t spare the reader, or the characters involved. The last couple of chapters could have fleshed out the ending for more effect, however. The story sort of slid through the trauma suffered by those few that survived. The story has a natural ending, but does leave the door somewhat ajar for Balaia to be revisited.

For what it’s worth, over the past three books in the Raven, Barclay has displayed a strong ability to end a story, with enough of a future to unfold to revisit the realm. Barclay has managed to revisit Balaia, thus far, without resorting to flimsy or unbelievable storylines.

Verdict: Highly Recommended
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Peter - many thanks for this review. Really glad you enjoyed the series right til the end (the end, that is, until Ravensoul came along).

I absolutely loved writing Demonstorm and felt able to indulge in new levels of relentlessness and heroism. Perhaps it didn't have quite hte amount of humour as others in the series but I guess there really wasn't much to laught about.

As to your interesting comment about fleshing out the last chapters to expand on the trauma of the survivors... well I did think about that but didn't want the book to end with breast-beating, wailing and gnashing of teeth. I wanted to leave readers with the knowledge that the survivors had moved on though memories were still raw, and that the sacrifice was not going to be in vain. But I didn't want to dwell too much because I think it would have let the overall pacing down right at the death. Only readers can decide if I got that right or not. Very interesting that you picked up on it.

So, on to Ravensoul now, is it? Or is there a raven break coming on first?

NOM/James
 
I'm taking a little Raven break, at the moment. I think I may read Light Stealer before going on to Ravensoul though.

I am fairly psyched for the TaiGethen trilogy though. Actually, I'm currently waiting for the wife to go to bed so I can skip over to The Book Depository and pre-order my copy of Once Walked with Gods.
 
I hope you enjoy the novella - I was really pleased with it. Just the right medium to fill in a historical gap.

By the way, the first of the elves books is not out until August now. But the second and third will follow in consecutive Augusts.

NOM/James
 
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