Rating: 
Summary: A Good Read
Review: Having read Niles' Watershed Trilogy many years ago, I was more than sure that Circle at Center would be just as good. The whole concept behind the seven circle realm was good, not excellent, but good. However, the concept of "bad Christian vs. good Goddess" was a little too melodramatic for my taste. I liked it, but he could have not made it so expected.
Even though the plot tends to wander off at some points, Niles still pulls it all together, leaving the reader wanting more.
However, I was slightly disappointed in the ending, which did not make too much sense. Still, I do think that it is a good read and one that I shall want to finish with the two remaining books.
Rating: 
Summary: Good concept, good characters
Review: I had never read any of Douglas Niles's work before this one. The storyline is great and the characters are great, but as others have said, the story moved way too fast. As I neared the end of the novel, I realized that there was no way Niles could carry this current storyline throughout the rest of the series, and I was right. The first novel is like a stand-alone novel instead of part of a trilogy.The world that Niles created could have been explored more in-depth than it was. I finished the book feeling a bit cheated. The ending wrapped up far too easily and quickly. It is a great concept and the characters are great, but this book could have been so much better than it was. Please read it and make your own decisions about it. If you like fast paced stories, this may be the one for you. I have no interest in looking for the other books of this trilogy.
Rating: 
Summary: What a great read!
Review: I have never read a book by Douglas Niles before, but I couldn't help picking up this copy at the store! It looked great from the outside, but reading it was even better! I don't read that much fantasy fiction, but I would recommend this book to anyone. I was interested the whole way through and I still can't wait to read the next one!
Rating:
Summary: What a great read!
Review: I have never read a book by Douglas Niles before, but I couldn't help picking up this copy at the store! It looked great from the outside, but reading it was even better! I don't read that much fantasy fiction, but I would recommend this book to anyone. I was interested the whole way through and I still can't wait to read the next one!
Rating: 
Summary: A Huge Plummet in Quality
Review: I liked this book at first despite the sex which I think, was written in too much detail. Sex can be implied at various degrees in a story, but this was a bit too much. But still I would have still rated this book a 4 or 5. However I hated the part when the knight raped the elf queen. A sage ambassador with great magical powers. Maybe I'm too much of a softy, but I hate when the author does not respect the fate of his characters. I would rather have see the sage-ambassador die rather than the be raped, which truly disgusted me!
To quote my Enlish teacher "this was Douglas Niles' porn" (although actually he was referring to Anne Rice's "Queen of the damned but I'm sure one might get the idea). I did not personally like this book mostly because of the emotional response that it inflicted me with.
I do however recomend this book and I would be very willing to read any other of Douglas Niles' books, however never again would I read this series, however; maybe once I'm a bit more mature, I'm not sure.
Rating:
Summary: Not so good...
Review: I realy liked the innitial concept of the book. The somewhat overlaping relms seemed an interesting new idea, but the book skips around too much. There was not enough charictor development, I didnt ever get to "know" the charictors. Also, every time I wanted to know more about a charictor the book compleatly changed places, leaving me annoied that I had to reed about something that had nuthing to do with the prievious thing. The charictors where also hard to follow, some of them only appearing once in the book.
I also found the book excesiavely violent. There was too much killing, and not enough plot. Also, when the book sudenly skips 20 years into the future, were a full war is still going on, the reader is left uninterested. Eather the charictors will be the same a you last knew them, witch is hardly possable after 20 years of war, or they will have changed compleatly, leaving the reeder woundering who they are now, on top of the undeveloped start. The first chaptor or so is very good, but it all goes down hill!
Rating: 
Summary: Never rises above a cliche
Review: In addition to other criticisms about the book, I'd like to add that the world that Niles has created really doesn't make any sense. He has slapped to together a bunch of fantasy staples such as elves, druids, dwarves, etc. without much regard to how they arrived or fit in his world. Things are exist because he wrote it -- no internal logic is necessary.
Terry Pratchett's Discworld books make much more sense -- and we're talking about a parody where that world rests on the back of a giant space-faring turtle!
Rating:
Summary: The shallow circle
Review: Niles' concept of the different realms layered around each other is an interesting one. And his portrayal of the different beings (elves, drwarves, airies, etc.) is also good. However his character development is far to shallow and his imagry poor. He did not exploit the full potential of this story; it could have been much more. In addition, Niles seems to have a fixation on gore and sex which are used inappropriately (in my opinion) in the book. His use of sex in the beginning of the book added no value. His dwelling of the gore of the arcane Delver is as close to deep character development that he gets (which isn't very deep).
Rating:
Summary: The shallow circle
Review: Niles' concept of the different realms layered around each other is an interesting one. And his portrayal of the different beings (elves, drwarves, airies, etc.) is also good. However his character development is far to shallow and his imagry poor. He did not exploit the full potential of this story; it could have been much more. In addition, Niles seems to have a fixation on gore and sex which are used inappropriately (in my opinion) in the book. His use of sex in the beginning of the book added no value. His dwelling of the gore of the arcane Delver is as close to deep character development that he gets (which isn't very deep).
Rating:
Summary: Circle at Center: great story, but slow down.
Review: The fantasy world that Niles has created is incredible. I like the whole concept of the seven circles, especially since he has found a way to tie earth into the story.He has some interesting new charecters, such as the Delvers and wyslets that lurk in the First Circle. However, there are a few things that I would have liked him to describe in more detail. First, he concept of the Goddess Worldweaver. I have read the Wheel of Time series by Rober Jordan, and the Goddes Worldweaver seems very similar to Jordan's concept of the Wheel and the Pattern.I would have liked Niles to elaborate on this in more detail, as well as some of his characters. He did a splendid job in portraying the Delver Dwarves, Natac,and Sir Christopher, but i would have liked to have known more about some of the other characters such as Tam, the druids, Nistel, Rawknuckle Barefist (great name), and all the other creatures of Nayve in general.Overall, the storyline was great, but it moved too fast. I think the book could have probably been spread out over three. Niles has some great ideas though, and I would definately recomend the book to all lovers of high fantasy.
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