Rating: 
Summary: a review
Review: I haven't quite finished this book. I've stopped reading at chapter sixty one. Having read several other reviews, and agreeing that the character development is good, and that the setting is fun, there does not seem to me to be a great deal of depth that allows for the interest to be held. Any situation that the intrepid travellers find themselves in is resolved, quite rapidly in places. This dissipates the tension that should be building up throughout the book. So, they are attacked, slightly hurt, recover and move on. Or for example Elise's capture by the bad one, subsequent rescue by prince, then recaptured and given a suffocating truth serum, and low and behold the baddy gets his information. No fuss made. far to simplistic, conveneintly accessable heroine for baddy. sorry, but i like to see some political intrigue and a plot that does not rely on simple assumptions that we can make up our own story as to how the missing difficulties were dealt with. For a book that has 714 pages, i thought that more detail would have been given over to plot development rather than enderring us to the characters and land, both of which are important, but not for the sake of over simplifying the text.
Rating: 
Summary: Fantastic!
Review: I picked up this book on a whim while at the library one day. I recently finished reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy and decided that maybe other fantasy works would be to my liking (the LOTR was my first exposure to fantasy). I was in the R isle (looking for a james rollins book actually) and I noticed this one. So I picked it up and finally got to it.
I was pleasantly surprised! It was a little slow to start but I got sucked into it soon enough. It's much easier to get into and absorb than Tolkien's classic, that's for sure.
What I like about this book (this is my first Russell novel, by the way) is that even though it's a book of fantasy (or high fantasy and they're calling this type of book), the characters are beleivable. He doesn't get too much into goblins, orcs, trolls, giants and things of that nature...they're on the outter fringes of the book. The story remains very human, with little smatterings of magic, demons, sorcery and the like. Those things don't drive the story, but they certainly color it.
In all honesty, reading this book I saw shades of Ken Follett's books. As if I were reading one of his books set in a historical setting (Pillars of the Earth comes to mind, my favorite book E V E R).
Anyway, the ending leaves me wanting more and I plan on taking out the Isle of Battle as soon as I'm done two other books that I have borrowed from the library.
Sean Russell weaves a great story in this one. I highly recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: Start of Something Great
Review: I read the reviews posted here before ordering the book. Because I like Sean Russell's prior work very much, I was familiar with his carefully crafted, deliberate pacing while building to something very special. I was not in the least disappointed. Russell is not anything like the New York Times kind of fantasy epic authors, where characters are made of cardboard and exist only to further a predictable quest plot. Russell's characters are very real, with subtle foibles and occasionally contradictory thought processes--all exactly as people are in real life. This book is not for anyone who wants a fast food kind of book, but for readers who prefer a feast of many courses, each more exquisite than the last. I'm very much looking forward to the next volume. (I give it four, not five stars because it's an obvious first volume that doesn't quite stand on its own.)
Rating:
Summary: Wow, right up to the end
Review: I really enjoyed this book quite a lot. I really liked his initiate brother and the follow up, but I found it a bit hard to keep everyone straight, but I did enjoy it.With this book, it flowed so easily and well that it was one of those books that you read the last page and utter "ACK! That's it?" and immediately jump on the internet to find out when the next one is coming out.... Read it, it was great! M@
Rating:
Summary: a gem in the ocean of trash
Review: i think i was engrossed into this series.i like all the elements of asian entwined into the story even the setting is not. i am very fussy with fantasy these days well with books these days. gone were the days i think david eddings is god. i am very difficult to please. i was looking for something higher than david eddings or raymond e feist. hahaha... a lot of people will disagree with me but my opinion holds never the less. millions of people flock to see Titanic doesnt mean that it is good! i guess there will be things that will sell and appeal to the generall populace
Rating:
Summary: Excellent start to a new series by a rising star
Review: I won't bore you all with the setup of the book, which you can find out by reading other reviews. Instead, I'll offer my feelings on the book and its writing. Sean Russell (not Stewart, as someone critical of the book mis-named him) is an established author at this point, with this marking his seventh novel in the genre. Unlike his other books (four set in a Victorianeque world and two in an Asian setting), he has created a world here that smacks of low fantasy, while retaining the great concepts that make George R.R. Martin's recent books so compelling: politics, characterization, and wonderful writing. Sure, the pace is slow in the book, as Russell takes the readers down the winding river, skirting in and out of the otherworld, and it's beautifully done. These characters breathe and change. You learn who they are and what drives them. And you find yourself caring about them. All setup? I wouldn't say that - there's a lot that happens that makes the book a gripping tale. Why only 4 stars? Because I know I have to wait a few years to get to the end of this story.... :)
Rating:
Summary: NOT Tolkien
Review: I'm not as widely read in the fantasy genre as many other people out there. I've read and loved Tolkien and I've also read stuff by Brooks, Kay, Donaldson, Martin and others, but I haven't yet gotten around to Hobb, Goodkind, Jordan or many other popular fantasy writers. Tolkien is my standard. THE ONE KINGDOM: Book One Of The Swans' War is the first thing I've read by Sean Russell. I liked it. It's intricately plotted and the characters are sympathetic and engaging. There's plenty of action and plenty of skullduggery. So, why four stars and not five? After thinking over that question for a while, I concluded that THE ONE KINGDOM fell a little short for me in a couple of ways. First, the mysterious business of slipping in and out of alternate physical realms is never really explained. At least, not to my satisfaction. Second, I don't yet know what some of the main characters are doing in this story. Tam and his friends are deeply enmeshed in what's going on, but it isn't clear why. In THE LORD OF THE RINGS (and other favorites) everyone's role is clearly defined, even though you don't know how they'll end up. Here, major characters just seem to have gotten caught up by accident, although there are hints at deeper connections. There's no clear motivation for risking necks outside of getting what's owed and getting home again. That doesn't seem quite adequate, somehow. THE ONE KINGDOM is fun. For me it was a page-turner. I enjoyed it and will definitely read the next book in the series. It's not, however, quite on a par with Tolkien or some other fantasy novels I've read. I recommend it, but there are others I would recommend ahead of it.
