Betrayals : Book Four of the Blending

Rating:
Summary: Betrayals, The Boring
Review: The first book in the series started out great. The second book was not so great. The third book was downright bad. This one is simply poor. There seems to be a trend recently in SciFI and Fantasy to write more and longer pieces regardless of quality, just to collect more royalties. Unfortunately, this does not lend itself to good writing, and good writing is what science fiction and fantasy are about.

Rating:
Summary: An exciting book with a another frustrating ending!
Review: Well Sharon has done it again! "Betrayals" is a great book with lots of action this time! The characters of the "other" blending-now the Seated Five,are really involved as well and you can easily see the fifth book leading to a climactic finale. Be prepared-you will be hanging on after reading this one too!

Rating:
Summary: Epic and gaining momentum
Review: Years ago I picked up this series after being attracted to its lovely cover art, and I admit I found it slow going for the first four novels. What drew me was the plot, which is ambitious and absorbing, and I ended up buying three out of the first four. At the time the rest weren't written yet so I let the series go until just recently. Picking it up again, I find that the tedious moments (repeating each character's interpretation of events, the flashback style of narration) can be overlooked and eventually evolve into something much more fast-paced. The characters are engaging, despite my vast annoyance with Tamrissa and Valant's unending conflicts (hey... if a character can evoke strong emotion, you know it's an involving book). The politics and sometimes-overdone characterizations don't bother me, and add to the interest at times. In this fourth book, the plot picks up after a sharp disappointment and promises better things to come. I plan on buying the next few books as soon as I can, just to continue the story.

Overall, I've never found a series that can hold my interest so long and with such a strong curiousity about what's going to happen next. The elemental aspect and ascending levels of combat in the entire series remind me of some RPG video games I've played, which is an interesting way of looking at these books. It helps to view this series as a wonderful and vast plot that simply takes a few thousand pages to tell. If a particular book seems a little slow, think about it... in any average novel, if pages 20-30 seem a bit dull, does that warrant complaining? Likewise, with these, if book two seemed a litte tedious, then you only have to wait a little longer than average for events to pick up.

I recommend this series for those out there who go through books like candy -- quickly, and enjoying each bite. If you have to delay too much between books you might find that its hard to get back into your momentum, and if you don't read very fast then these may be impossible for you to enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: Epic and gaining momentum
Review: Years ago I picked up this series after being attracted to its lovely cover art, and I admit I found it slow going for the first four novels. What drew me was the plot, which is ambitious and absorbing, and I ended up buying three out of the first four. At the time the rest weren't written yet so I let the series go until just recently. Picking it up again, I find that the tedious moments (repeating each character's interpretation of events, the flashback style of narration) can be overlooked and eventually evolve into something much more fast-paced. The characters are engaging, despite my vast annoyance with Tamrissa and Valant's unending conflicts (hey... if a character can evoke strong emotion, you know it's an involving book). The politics and sometimes-overdone characterizations don't bother me, and add to the interest at times. In this fourth book, the plot picks up after a sharp disappointment and promises better things to come. I plan on buying the next few books as soon as I can, just to continue the story.

Overall, I've never found a series that can hold my interest so long and with such a strong curiousity about what's going to happen next. The elemental aspect and ascending levels of combat in the entire series remind me of some RPG video games I've played, which is an interesting way of looking at these books. It helps to view this series as a wonderful and vast plot that simply takes a few thousand pages to tell. If a particular book seems a little slow, think about it... in any average novel, if pages 20-30 seem a bit dull, does that warrant complaining? Likewise, with these, if book two seemed a litte tedious, then you only have to wait a little longer than average for events to pick up.

I recommend this series for those out there who go through books like candy -- quickly, and enjoying each bite. If you have to delay too much between books you might find that its hard to get back into your momentum, and if you don't read very fast then these may be impossible for you to enjoy.