Rating: 
Summary: Solid Score
Review: Grimsley does an amazing job with this book. The characters are well developed and take you on an amazing journey. This book did remind me of the Last Herald-Mage Trilogy which it is bound to be compared too.Jessex is an adolescent on the verge of manhood when the winds of destiny catch him up into a struggle that has been blowing across the land. It is a journey of discovery and love that fuels the progress of this story. Unlike similar books in the genre, the magic system is well developed and we are allowed to glimpse the training that Jessex undergoes as he advances from level to level. This is a must read.
Rating:
Summary: Absorbing and Unique !
Review: Grimsley is one of my favorite authors. Kirith Kirin is his first effort in fantasy and he has once again proven his talents. Kirith Kirin surpasses my expectation. It is an outstanding fantasy with an absorbing plot, a magical and colourful world and unique characters. I enjoy the book immensely and hope Grimsley will invest his talents in another fantasy soon.
Rating: 
Summary: Not everything it could be
Review: Have you ever read something that kept dragging you along in expectation of Something Is Going To Happen, only to get to the end and realize Nothing Did? That was my experience with Kirith Kirin. I can't fault it for its fantasy content -- the magical system was well enough done that I didn't spend a lot of time questioning it. I rather enjoyed the world created by the author. Plot wise, it was a little on the mundane side in that most of what I thought was going to happen did happen, and there was only one real surprise for me. The characters were somewhat -- ok, enough with the qualifiers, the characters were little cardboard cutout people who walked around doing what they advertised. The heroes were heroic, the villains were villainous, but in the end it wasn't really anyone's fault and its because the whole world is changing...bah. I ended up not caring. About two thirds of the way through I stopped reading the book and left it lying beside the bed for nearly a month. Pure stubbornness and the fact that it was a Meisha Merlin publication made me read to the end. I had the feeling that Mr. Grimsley got tired of the novel himself, that he really didn't love it or care much about it. Maybe it was a ...stepchild, something he thought would be fun to write and then became a contractual obligation. I don't know. I do know that I didn't love it, and that it went into the box as a used book store trade in. I didn't hate it, either. I was just sort of hanging, not really caring what happened to these characters or their fairly interesting world anymore. That's about the worst indictment I can make against a book -- I didn't care.
Rating: 
Summary: Disapointing
Review: I don't know what it is about this book.... I had heard about it from a friend and looked it up here on amazon, it had enough good reviews for me and I decided to get it. I was very disapointed, the story line was good and the characters could ahve been interesting and fun, but there is just something about this book that made it VERY dificult for me to get through and even harder to really like. I felt no connection to the characters, and the romance between Jessex and Kirith Kirin was just.... it didnt seem real to me. I truely don't know what to say about this book. It wasnt my favorite but I cant say it is the worst book I have ever read.
Rating:
Summary: a response to Mr. reader from Flagstaff
Review: I find it odd that someone would pick up a high fantasy book, knowing that it's one, and complain about the magical elements. It's almost the same as picking up "Mists of Avalon" and complaining that it focused too much on the Arthurian legend. It reads like a different genre from "Comfort and Joy" because it so obviously *is*. And Jessex is hardly the Mary Sue that the reader above complained about; his overwhelming innocence/naivete, perhaps because of his complete lack of the ability to analyze, I think, is his fatal flaw. It bordered on stupidity and because of it, his world was nearly destroyed when it could have been easily saved, if he only had a pinch more wisdom. It's grating and annoying that he never suspect any of the upcoming events in his life, which any reader of average intelligence will forsee miles away. However, such isn't a complaint against the book itself. The book remained engrossing and enormously beautiful despite, or because of, Jessex, flaws and all. And Mr. Grimsley, imho, did a brilliant job and his choice to tell the story from Jessex's POV is, in the end, the perfect choice.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad, just really really not good
Review: I give the book two stars instead of one only because the prose style itself is not bad. Everything else about the book is. I have to admit I skimmed the first two thirds of the book - don't the authors know that the first rule of romance is to get your characters together? Apparently not. The first half of the book is about absolutely nothing much, and Kirith Kirin spends most of his time travelling somewhere far away. When he and Jessex finally get together, there is maybe two paragraphs of substance, which is everything worth reading about the book. Unfortunately it's only downhill from there. Kirith Kirin has zero personality, nothing, nada. He's a king and very old and in love with Jessex and that's it. Jessex is a boy - you get that from the beginning, and over and over again, and that's about all that can be said for him. He's a beautiful boy, he has magical powers, blah blah blah. There's a war in there somewhere, although I can't imagine anyone caring much about the battles or the outcomes, the politics of which are described in often excruciating (and yet completely uninteresting) detail. There is nothing personal in this book. It's a few character sketches and a detailed plot outline, and it just has no substance to it. The stuff you care about - what Kirith Kirin is thinking maybe, or what kind of person he is, or how these characters would interact with each other if ever anyone interacted with anyone in this book in all but the most superficial manner - all that stuff is missing. It also fails as a fantasy novel - the use of magic is highly unoriginal, warring parties devoid of character and motivation, and the plot is there but it just doesn't *move*. I put it down at about the two thirds point. It was just too painful to go on.