Rating: 
Summary: Swan's What?
Review: If the reader wants a book which details the relationship between the characters and a river, I would suggest that they purchase something by Mark Twain not "The One Kingdom" From a promising beginning chapter, this book proceeds with glacial speed to an unsatisfactory ending in which the major premise is that there may be some resolution in a future volume. It manages to achieve this feat with two-dimensional characters, minimal historical context for the plot, and a lack of action notable in a volume of this length. The one bright spot is the facility that the author displays in painting a rich and vivid landscape. In summary,I could only recommend this book to someone with a long weekend to kill and nothing more interesting to do.
Rating: 
Summary: be aware!
Review: quite a good read once the characters are introduced, which takes up quite a portion of the book. so if you are not the patient type and like the action to come from page one you may be tested. do not plan to read this book if you want the story to be finished on the last page
Rating:
Summary: A Timely Showcase of the Beauty of the Ordinary
Review: Sean Russel's formidable novel, The One Kingdom, is an impressive achievement, for Russel has managed to write the piece nearly flawlessly. It is a straightforward and carefully constructed tale in a standard high fantasy world, and while it has much merit as a showcase of the classic fantasy tradition, it is far from revolutionary in anything it attempts. Russel's fantasy world is highly focused on those who inhabit it, and the historical backdrop against which the events of the story are played out is of greater import than the differences in the physical locations visited by the story's many characters. The actual world is not highly fantastic; no elves, dragons, or other such creatures populate the realm, and there are not magical treasures or artifacts waiting to be found. Instead, many of the locales visited are imbued with a wealth of historical detail that can only be glimpsed through the actual plotline of the book. The characters visit great bridges which were once held against vast armies, crumbling keeps that once were strongholds some of the kingdom's most powerful factions, towers that once were occupied by powerful sorcerers, and even a great fairground that was no more than small farming community in times past. While it is fascinating to be treated to such a richly sculpted world, one is left wishing one could learn more about the events that shaped these locations around the kingdom. To include this detail in the story itself would risk bogging down the plotline and dulling the action (which is already a bit slow through the first half of the book); perhaps Sean Russel will consider someday writing a prequel. The characters in Russel's novel are carefully defined and distinct from one another, but they are all character archetypes that have been seen before in other pieces of fantasy literature. There is the eager, witty companion; the aged, all-knowing seer; the attractive, self-sacrificing "princess" (here technically a young noblewoman); and the fear-inspiring, tenacious, dark knight. Despite the familiarity of the character models, Russel usually does an admirable job of filling out his characters with quirks and guiding motivations that allow them to transcend their molds. In this respect there is a striking difference between the two halves of the book; the first half seems slower as the characters are first introduced, and the second half picks up in power and speed as they gain experiences to hearken back to and additional levels of depth through narrative description. The one exception is the remarkable Carral Wills, who was not crafted from a familiar mold, and (perhaps as a result) has complete levels of depth, motivation, and uniqueness throughout the entire novel. The One Kingdom's focus on history and character does not mean that the magical or supernatural elements it contains are unimportant. It is merely that the magic of Russel's world is not flashy and loud, with mages chanting fireball-generating incantations, but subtle and integrated into the fabric of the world itself. One of the most intriguing ideas, that there is an alternate, hidden world existing everywhere where the real world exists, allows for a skillful implementation of magic-like travel without involving spells or enchanted objects of teleportation. Another, and perhaps more important effect, is that this world also allows for incredible chase scenes to be placed where ever they are most needed by the plot, which results in a trio of exciting escape attempts when no escape seems possible. While the work is nearly flawless, there are some issues which could have been resolved more gracefully. Russel relies on his readers having good memories; characters he introduces in one scene may vanish from the story for one or even two hundred pages, appearing later with the assumption that you recall what they had just been doing. Also, the gender balance is overly (and a bit unrealistically) skewed toward a proliferation of male characters, though the few major female characters that exist are well-implemented. Finally, the narrator and a number of characters praise the traveler Fynnol's quick wit, but we rarely see that wit employed in the first two thirds of the book. Surely this is not for a lack of interesting situations and characters to mock, making his dearth of jests appear to be an oversight. Often, in the search for astounding novels that help to redefine an entire genre and change readers' world views, it is too easy to forget the power and importance of works in the true spirit of the genres that already exist. Creating a novel that so epitomizes the essence of classic fantasy, without the Dungeons & Dragons-like distractions of flashy magic and strange creatures, is nearly as difficult as creating a book which moves fantasy literature in a bold, new direction. While Sean Russel's novel is not perfect, it is books like The One Kingdom that compose the central pylon of strength upon which rests all other fantasy work.
|
