I know that someone (Werthead?) reviewed these books a while ago, but has anyone else read them?
Having just finished the second one in the last couple of weeks, I found these great fun. Lots of swashbuckling adventure and intrigue in the style of Dumas père or Rafael Sabatini but with a large dose of fantasy, too.
I was not overly impressed with the translation because in places the writing was a little flat and there were some grammatical clunkers here and there (which meant that I was not overly impressed with the copy editing, either). The author has a few quirks that were a little maddening. When his characters take a ride across Paris he has to mention every single street that they turn down, I guess so that you'll be sure to realize how much research he did on 17th century Paris, and he has a habit of recapping things that have already happened. He does this so much, it made me wonder if the story had been serialized before it was published as a novel, but I did a little Googling and apparently this was not the case.
I think I enjoyed The Cardinal's Blades a bit more, perhaps because it was so fascinating being introduced to his world, and perhaps, having enjoyed the first book, I had higher expectations for the second and was a little disappointed. The books are definitely light reading, but I was hoping for a little more depth in the characterization, since he had already given us the basic outlines. In The Alchemist in the Shadows* much more is revealed about the background of some of the characters, and yet I felt that I hadn't learned anything more about them as personalities. In fact, starting the second book only a few months after reading the first, I was still having a bit of trouble keeping some of them straight through the first few chapters.
But still, I am looking forward to the third book when it is finally translated into English. It is quite obvious by the end of Alchemist that most if not all of the characters have Secrets in their Pasts, and I am curious to find out exactly what those secrets are.
So has anyone else read the books? And if so, what did you think, and what are some of your guesses about the dark hints scattered through them?
*The title is somewhat misleading, because even though there is an important character who goes by that name it is difficult to figure out why.
Having just finished the second one in the last couple of weeks, I found these great fun. Lots of swashbuckling adventure and intrigue in the style of Dumas père or Rafael Sabatini but with a large dose of fantasy, too.
I was not overly impressed with the translation because in places the writing was a little flat and there were some grammatical clunkers here and there (which meant that I was not overly impressed with the copy editing, either). The author has a few quirks that were a little maddening. When his characters take a ride across Paris he has to mention every single street that they turn down, I guess so that you'll be sure to realize how much research he did on 17th century Paris, and he has a habit of recapping things that have already happened. He does this so much, it made me wonder if the story had been serialized before it was published as a novel, but I did a little Googling and apparently this was not the case.
I think I enjoyed The Cardinal's Blades a bit more, perhaps because it was so fascinating being introduced to his world, and perhaps, having enjoyed the first book, I had higher expectations for the second and was a little disappointed. The books are definitely light reading, but I was hoping for a little more depth in the characterization, since he had already given us the basic outlines. In The Alchemist in the Shadows* much more is revealed about the background of some of the characters, and yet I felt that I hadn't learned anything more about them as personalities. In fact, starting the second book only a few months after reading the first, I was still having a bit of trouble keeping some of them straight through the first few chapters.
But still, I am looking forward to the third book when it is finally translated into English. It is quite obvious by the end of Alchemist that most if not all of the characters have Secrets in their Pasts, and I am curious to find out exactly what those secrets are.
So has anyone else read the books? And if so, what did you think, and what are some of your guesses about the dark hints scattered through them?
*The title is somewhat misleading, because even though there is an important character who goes by that name it is difficult to figure out why.