Rating:
Summary: A rare find in any genre
Review: I had no intention of liking this book. The cover is the worst sort of generic- dark horse riding through the woods-and the back cover blubage does little to convine anyone that there is anything interesting here. So why did I read it? Word of mouth from folks who never lie kept saying "you've got to read this". The plot is summarised in other postings so I won't repeat any of that. It's the writing itself I want to tell you about-if you are wondering should you pick it up-the answer is: only if you want something exquisite. I said to myself as I read it "I am not worthy. I haven't died and gone to reader's heaven with good lighting, huge cushy armchairs, and belgian chocololate yet. But here is an insider's view of magic and subtle states of trance, the regrets of living as an immortal, all the nuances of perception as an adolescent is trained as a magician. Move over T.H White!" The word I want first to describe the writing is intelligent. By that I mean that as a reader I was never condescended to: I wasn't hit over the head with clunky expository lame dialogue. What a relief! Charachters that were fully imagined, not a stick figure sketched in anywhere. And no simplistic good wizard / bad wizard junk cluttering up the pages either. This is writing that far exceeds what might be reasonably expected. It's a great novel that happens to have magicians in it. Brilliant, tender, insightful, filled with life. Damn I didn't want this book to end. Read it and be seduced, dazzled, and end up buying copies for everyone you know. I was. I did. And I'm glad.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Book!
Review: I had read "Winter Birds" and "Dream Boy" by Jim Grimsley, so I knew he was a great author. Sci-fi and fantasy are my favorite genres though, so I was really excited to read this book. It's really a great story and Grimsely does a wonderful job in creating his fantasy world. It has great character developement, and the characters also show true emotion. There are so few fantasy books that are geared toward the gay and lesbian community, or even have gay characters, so it's great when we get one that's actually good! Thanks Jim!
Rating:
Summary: Strange departure
Review: I must say I approached this one with both curiousity and trepidation; I've read most of Jim Grimsley's novels - Winter Birds, Comfort and Joy, Dream Boy - and found them well-written, engrossing, unusual, even masterful. But Kirith Kirin is a huge departure for Grimsley, who has crossed a line most authors won't: from 'literary' fiction to genre fiction, in this case fantasy. I wondered, starting the book, if he'd pull it off. Verdict? He stumbles in places, and Kirith Kirin is not up to the level of his other novels, but there's some good stuff in there. In short - it reads like a lot of the better first novels do, and as long as you can read it without dwelling on either its flaws or the fact that it *isn't* a first novel, it's quite enjoyable. But let's go back to those flaws for a second. First on that list for me was the main romantic relationship in the book, between Jessex, the farmboy-turned-magician-turned-savior-of-the-world, and Kirith Kirin, the virtually immortal king. Jessex is *15* for most of the book. For me, the disparity in ages - thousands of years old v. 15 - was too great. Sure, Jessex was willing, but the relationship seemed to me to be coming too close to pederasty. And the rationalizations offered by Jessex, as the narrator, weren't really enough to make me comfortable. (I also found myself wondering why Kirith Kirin, who has lived for millenia, couldn't find the wisdom and self-control to keep his hands off Jessex long enough for him to start shaving.) Another problem with the book is the length. It's 500 dense, closely printed, oversized pages. Now, I've read some great books of that length, books that needed and deserved to be that long, but Kirith Kirin isn't one of them. It begs for some judicious editing. In places, the excess verbiage drags the pace of the book down considerably - in particular, it seemed to me there were areas where Grimsley could've omitted his detailed descriptions - with things like travel itineraries, for example, and the many ordinary days the characters spend on horseback. However, the book has some great strengths, too. Despite a rather standard-issue plot (one that shows Grimsley's familiarity with fantasy literature, I might add), there is some true inventiveness in Kirith Kirin. In particular, the magic system and magic use stood out as an order of magnitude above what most fantasy books have to offer; for once in my life, I read an entire book in the genre without hearing any echoes of the Dungeons & Dragons magic system. Also, Grimsley displays his usual command of the language despite the padding effect. Even the excess prose is a pleasure to read, especially in a genre like fantasy, where the writing isn't always of a high order. He also takes the opportunity to do some additional explorations of his usual themes - isolation, for example - and images. Overall, there's a lot more of Grimsley in this book than I had feared, and a lot less of the derivative stuff that fills a lot of fantasy novels. Although it did seem to me that the author hadn't quite settled into the genre, the book is very readable, and I expect that if Grimsley continues with the fantasy experiment, we should be seeing marvelous stuff in a book or two. So, in the final analysis: if you can give the author a bit of slack, you'll find a book that lives up to the genre, and in places goes beyond it.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting but... Interesting
Review: I picked this up at the local library and figured it would be a nice change from chain reading fantasy series to just a single novel fix. I enjoyed the book overall but I find it disturbing that this book openly incorporates/accepts Gays and Lesbians. I certainly have nothing against them although I dont agree with their lifestyle. I think I would have enjoyed the book more if I knew about this ahead of time. I still would have read the book but I think a warning on the back cover or the excerpt in the front would be appropriate. I think the basis of the world and magic system was well through out as well as the religion in the fantasy world. I would give it a 4 but it dissapointed me that the publisher/author wouldnt want readers to know of the homosexual message involved in the book ...
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