Lord of the Isles

Rating:
Summary: So So book, but if you miss it, don't lose any sleep.
Review: I have to admit that I was pretty disappointed with Lord Of The Isles. It took a long time to get anywhere and it seemed very light on the details. It felt like reading a summary of another book with most of the details left out. The author seems to jump around alot and never really fleshed out the current scene before leaving it. I would recommend skipping this one.

Rating:
Summary: Very well done, Drake creates a very detailed world
Review: This book shows off Drake's talent for creating extremely detailed, interesting worlds. The characters are very believable, no heroes for the sake of being a hero here. Only drawback would be low excitement level, it is more like Drake is telling us about a historical event than telling us a story.

Rating:
Summary: Loved This Book!
Review: I'm not gonna go into a lot of exposition here on why this is a great book, just take a chance and judge for yourself. Even if you wouldn't list it as one of your top favorite fantasies ever, you'll still have a good time with it. In the end, that's how I judge a book to be worth reading or not: Does it COMPEL you to keep turning the pages? Are you driven to keep coming back to it whenever you're able to do so? If it's part of a series, as this one is, will you buy the next one in the series? If you answer yes to all these questions, then it's a book worth reading. This book is, based on my answering yes to all these questions, a book worth reading.

All I will say to those who claim it's so bad is that it's ridiculous to criticize a book or author for not keeping with genre "conventions" because, let's face it, conventions make for a lot of monotony after a while. Unlike a couple of people here who hated the book and said they've read 50-70 fantasy novels in their time, it's probably not exaggerating to say I've read several hundred over the last couple of decades, so I'm very familiar with Fantasy's staples, and I can tell you unreservedly that this book unequivocably qualifies as a Fantasy, to Hell with whatever else anyone else is trying to compare it to for it to be considered "in" in their opinion. And some of the people who criticize Drake for not knowing or not using these conventions also accuse him of heavily borrowing from other, supposedly better writers. If this is the case, if he's lifted so many ideas from other writers, then how is it possible that those writers' conventions would at the same time be missing from this book? Just curious.

In parting, just let me say that I read this right after having read several of Goodkind's Sword of Truth books - and it was a refreshing change! To those who said that Drake's character's aren't very fleshed out, let me tell you that his writing seemed very "mature" to me after finishing Goodkind's books, which are full of characters Goodkind keeps reminding us are hardened, stoic, even noble types, and yet they spend almost all their time either crying or getting angry or jealous and then apologizing for it, and probably at least two-thirds of their conversations are artificial, unnatural sounding expositions that serve no purpose but to remind the reader of what's come before, and to remind readers that all the rest of the characters in the book either love or hate or hate-to-love Richard because he's so wonderfully kind-hearted and sincere, that incorrugible but oh so good-hearted boy. Whoever accused Drake of ripping off Jordan - hello! please tell me that you don't think he's any more guilty of that than Goodkind; and yet you probably loved Goodkind's books, right? (I can honestly say, though, that Jordan never came to mind when I was reading Drake's book - though he DID when I was reading Goodkind, and often.)

That's all.

Rating:
Summary: Deus Ex Machina Brutally Contrived
Review: In "Lord of the Isles" David Drake brings us the kickoff for a fantasy series from an author who is so obviously unfamiliar with the conventions of the genre that it is sometimes painful to read. It is not so much that he flouts convention, or that he tries to redefine the genre. Rather, that he seems blissfully, but painfully, unaware that there ARE conventions to be drawn from. Such things as character development, self-determination, and character growth - ideas so ingrained in good heroic fantasy - simply take a back seat to the remorseless progress of the tale being told. Events happen for no more reason than some distant nameless faceless deity decided that they should, and destiny is reduced to a predefined set of required actions.

At the same time, elements of the book seem to borrow shamelessly from other, better fantasy novels. Fans of Robert Jordan (for instance) will recognize familiar characters, plotlines, and plot devices that seem obviously lifted from the Wheel of Time series. Fans of the immortal Tolkien will easily recognize the stark good vs. evil subtext and the black and white character portrayals.

