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The Born Queen Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone Book 4 Greg Keyes 9780345440693 Books

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The Born Queen Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone Book 4 Greg Keyes 9780345440693 Books

OK, first of all I read the whole series couple of years ago (I think first 3 books in 2007 and this one in 2008). Having read first three books together (bought them through SF book club in a mistaken belief it was a trilogy), and the last one almost a year later on Amazon (when it was finally published) I initially contributed my dissatisfaction with The Born Queen to my memory lapses. So, I just finished re-reading the entire tetralogy today (two week span) and, damn. Personally, I did like the book # 3 the best, and I liked this book until last 100 pages. Throughout reading of the series, I also realized that I remember a lot from first three books, and almost nothing from the final book. Maybe there was a good reason - the ending to this book is beyond disappointing. Did Greg Keyes forget everything that happened in first three books? Did an editor cut everything out, somewhat like the Fellowship of the Ring cinematic movie version (where you can't figure out who is who unless you read the books)?
Furthermore, there were crude errors in this one. For instance, the Black Arrow was supposed to be usable for 7 times; in Born Queen, they said it was usable more than three times, as originally thought. WTF? Don't even get me started on the whole Skaslos / Serfy things. The biggest secret of the book is told to Aspar casually, so much that I went back two pages twice trying to figure if I missed something. Then, it turns that Wheny was Kept in half a sentence - I had to go back as my dog licked me and I lost a spot in the book - literally two words explained the whole thing and I could not figure out what happened for about two pages. And I read the book before. Maybe Greg Keyes should learn from Tolkien and re-write things just how the Bard did with the Hobbit. Inconsistencies are a plenty, characters that were built up to crescendo are basically extinguished on a whim, and a few of them are not even mentioned in a finale (final 10 -20 pages actually "resolve" the things that were built up for 1700 pages).

Please, Gregory Keyes, rewrite the ending. Remember the Blackgod from the Chosen of the Changeling. That was some ending.

I edited the review - I would give the series 4 stars, and this book 2 stars - as the ending messed up the entire series.


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The Born Queen Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone Book 4 Greg Keyes 9780345440693 Books Reviews

I have no recollection of why I picked up the first novel in this series, The Briar King, in the bookstore. Frankly, I don't even remembering buying it, but there it was on the shelf......and I dug it. So I kept going with the series, and I still liked it. It's not Lord of the Rings or A Song of Ice and Fire mind you (I prefer the latter), but it's in that vein, and if you're into that sort of tale, then this series is for you.

You know the characters by now........Anne Dare, who goes from silly, Arwen-wannabe teenager to someone you barely recognize at the end.....Aspar White, who has Tommy Lee Jones circa 1990 written all over him.......Leoff, the unlucky composer......Stephen, the very lucky would-be monk.......Cazio, the Zorro who never quite convinces us of his being remotely 'real'.....Sir Neil, my favorite character, and frankly, the only one I actually liked on a personal level. These are the POV characters, and their journeys were mostly interesting, at least until Keyes tried to link them all at the end.

And it was a hurried end too, I have to wonder if he was on page 350 of his first draft of this book and realized "Crap, I need to wind this up." I'm still unclear on what Aspar's role in all this was (I groaned slightly whenever he popped up), and Stephen and Anne shifted track so radically at the end that I was a little put off. And Neil, while I liked him, cheated death more than a few times when it seemed like he was about to be 'written out' of the plot. Oh, and one other thing that cheesed me were the maps at the beginning of each book, which were so small and written in such fancy script as to be illegible and pointless. I know it's a mass market paperback, but I doubt a magnifying glass (if I owned one) would have helped much.

Still, I have no issue giving this series a four star rating. It had pace, some interesting villains (Fend, speaking to Aspar wanting to kill him "Is that all you ever think about?"), and reminded me of Song of Ice and Fire, which is a good thing. Not saying it's better, it's really not, and HBO and/or BBC won't be making a TV series out of this. But it's a good way to spend 2100 or so pages reading, and worth the money spent.

Four stars
OK, first of all I read the whole series couple of years ago (I think first 3 books in 2007 and this one in 2008). Having read first three books together (bought them through SF book club in a mistaken belief it was a trilogy), and the last one almost a year later on (when it was finally published) I initially contributed my dissatisfaction with The Born Queen to my memory lapses. So, I just finished re-reading the entire tetralogy today (two week span) and, damn. Personally, I did like the book # 3 the best, and I liked this book until last 100 pages. Throughout reading of the series, I also realized that I remember a lot from first three books, and almost nothing from the final book. Maybe there was a good reason - the ending to this book is beyond disappointing. Did Greg Keyes forget everything that happened in first three books? Did an editor cut everything out, somewhat like the Fellowship of the Ring cinematic movie version (where you can't figure out who is who unless you read the books)?
Furthermore, there were crude errors in this one. For instance, the Black Arrow was supposed to be usable for 7 times; in Born Queen, they said it was usable more than three times, as originally thought. WTF? Don't even get me started on the whole Skaslos / Serfy things. The biggest secret of the book is told to Aspar casually, so much that I went back two pages twice trying to figure if I missed something. Then, it turns that Wheny was Kept in half a sentence - I had to go back as my dog licked me and I lost a spot in the book - literally two words explained the whole thing and I could not figure out what happened for about two pages. And I read the book before. Maybe Greg Keyes should learn from Tolkien and re-write things just how the Bard did with the Hobbit. Inconsistencies are a plenty, characters that were built up to crescendo are basically extinguished on a whim, and a few of them are not even mentioned in a finale (final 10 -20 pages actually "resolve" the things that were built up for 1700 pages).

Please, Gregory Keyes, rewrite the ending. Remember the Blackgod from the Chosen of the Changeling. That was some ending.

I edited the review - I would give the series 4 stars, and this book 2 stars - as the ending messed up the entire series.