Mini Review: The Rose and the Thorn by Michael J. Sullivan

Series: Prequel book 2
Release Date: September 17, 2013
Publisher: Orbit
Pages: 347
Received: ARC from publisher, via NetGalley
Stars: 4
Goodreads Page

So, this prequel still wasn't living up to The Riyria Revelations, but it came a lot closer than The Crown Tower. This one had more of the adventure, political intrigue, and heart I was hoping to see in the first prequel but didn't quite get.

Hadrian and Royce have been working together a little longer at this point, so their relationship is closer to what I knew and loved in The Riyria Revelations. 

More characters from the main series are introduced here, and I did love getting to see this "early years" look at them. It gave another layer to these characters who I had already grown to love and care for.

The culmination of events was also even better than I had imagine. Like The Crown Tower, The Rose and the Thorn takes hinted-at events from the main series and fleshes them out, finally telling the "whole story" for events that had until this point been campfire stories of long ago escapades.

While it was a lot of fun seeing these well-known stories acted out, it was even more amusing to read because the full story was even better than my imagination. Royce's actions are both more tender and more awesomely cutthroat than I had surmised. The whole culmination of events was a spectacular moment for Royce. 

Bottom line

I'm less impressed with the prequels than I was with the main series, but part of that is because the bar was set SO high by the main series. There's just more to the main series, though there's also literally more to them being a six book series and so that might account for the difference in depth and scope.

Regardless, I'm still a huge Michael J. Sullivan fan and I hope he continues to write more books about these characters.  

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Mini Review: The Crown Tower by Michael J. Sullivan

Series: Prequel book 1
Release Date: August 6, 2013
Publisher: Orbit
Pages: 416
Received: ARC from publisher, via NetGalley
Stars: 4
Goodreads Page

I absolutely, amazingly, can't-put-into-words adored the main series The Riyria Revelations, so I was pretty stoked when I started reading The Crown Tower, which is part one of the prequel series.

Did I like it? Oh yes, but how could I not? Michael J. Sullivan would have had to do some pretty terrible things to make me dislike this book.

But did it live up? Eeeeh, yes and no. Sure I liked it, but I didn't love it.

It was kind of like comfort food. Like, hm, anyone ever have Boston Market? Well, if you haven't it's basically a chain restaurant that's a step above fast food, but it's pretty much the fast food interpretation of Thanksgiving dinner. Totally tasty, and even though it's a far cry from grandma's fixings, every bite makes me feel like I'm ten years old and getting ready to dive into Thanksgiving dinner.

The Crown Tower was kind of like Boston Market. It made me feel warm and fuzzy because it made me think of all these happy memories from my time spent reading The Riyria Revelations. I loved seeing Hadrian and Royce meet for the first time. Getting to watch them pull off the infamous Crown Tower heist I had heard so many references to in The Riyia Revelations was this fan's dream come true.

But, it's a far cry from The Riyria Revelations.

The Crown Tower didn't have the action or intrigue that made The Riyria Revelations so beyond awesome. Half the book focused on Gwen's troubles (she's a prostitute turned AWESOME) and while I enjoyed reading her parts and I totally fist-pumped her, I was also kinda bored.

Not like, bored bored. But, antsy? It's just, after coming off of the five star Special Shelf level of amazingness that was The Riyria Revelations, Gwen's little story felt totally lacking in comparison and I wanted to get back to Hadrian and Royce's part of the book (which had more action, even if it was less action than The Riyria Revelations).

Bottom line

I can't recommend this series enough. As an established fan, it was worth reading just to be able to spend time with these characters and "see" the heist I've heard so much about. There wasn't much new information about Hadrian or Royce, but Gwen's part gets fleshed out a lot and it was fun going back to the very beginning and seeing everything unfold now that I know how it all ends.

Even my minor issues with this book are pretty much only because I was comparing them to such a high bar. And, since this is a prequel series, you can read it if you haven't read The Riyria Revelations (and, like Gina from My Precious, maybe you'll enjoy it even more than I did then). 

