Rating: 
Summary: Hmm...
Review: First off, I should say this: I liked Ruins of Ambrai, but I didn't love it. I liked the book more and more after I re-read it, but it had me skimming a lot of passages. After a while there were too many characters 'just stuck in' who all seemed the same - loyal to a fault and two dimensional. I stopped keeping track. To be completely honest, I should also say that I have read 300 pages of The Mageborn Traitor and then stopped. It's just not, in my opinion, worth reading any further. It just wasn't interesting enough. Sure enough, Rawn picks up where she left off - throwing in random characters here and there who all seem eerily the same. Cailet dominates the book (well, the beginning at least) but just isn't that dynamic of a character. If you really (or sort of) enjoyed Ruins of Ambrai, I would suggest picking up The Dragon Prince by Melanie Rawn, which is equally entertaining (though the latter half drags quite a bit). The Mageborn Traitor just didn't keep my interest, and was a task to get through.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Writer -- Slow paced book
Review: There simply isn't enough action in this story. I've notice a trend among good writers to spend an large amount of time describing every thing their characters are doing that might pertain to the story (shades of Robert Jordon). This book isn't bad but it isn't as good as the first, largely because it takes a long time to get to a somewhat unsatisfying conclusion. I think I would have picked up the pace and jammed book three into book two. I also found myself a little uncomfortable with her feminist society. As an intellectual undertaking I was willing to explore, but how many men really let their wives beat them senseless? At times I found her plot device a distraction (men with coifs, instead of woman). Also if anybody figures out who Collan's real parents were suppose to be let me know, I reread that part three times and still didn't catch the hints if there really were any.
Rating: 
Summary: Tantalizing
Review: It was wonderful reading more from the world of Exiles: the Ruins of Ambrai. Melanie Rawn pulls off the upside-down order of things with skill and aplomb. She has created a world where the women are in charge and the men need to start a movement akin to the Feminist one in our world if they are to protect their rights. (Being a complex and very intricate book, this is just the setting and not the plot) She makes it convincing because she doesn't just switch roles but she adapts and experiments, finely distinguishing the differences of man and woman and how they would react in reversed situations. But besides all that, there are the characters I have come to care so very much for: well-loved Collan, struggling Cailet, and the more self-possessed and clever Sarra. The mystery of the mageborn traitor had me despairing and on the very edge of my seat, my suspicions lurching from left to right, until my convictions were contradictory and I was as frustrated and confused as Cailet was over the secrets of Josselyn and Jored. This book, as most of Rawn's work, was a bit too adult for 16 year old me, being too lusty and loose for my comfort, but I will admit once more that Ms. Rawn knows how to create a world with great detail. Names of characters can get confusing because there are so many minor ones that will continue to pop up, but the author has thoughtfully provided much-needed glossaries about names and patron-saints. I laughed, cried, became furious and despaired over the course of this book, which is no more than I have come to expect from the author since reading her Dragon trilogies. The book will leave you with a lot of questions, foremost ones about dear Collan. I am now waiting for Captal's Tower, the anticipated third book, but I hear it shall be a very long wait indeed. Cruel, cruel, but atleast this gives us time to reread the first (and very thick) books many times prior to Captal Towers' publication. PS: as an indication of Melanie Rawn's wonderful writing ability, I'd just like to add that not only did I love the book, but I loved the Author's Note too! I laughed very hard and it is possibly my favorite part! :)
Rating:
Summary: Excellant Book
Review: I loved this book a lot. It took me into a world so unlike our own but is very believable. The ongoing war between the Mage Guardians and the Malerissi is terrible but it shows the usual battle of good against evil. I found myself almost becomming one with the charactors and part of their world. I felt terrible when collan died in the end but I am just bursting to know who he really is the clues aren't enough. I can't wait to read the next book. I think that it is cruel and unusual punishment to write another book in between. I noticed that some of the reviews say hard back edition, is there something different about it or not. If you know please e-mail me or if you put the clues about Collan together. (stbailey@gateway.net)
Rating:
Summary: Warm, enchanting, witty and wise
Review: Melanie Rawn is an outstanding writer who intuitively captures the soul of each of her characters and the flavor of their personalities as formed and flawed by experiences within the various shirs, especially the starkness of The Waste, in which they live and love. She provides colorful and rich variations on power lust and delicious sexuality that tantalize and reveal. Exiles and Mageborn Traitor,present a matriarchial society of women as power brokers and males the home/care givers that challenges the reader to think about how this could be in "real" life. Her characters are drawn with insight and thoughtfulness kissed with great wit and wry humor. She informs the reader of alternate points of view with the graceful brushstroke of gentle humanity in a smooth, refreshing and thought provoking way, even when the characters are the villians! Here is great mastery in her enchanting style of wrapping you within the cocoon of her stories where you connect with her characters and what they find funny. The brilliant description of the arrogant, self absorbed, corpulent,"Grand Duchess" of Domburr over dressed in gauche yellow riding clothes, with an orange scarf tied under her chins, heaving her massive bulk onto an even more massive "plow horse" to go on a hunt is just hilarious. This dazzling humor is prevalent in her Dragon Prince and Dragon Token series (which are forerunners in style to this series). Here we find an even more powerful fantasy slice of life for those of us addicted to Ms. Rawn's excellence in writing as her wittiness and sly humor weaves its magical thread throughout which makes her work so welcome to read. I look forward to the blow out mage war between the meleressi and mage guardians in the forthcoming book Captal's Tower. You can bet Jored and Josselyn will be nose to toes in that battle! Will Cailet finds her true love? (Josselyn? ) Will Sarra find someone to ease her broken heart, share her political battles and warm her lusty nights? Will Teigan's wrenching struggle to open up to her magic persist after Glenin's murder of her beloved father? Will her twin Mikel's magic be supplanted by his evolution into minstel/bard in Collan/Falundir's place? Now, to find the clue for that ornery, sexy, elegant minstrel Collan whose heritage mystery has tantalized us throughout this series. I will miss him terribly.
