Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful book; very creative
Review: I thought this book was her best yet. While I enjoyed the Black Jewels trilogy, this one held my interest more. Better yet, it only needed one book to tell the entire story.Her characterization and description of the Fae as self-absorbed due to their living in paradise and the assumption of their inherent superiority was well-done. I especially like the character Morag, who grew beyond this tendency. Definitely worth reading!!
Rating: 
Summary: An Enjoyable Journey
Review: I very much enjoyed this book. I thought the characterization was good. The plot has has a good mix of fantasy and romance. This book has some very strong but likable female characters which you don't see much in fantasy. This would be a good addition to any fantasy library. It does have strong connections to feminism and wicca. However, it amuses me to see some of the reviews that say that was not natural as it was "before" the feminist movement. What feminist movement? It's fantasy for goodness sake! Anyway, if you want a quick enjoyable read with a fair amount of action you will like this book.
Rating: 
Summary: eaaaigh
Review: I was anxious to see what this book had to offer. I've read the Dark Jewels series and enjoyed them. I whipped open the Pillars as soon as it arrived at home, only to lay it down for three weeks before trying to lift it again. The book has an extremely slow beginning. I had to force myself to actually read the book after reading the first chapter. It did pick up after that and was able to hold my attention enough to get me through the book. The main character, Ari, is a little too goody goody for my taste (as well as the hero). The fae, left a bad taste in my mouth. (I mean how shallow can you get?) Overall, it was a disappointment.
Rating:
Summary: Another Amazing Book!
Review: I've read all of Anne Bishop's books, and I've loved every single on of them. Sense this book is set in a different world then all of her other books, I was wondering if she would be able to create a world just as interesting and with characters that could live up to her previous work. Well, Pillars did. The details of the book were very solid and the characters were all very well written. The plot was also very well done. It was interesting even when they were only dealing with minor characters thinking. Ari the main character is a young witch living all alone after the death of her mother and grandmother. She gets intangled with the Fae due to a trick played on her by the local gentry that forces her to look for a lover on Summer's Moon. She ends up meeting one of the Fae in his other form. Eventually you also learn that there are Witch Hunters moving through the land, and they are slowly coming towards Ari. Eventually you do learn what the Pillars are and I promise that everything is wraped up very nicely. It's good from start to finish, and I couldn't have asked for anything better.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful
Review: I've read the Black Jewels Trilogy and the Invisible Ring. I loved that series.
However, it was getting to the point that there really wasn't much left to say.
Pillars is a marvolous departure from her darker side. The plot is accurate and enthralling. There are parts that will make you want to laugh out loud, and parts that make you want to strangle someone. As with the Black Jewels Trilogy, you can almost touch the characters and see the land scape.
I would recommend this book to any avid reader. (Except those who get nit-picky about historical accuracy)
Rating:
Summary: Not the best, not the worst
Review: In the midst of reading it.. I really expected this book to deal with the jewels again and the social heiarchy we all encountered before, yet the lack of such puzzled me immensely. Also, the Fae aren't clearly outlined.. WHAT are they? Understand me? No? Don't worry, you're not the only one. :P I love being 15...
Rating:
Summary: not up to her standards
Review: Its not so much that The Pillar's of the World is a bad book, its just that those of us who have read the Black Jewel's trilogy know Anne Bishop is capable of so much more. It is a perfectly fun fluff story of a young witch with a great deal of heart and a decent villan, and the ending is not crystal clear in the first 15 pages. But from Bishop this is a disapointment. I agree with a reader that she seems to have used up the Black Jewel's world, but maybe she should put off writing for a while until she has another vivid and enchanting place to take us to.