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Book Review: The Riyria Revelations by Michael Sullivan

Theft of Swords, Rise of Empire, and Heir of Novron by Michael J. Sullivan
Series: the Riyria Revelations
Release Date: 2012
Publisher: Orbit
Received: Library/Bought
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars, Special Shelf

Summary

From Goodreads:

THEY KILLED THE KING. THEY PINNED IT ON TWO MEN. THEY CHOSE POORLY.
 
There's no ancient evil to defeat or orphan destined for greatness, just unlikely heroes and classic adventure. Royce Melborn, a skilled thief, and his mercenary partner, Hadrian Blackwater, are two enterprising thieves who end up running for their lives when they're framed for the death of the king. Trapped in a conspiracy that goes beyond the overthrow of a tiny kingdom, their only hope is unraveling an ancient mystery before it's too late.

ABOUT THE SERIES
The Riyria Revelations is a multi-book fantasy series released as six novels (now out of print) and the current trilogy version containing two books in each volume. Instead of a string of sequels the entire series was conceived as a single epic tale divided into individual episodes. All were written before the first was released so that plot elements are intertwined, yet each is self-contained with it's own conflict and resolution.

The Riyria Revelations and The Riyria Chronicles are two separate, but related series, and you can start reading with either Theft of Swords (publication order) or The Crown Tower (chronological order).

Review

Let's be honest here

I initially picked up this series because I thought the guy on the cover looked hot. Yes, that IS how I select my books. Mostly.

His smaller companion on the right wasn't too bad either, but, really, it was that rugged man on the left with, count them, three swords that caught my eye.

Oh, and it was also billed as an epic fantasy series that promised battles, thieves, court intrigue, mercenaries, assassinations, questing, conspiracy and all that good stuff. So that caught my attention, too. 

Did it live up?

Did it ever! My gosh, this is one of those Leave Me Babbling books where it's just too good to not insert squees between mostly-incoherent gushing. 

This is definitely the type of series that gets better as it goes along. I finished the first book (which ends pretty well as a standalone) and a tiny part of me considered moving on to something else because, while I totally loved it, the characters felt a tiny bit...distant? Not entirely alive?

They were great, but, you know me, I'm a character girl and these characters were maybe 90% of the way there.

But I didn't wait and I don't recommend doing anything silly like waiting. Pick up the next book in the series as soon as you finish the first (added convenience, they're sold as omnibus editions! So the next book is already in your hands!). I did that, and I'm so glad I did that because the characters totally grew on me.

Also, all those things about the plot that I thought were plain old surface level fantasy fare turned out to be twisty turny stuff that took on a whole new level of meaning once I started connecting all the dots later on. 

Oh Hadrian

And that guy on the cover? He totally lived up! Talk about swoon fest. It wasn't the type of swooning where he had sizzling romantic scenes ('cause, honestly, his ultimate love declaration scene was kinda embarrassing—totally cute, but also totally embarrassing. BUT, yay for slow burn romance!). No, I swooned because of the type of man he is, which is a MANLY man. Not alpha man, but more like knight paragon kinda man.

There's even this scene in, oh, book five? Four? Six? Something like that, where he's pretending to be a knight and the real knights sneer at him because he's all common and stuff but it's Hadrian who actually embodies all the qualities of nobleness, steadfastness, honor, virtue, kindness, humility, etc. and the "real" knights are just big meanies.

It's all very heavy handed, but it's also SO TRUE that I didn't mind because by that point I was already donning my Hadrian cheerleading outfit and breaking out the pom poms every chance I got.

Ok fine, do you prefer the rogue wounded bad boy with a hidden tenderness?

Well lucky you, that's the little guy on the cover. Don't worry, he's not little in, erm, real life? Book life? Whatever, the cover is totally miscast, because Royce is a badass assassin who does BAD things to even badder people and doesn't bat an eye.

BUT, he has a not-so-secret relationship that makes him melt into a puddle of total besotted mush. Also, he's allowed himself to stop being so closed off and let Hadrian in as his best pal.