Rating:
Summary: Great characters - missed opportunity
Review: The novel is well-written with good characters and multiple points of view. However, like the first in the series, this one fails to realize the potential of the characters. In particular, it follow the "paint-a-target-on-me-and-let-me-walk-around-waiting-to-be-hit" approach of other authors (the "Camber of Culdi" series comes to mind). The main heroes for the most part simply wait to be victims/martyrs, and the much-vaunted "gut-jumping" of one of the characters is never used to any good advantage. Similarly, the magic is curiously limited although there are hints of more. The magic seems to consist of spells for warming coffee and people, battling it out with mage globes, "wards" (a multi-purpose but vague category) and fireworks. Why are there "mage scholars" for example? Or "mage healers"? There seems no "mage" part to their title. We never see them apply magic to their craft in any useful way. All in all, while the book is engaging, it is disappointing to see a good, believable world created and then not be used to even close to potential. Many readers may be left frustrated or disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: Mageborn traitor
Review: I loved this book. Every since the Sunrunner's fire I've been hooked on Ms.Rawn's work. I just wish she's come out with the conclusion already. Like it takes 4 years to get over a broken arm!
Rating:
Summary: Well worth the slow parts
Review: First off, I have to admit that the book is a litttle slow sometimes, but that's something that is a bit refreshing. I'd rather not read a book full of action and disasters that happen one after another after another because it gets tiring. I enjoyed very much reading more into Caitlet and the way she works. Rawn has done a wonderful job of making Collan and Sarrah more vivid. Ruins is my favorite book, but this is a close second. I Never reread books and I found myself reading these over again. The magic is nifty too.
Rating: 
Summary: Effortlessly predictable
Review: Does any of this sound familiar to you..? A core of main characters who are beautiful, charismatic, witty and intelligent...their gorgeous children (preferably twins) possessed of "delightfully" mischevious behaviour who are given to playing pranks on their doting parents and servants...a supporting cast of adoring friends who offer endless compliments to the main characters...Still unsure? Here are a few more clues. A complicated, endless myriad of minor characters...further confusion caused by similar sounding names plus the over-usage of pet names...supposedly cunning plot twists that couldn't be more obvious if they were sign-posted...main characters pointlessly killed off for no logical reason...supposedly intricate political manouverings that wouldn't even confuse a small child...villians who are even more two dimensional than the paper they are written on...a pervasive atmosphere of sentimental, sugary, superficial fluff that masquerades as "true love" between the core characters...Need I continue? The above montage could describe any and every Melanie Rawn novel. If you really are compelled to write Ms. Rawn please limit yourself to the young child genre, they may find your works enthralling, intricate and fascinating. Any educated adult does not. As a post script can I just say how shocked I am at the very low level of literacy in these reviews. Do American schools not bother to teach spelling, punctuation and grammar?
Rating:
Summary: WOnderful book!
Review: I read this book a while ago, and let me tell you, it's fascinating. The complex charichters, the even ore complex plots - I love it. ! Spoiler Warnings! Do not read any farther if you don't want the ending of the book ruined for you! Anyhow, I was just wondering what other people's opinions on Collin's death scene - was that real, all those memories that were blocked by the wards, or were they delusions, or what? If yyou'd like to talk about all that, mail me. Oh, and I'd just like to say, that this is the first author where i have not gone out looking for fanfiction on her works - the books and charichters are perfict as is.
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