Character development suffers. Drake drives his story along with a heavy-handed Deus Ex Machina. The characters are pushed through the book from one place to another with little or no sense of self-determination and no decision points where their own desires or will influences their destinies. Often this is a result of random occurrences ... shipwrecks, kidnappings, chance meetings, and even accidental interplanar travel. Yet still the characters all "happen" to end up in the right place and right time for their end-of-the-book reunion some weeks later in a relatively obscure city many hundreds of miles from where they started.

As is explained (rather unclearly) in chapter one of this book the gods rule all and the people are only pawns. What then follows is six hundred and twenty-five pages of curious boredom, as you watch the central characters (the pawns) get pushed about the board by unseen hands.

The pawns themselves have little or no choice in the matter. Almost without fail their situations are presented to them as "do-what-the-narrator-wants-or-die" scenarios. If you are looking for moral ambiguity or for difficult choices defining a character's destinies, then continue looking - there is none of that here.

Finally, (and most inexcusable) the various subplots intertwine mercilessly, with every chapter (often as little as three pages) bringing yet another cut-away to a different character's storyline. At one point this became so tiresome that this reader found it necessary to re-read the central part of the book, reading first one storyline and then the next until the bulk of the characters came back together again.

And come together they do. The last forty pages of the book pretty much involve all of the characters bumping into one another and regrouping in a mind-numbing series of coincidences.

This is all too much, yet simply not nearly enough. I recommend the reader stay away, and I recommend that Mr. Drake go back to writing military sci-fi - where character development is so much less important to the story. Thanks.


Rating:
Summary: Truly awful.
Review: Can I first say the most important thing: Please, please dont buy this book. If you have any experience of fantasy - youll hate it. If you dont - youll be put off fantasy forever. Which is a tragedy because most fantasy is actually very good.

I have read about 60-70 fantasy novels.. and this (and the second book) I can honestly say is the only book I have not enjoyed.

It starts well, if perhaps the events arent quite believable. However, as the story progresses.. and you could argue it doesnt progress.. in fact you could argue there is no story as such.. anyway, through the course of the book events happen which are major no-no's in fantasy.

David Drake quite obviously has no concept of believable fantasy writing. Whilst Robert Jordan has characters which can travel great distances through portals, and Robin Hobb has magical standing stones which allow skill-users to travel between stones, David Drake see's no reason to provide any form of justification for his characters to suddenly move from one place to another.

David Drake can write scenes well, and his characters are believable - but he just cant thread together a plot. These books just consist of a series of completely disjointed scenes which bear no relation to each other or the overall story (whatever that is) and quite conveniently all the main characters get transported/teleported/whatever (who cares? - David Drake doesn't) to the same place at the end to defeat a bad guy who im not sure was doing anything bad anyway.

In fact I havent a clue what this book was about.

Can I instead recommend to readers anything by Robin Hobb. Shes my personal favourite writer around - the liveship series is particularily good. Please dont waste time on this garbage.

Rating:
Summary: Good read!
Review: While perhaps not "great," I thought this was a good first book in a fantasy series. Despite what others here say, I found the main characters likable and I cared about them. In general, the writing seemed well done, with the structure and descriptions well crafted and the style refreshingly direct. I admit the heroes seem a bit old-fashioned in that they actually do things, rather than sitting around whining or wrestling internal demons. I suspect I found this especially endearing after wading through so much of the glacial Wheel of Time series by Jordan. The plot moved forward quickly and was full of some surprises. I would have liked more background information on the world Drake has created here, and the ultimate goal of the story is illusive. Still, this works for me because I find myself identifying more with the main characters as they try to fathom what is happening to them. Looking forward to the sequels.

Rating:
Summary: It truly is one of the best fantasies of the decade.
Review: I have tried several times to read this book. I even bought it on tape to listen to on the way to work. It is long and if your a fan of fantasy, you've seen it all before. The tapes were especially annoying. I didn't realize until tape three that you had to reajust the speakers to listen to that tape again. It was frustratuing, and the action was confusing. Sorry, I gave it my best. Try David Drakes "Dragon Lord" instead.