So you know what that means, right? LOTS of brothers-in-arms bonding! I LOVE brothers-in-arms bonding. It's fantastic. They do all sorts of cool things like pulling off amazing thefts that no one else could do or fighting in battles or engaging in secret missions and quests and bantering all the while because they have a kind of platonic man version of the hate-turned-love relationship going on that adds about a bizillion points to everything.

Did I say quests and battles?

YES! Also, court conflict and intrigue, assassinations (and not just by Royce's hand), mysteries, deposing kings, sieges, explosions, magic, duels, scary creatures, ship voyages, jungle battles, charming street urchins, villainous political factions, pretender queens, romances, kick butt women (TOTAL kick butt women!), double crosses, misdirection, and ALL sorts of other fabulous stuff.

It's pretty much an explosion of everything I want, all packaged in three, ok, BIG books (but all with swoony covers).

And a note on that size? I WANT MORE. Seriously. These books aren't long enough. Sure, they're LONG. I consider anything over 300 pages a LONG book, and there are six books here, each well over 300 pages. And yet, I'm not satisfied.

Oh sure, everything wraps up fine, in the end. But I'm not ready to let go of these characters or this world. I think I read everything in a little over a month and  a half, and it only took that long because halfway through I realized I loved it so much I needed to start "making it last."

Otherwise, this was the kind of series where my main motivation for waking up in the morning was so I could start reading and it was only my super strict fear of lying that kept me from using a  coveted sick day to call out of work so I wouldn't have to stop reading.

I've only really mentioned Hadrian and Royce, but this is an epic fantasy, so you know there's a requisite character guide because there are so many side characters (there are also maps, obviously). And, being a more traditional epic fantasy, a lot of those side characters get narrative time so I was able to fall in love with them even more.

I'd start listing my favorites (other than the obvious) but I'd end up with basically the character guide, and that thing is PAGES long. So I'm not even going to try. I'll just say that by the end of the series, all the characters felt like real people and, months later, I'm STILL not ready to let them go.

The near-non-stop action interspersed with character growth and tense peril helped make the pages fly by, too. 

I guess EVERYTHING these days

I feel so jaded lately. I used to be super dense and never guess endings and I loved that because who needs to be a smarty pants if it ruins the surprise? But lately I've been guessing all the endings and that's just no fun.

But not with this series! I think I've now firmly cemented my status as loony book lady in my new job's library because I read this series during my lunch breaks there and I swear I tried, but I couldn't stop myself from exclaiming out loud and otherwise talking to my books.

I mean, it's just, all this STUFF happened! And I didn't see ANY of it coming! It was amazing! There were all these twists and turns and I wasn't expecting any of it! Oh my, oh my gosh, NO NO NO, YES YES YES!! and similar phrases made up my more regular outbursts.

Also, I would just periodically exclaim, "My gosh I LOVE this series!" for no reason in particular other than just the general accumulation of awesomeness that I couldn't contain in non-verbal ways anymore.

At one point a student even asked me if I was ok. Thankfully she must have been a reader herself because after I sputtered out a, "yeah, I'm fine, it's just, my book" she just nodded kind of knowingly and smiled. So she's probably totally a kindred spirit reader.

Or she thinks I'm nuts. 

Bottom line

Do you love fantasy series? Brothers in arms? Romance? Action? Peril? Mystery? Court intrigue? Quests? Intriguing characters? Double crosses? Unexpected twists? Well, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!?

Michael J. Sullivan, welcome to my auto-buy list.

Explanation of rating system: Star Rating Key 


Stuff you need to know about reading order:

The Main Series:

Theft of Swords (books 1 & 2)
Rise of Empire (books 3 & 4)
Heir of Novron (books 5 & 6)

The Prequel Series (soon to be released. Yeah, I've pre-ordered)

The Crown Tower
The Rose and the Thorn

Do you have any questions about The Riyria Revelations that I haven't addressed? 
Feel free to ask in the comments!

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