Engaging in parts and stultifyingly slow in others ( )

My least favourite ... I felt there was an awful lot of time wasted, and less of the breathless movement from incident to incident that enlivened the first book. (And the characterizations basically remain the same--I don't need constant action (I rather loathe it), but this is not a series that's delving deeply in to the psychology of its characters, so the endless treading water, or going and going back agains, rather palled. I felt like if the prior book and this book could have been combined, shortened to about 2 chapters longer than either individually, and it would have worked much better. Still, I'm in for the long haul. Off to the final volume!

(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). ( )

Disclaimer: This isnt as much a review of the book as it is a report on my enjoyment of the book, and its probably more useful as a way to check on my tastes and quirks than to decide whether to read the book

It's terribly hard to write a book and I am conscious I couldn't even write something half as good as an awful book. And this book is not awful at all!
But this is just to say I hate to criticise someone's hard work, but when I try to write a review books I often end up thinking about where the book could have been great if only... and then it sounds harsher than it should be.

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This is the third book in a series and you really need the first two to enjoy it. As all middle books it mostly moves things along, and follows 2 separate groups as they both try to resolve their common problem - get princess Inos back to her country and her throne.

The world is rather fascinating, plenty of cultures and races to go around -many very similar to our idea of old cultures on earth, so it is easy to pick up an "image" of them. The politics are believable. There are lot of "staples", but the overall story has enough departures from cliche to be entertaining (I am quite allergic to too much cliches)

The concept of magic is simple but quite rich, based on words of power that people can learn, accumulate (with near exponential effects), share (but that dilutes them). This carries a lot of the plot and creates a lot of interesting dilemnas and situations. I think this concept of magic is a great plot device and I hope he keeps exploring it.

Still I don't like this series as much as I like some other Duncan books I read. I had them on my wishlist for a long time, that might be why I am a bit harsh with them.

First it feels a bit disjuncted to me, like a bunch of scenes not a sweeping story. I find it hard to get a mental map of what's where, because people are moved around by magic, and the passing of time is not always very clear - in some cases I read 2 chapters before realising that months and months had passed somewhere 2 chapters ago... I dont think I could tell how many days have passed since the beginning of the story or where they have been and where the characters are in respect to where they were a year ago... It doesnt help that the 2 groups of characters are not in sync in time in the flow of the story, or at least it doesnt feel that way to me. Although it could also be a failure in this reader to pick up on things in the books

Its the characters I find hard to believe and care about - many of them are far denser than I could believe. How can they not know they have a crush, how can someone like Rap really so inconsiderate of his own life. The relationships between the characters, even the secondary ones, just dont make much sense to me, and the motivations of the secondary characters and adversaries dont always make sense. Some of it gives me the same puzzlement as catching an unknown soap opera does - too many bad decisions...

Of course this makes it a change from all these books where the protagonists are so clever, perceptive and talented, and it means I still enjoy these books, because it is a welcome change - but too much of one. Although the fact that Inos manages to annoy the hell out of me means that the author has done a good enough job to pull me in a bit, no matter what I say that I find them hard to believe.

The end rather precipitates events and things are a bit surprising and break nicely with the cliches built throughout the book - very crafty of the author.

All in all an enjoyable story, and I suspect the final volume will be full of surprises (because I cannot figure out how he will wrap it up!), and nice small books which makes it easy to read. And the end is a big change of tone and pace which does make me want to continue reading ( )

Synopsis:
Rap the stableboy joins a merchant crew still intent upon rescuing Queen Inosolan, who is crossing a haunted wasteland in order to appeal her case to the four wardens.

Review:
Perilous Seas is the third book in Dave Duncan’s A Man of His Word series, and again I’m impressed at the skill with which Duncan crafts his narrative. He continually places his characters in severe jeopardy, taking the kinds of risks that fantasy authors so often fear. It’s almost as if the work it takes to build an alternate universe is too precious to dismantle. They’re afraid to damage, when in fact the best stories come when the world is shattered into irretrievable pieces.

Read the rest here:
http://superfastreader.com/perilous-seas-by-dave-duncan.htm ( )