Rating: 
Summary: Nice Story... but Too Wordy
Review: This is my 3rd JV Jones book I've read. I thought the story line was intriguing and the characters were easy to "get to know", but the only problem I had was that it's too "wordy". The book is long, which isn't a problem. However, too much of the content tends to focus on describing and explaining the scenery, background, emotions, etc instead of focusing on dialogue and actions with the characters. Consequently, I found myself skipping entire paragraphs simply because they didn't contain much "substance" and I found myself distracted from the story. Every once in awhile I'd go back and read the paragraphs I'd intentionally skipped and would realize that I didn't miss anything. One nice thing about the book is that although it's the first of a series, it does provide some sort of conclusion at the end. There's nothing worse than reading a series and discovering that a book ends with no sense of finality to the underlying subplot in the story. I'll probably pick up the sequel but will wait for the paperback.
Rating: 
Summary: Arrrrrggggg
Review: I loved the Book of Words trilogy and The Barbed Coil. Which made trying to force my way through this book even more frustrating. I finally gave up after 200 pages and the 4th or 5th time a major character refuses to do what they know they should do, with the expected DIRE CONSEQUENCES <insert ominous music here>. From her past work I really thought more of Jones. She's quite capable of advancing a plot without forcing her characters to act like idiots, but for some reason she chose not to here. Stay away from this one.
Rating: 
Summary: A Story Well Told
Review: I remember when I first got this book. I had really enjoyed reading the Master and Fool trilogy, particulary because its dark tone and often quite twisted characters made the world seem as real to me as anything I had read since The Lord of The Rings. Its one weakness, I felt, was that the conclusion was not entirely satisfactory.
In A Cavern of Black Ice, Jones builds off her earlier work, creating a dark and utterly believable world. Here, magic takes a back seat to brute force as clans and cities struggle for control of a dangerous artic land. Jones shifts between her different characters with amazing skill, showing different sides to each conflict. There is no black-and-white good versus evil here, atleast not on the surface.
It is true that, while humans struggle for dominance over eachother, only the Sull seem to see the true danger, as truely evil beings struggle to be freed from their prison. Yet Jones does not create any true "good" to withstand this evil, as central characters kill and torture those in their way, each for their own reasons. The hero here, by his owns actions, is more traitor than saint, but yet he is a very strong character who the reader can sympathize with. Jones is brilliant at using this moral gray zone to bring out the humanity in each character, and tieing them all together. This book, along with it's sequel, stand out as great pieces of literature, period. I can only hope that the conclusion to this saga matches the first two in quality. For those of you waiting for the third and final volume, it's coming out in April at uk.amazon.com. I for one can hardly wait.
Rating:
Summary: A new quest
Review: A Cavern of Black Ice is the first novel in the Sword of Shadows series. This novel is set in the same world as The Book of the Word series, a few years later and further to the north of the four kingdoms. Bren is the only common point on the two maps. In this novel, Penthero Iss, the surlord of Spire Vanis, has ambitious plans and his foster daughter, Asarhia March, is an integral part of them. Sixteen year ago, Ash had been found outside Vaingate within ten paces from the city wall by then Protector-General Iss. Since such foundlings were traditionally Protector's Trove, Iss brought her within his own household. Lately she has been troubled by bad dreams, even while awake. Raif is the second son of Tem Sevrance. Raif has inherited an unusual talent: he can heart kill any living thing. Raif and his older brother Drey are hunting and contesting at archery when Raif feels a powerful shock that blurs his vision and spurts metallic-tasting saliva into his mouth. Fearing danger to those left behind in the camp, the two hurry back as fast as they can travel. Easing into the camp, they found none living and only twelve corpses, including the clan chief, Drago Blackhail, and their father Tem. The adopted son of the chief, Mace Blackhail, is missing. Elsewhere, the Listener of the Ice Trappers dreams that the One with Reaching Arms has reached out to the darkness. Angus Lok is preparing for a supply run when a raven comes with a message that changes his plans. And deep under Spire Vanis lies the Bound One, suffering in the dark. This novel begins a new quest in fulfillment of prophecies that the questers only discover little by little as they strive for unknown goals and are guided by hidden forces. Ash finds herself with powers that she doesn't understand and can't control. Raif discovers that he too has powers, but doesn't know how they are to be used. This novel sets the stage, leaving much unexplained and introducing new factors at the very end. While this book is not as complex as Jordan's Wheel of Time series, it does have something of the same feel. The author writes vivid descriptions of some very bleak scenery and has a good touch with characterization. This series should be interesting. Recommended for Jordan fans and anyone else who enjoys well plotted sword and sorcery adventures with strong characterization.
Rating:
Summary: Dark, heavy, but good
Review: Like a good stout, I guess. The book is undeniably dark in tone. Characters smile less than once per chapter, and even most of those smiles are of the nasty kind. Some of the characters endure amazing torment, both physically and otherwise, and the reader is pulled into it with some unusually graphic descriptions. As for weight, the world described in the book is quite large and varied, but everything seems to be there for a reason; the author has set out to tell an inherently complicated story. The tantalizing bits of information about things that are tangential to the story but will undoubtedly become important later (e.g. the Sull, the Phage) are doled out with great skill, leaving the reader's curiosity neither fully satisfied nor deadened by being hidden among too many other names and events thrown in as mere window dressing (a too-common fault among fantasy authors). The plot is very dense, but does not - as with Robert Jordan, for example, or increasingly with George R.R. Martin - simply grow without bound. There are fewer storylines at the end than at the beginning, with some clearly primary and others kept to a reasonable minimum. Things *connect*. Something that's mentioned, or which happens, at one point in the book probably will become important later. The author clearly has a plan in mind, and isn't just making stuff up as she goes along. The pacing is extremely even, perhaps slower than some would like, but better that than to have it move in fits and starts while passages in between drag. This book is definitely not for the faint of heart or short of attention span, but it is an excellent book. Unlike certain other books that have been highly reviewed here without possessing a shred of real merit (*cough* Stanek *cough*) this one deserves the accolades it has received.
Rating:
Summary: J.V. Jones shows promise for a phenomenal series
Review: Having read a LOT of fantasy in the last few years (it's a great distraction when you're supposed to be reading dry college textbooks), I was thoroughly entranced by Cavern. I really couldn't put it down, and I was sorely disappointed when the story ended... because I wanted MORE!!! A young man, Raif, is effectively driven out of his home by a wolfish man whom Raif suspects murdered both Raif's father and the clan lord. A girl, Ash, is flowering into womanhood under the disturbingly close eye of her foster-father. When fate brings them together, they discover a chilling secret that threatens to bring about the undoing of mankind. The story is dark, with little room for laughter or comic relief. The gore is positively shocking; Jones has a real gift for the macabre. I was (perhaps) just a bit disappointed by the villians, who were typically villianish. The reader won't have any problems determing who are the real antagonists in this story. Overall, however, the writing was very well developed. I can't wait for the next book to come out.
Rating: 
Summary: A Cavern of Black Ice.
Review: Am I reading the same book that is referred to by all these rave reviews? To put it succinctly (which the author knows not) this book is slowwwww..... If you like at least a moderate amount of action to help keep the story vibrant, then look elsewhere. These other reviewers fooled me into buying this snoozer. I figured out that this must be some kind of conspiracy in which the author's family members are generating these faux positive ratings & reviews. Don't fall for it like I did!!
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