Rating: 
Summary: Anne has done much better
Review: Let me make myself perfectly clear: I love Anne Bishop's BLACK JEWELS Trilogy. I adore them. I've read at least one copy of each of the three books until the covers fell off and the books fell in half, and then I bought another copy. These stories are brilliant. Pillars of the World was a total disappointment. I was really psyched when I saw that she put another book out, and I crashed very hard after the first chapter. I knew exactly what was going to happen in the plot by the end of the chapter, and she didn't disappoint me, right down to the bones. I kept reading in hopes that the story would improve, and it didn't. The characters were flat and cliched, the storyline unoriginal, and the world was mundane. *spoilers* For example: I found the witch hunter to be completely cliched in his manner, in his reasons, in his methods of torturing the witches. And the whole "hate my mother because she's a witch" is just so...expected. All the characters did exactly what I expected them to do if they were cliches, right down to the mannerisms. I was just so disappointed that I couldn't read the book straight through. I finally jumped to the end, hoping beyond hope that I was wrong. I wasn't. Here's to hoping that Anne finds the misplaced magic that she had in the Black Jewels Trilogy and dazzles her readers again.
Rating:
Summary: Not What I Was Hoping For
Review: Like so many others, I came to know Anne Bishop's work through her Black Jewels series; I found the original trilogy spellbinding, and _Invisible Ring_ only slightly less so. When I caught sight of _Pillars of the World_ on the shelves, I hastened to snatch it up, eager to read something by this new(ish) writer with such amazing skill. Unfortunately, _Pillars of the World_ left me almost entirely cold... enough so that I'd probably give it 2.5 stars if allowed. Part of this is strictly personal: from the beginning, I found myself rooting for the 'wrong' characters; I developed a fondness for a certain Lord and Lady of the Fair Folk, and found Ari's story only of marginal interest when they weren't in it. As such, the direction the book took--particularly towards the end--was extremely unsatisfying for me. (It didn't help that I felt a mild dislike of Neall from his first appearance on.) But while this certainly went a long way towards hindering my enjoyment of the book, it wasn't the only detrimental factor. The main character never really showed what it was about her that drew the interest and/or affection of so many powerful people. Dianna's shift from regal Lady to spoiled brat seemed forced, and Lucian suffered a similarly unfortunate if less drastic transformation. As to the main villain... others have already remarked on his cliche qualities; I have to agree with them, but add that I think I would have found these easier to look past if it weren't for his name. In the Black Jewels trilogy, the characters with the 'evil' names tended to be the white hats; here, Bishop gave an name associated with evil (I drew a Hitler parallel immediately, once I learned the nature of his profession) to a black hat, and instead of making him more interesting, it seemed--at least to me--only to make him trite. I wish I could recommend this novel, but I can't do so without reservations. I give it three stars mainly because I think, despite what I perceived as its flaws, it could be an enjoyable read for those who find themselves liking Ari and Neall more than I did. Bishop fans may want to check it out, but I'd suggest looking for it at the library before spending money on a book that just can't quite compare with her other works.
Rating:
Summary: A Pleasant Book, But...
Review: Ms. Bishop has created an interesting society where Old Places in each community are the sites of magic and where the witches (women connected to the earth and elements, not the Wicked Witch of the West type) live, a land of the Fae which connects to the human world through roads that pass through the Veil. Of course there is a problem in this paradise - there roads are disappearing and the Clans of the Fae near those roads are vanishing without reason. Trouble is also coming for the witches in the form of misogynistic, witch-hating man who calls himself the Witch's Hammer and who, with his group of Inquisitors, is dedicated to eradicating witches from the land. The story centers around Ari, a young witch whose mother and grandmother recently died, and who is slowly being shunned by her community. And that's the problem with this story. Ari is rather a dull character. She is mainly concerned with home, hearth, and the land. She's unworldly and lonely, yet she is the lust object of a Baron's son, the love object a kind mortal man, and the object of desire of a lord of the Fae, and it just doesn't make any sense. The storyline, as it swirls around her and what is happening in the society, is interesting, but I never really felt any connection to the characters, except to Morag the Gatherer (of souls). She seemed to be the most developed of them all, probably because she was proactive.
The book was enjoyable and readable but you could tell in advance the way things were going to work out. There were no real surprises. It was a pleasant way to spend a few hours, but don't expect it to change your existence.
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