I found this story to be hugely equally enjoyable and frustrating in equal measure.
Enjoyable, because we have Gemmell's classic attention to character, as the story opens to follow Kaelin Ring, Gaise, Taybard Jaekel, Mulgrave, Jaim, Maev, and offers the promise to show how these people - and their relationships with one another - will develop through the story.
Additionally, there was the awesome prophecy that, at some point, Kaelin of the Rigante would need to save Gaise of the Varlish.
So far so good - and for the first 90% of the story.
Then as it neared the end it became apparent that there was no way this book was going to be able to join up all of the various threads that had been set up. Even worse, completely new antagonists, not least the Varlish Church and the Knights of the Sacrifice, suddenly appear near the end without foreshadowing, to put the squeeze on the characters we've read.
And then the most frustrating part of all - that when the book does end, it is to tell us that this wasn't really a story about Kaelin, whom we've followed through most of the book, or even Blaise, for whom was given much promise - but instead, that this entire book was actually about Jaim, despite that he is little more than a secondary character through the majority of the story.
I had hoped that this would mean that Ravenheart was a two part story, and that the fourth Rigante book, Stormrider, would follow on directly from it. Unfortunately, from what little I've seen, it follows on only in the way that Midnight Falcon followed Sword in the Storm - as in, not really, other than that we meet some of the same characters, but many years later.
I'm therefore left scratching my head as to what to think about Ravenheart. Much of the time it seems like a great story in the making - only to suddenly conclude far too quickly and unsatisfactorily. And when it did end:
Enjoyable, because we have Gemmell's classic attention to character, as the story opens to follow Kaelin Ring, Gaise, Taybard Jaekel, Mulgrave, Jaim, Maev, and offers the promise to show how these people - and their relationships with one another - will develop through the story.
Additionally, there was the awesome prophecy that, at some point, Kaelin of the Rigante would need to save Gaise of the Varlish.
So far so good - and for the first 90% of the story.
Then as it neared the end it became apparent that there was no way this book was going to be able to join up all of the various threads that had been set up. Even worse, completely new antagonists, not least the Varlish Church and the Knights of the Sacrifice, suddenly appear near the end without foreshadowing, to put the squeeze on the characters we've read.
And then the most frustrating part of all - that when the book does end, it is to tell us that this wasn't really a story about Kaelin, whom we've followed through most of the book, or even Blaise, for whom was given much promise - but instead, that this entire book was actually about Jaim, despite that he is little more than a secondary character through the majority of the story.
I had hoped that this would mean that Ravenheart was a two part story, and that the fourth Rigante book, Stormrider, would follow on directly from it. Unfortunately, from what little I've seen, it follows on only in the way that Midnight Falcon followed Sword in the Storm - as in, not really, other than that we meet some of the same characters, but many years later.
I'm therefore left scratching my head as to what to think about Ravenheart. Much of the time it seems like a great story in the making - only to suddenly conclude far too quickly and unsatisfactorily. And when it did end:
it was simply to say that the drunken thief and killer, Jaim Grymuch, was some form of magical embodiment of all that is Holy. WTF?! The Source is now some kind of embodiment of a trickster god??
