Rating: 
Summary: Great Storytelling
Review: I found this book totally engrossing and kept me turning the pages till the early morning hours. The ending, however, was very abrupt and left you with a feeling of someone having torn the last couple of chapters from the book. I bought the second book immediately, but was left still with an unfulfilled gap. Still... It was a very entertaining book!
Rating: 
Summary: A Great Book
Review: I just finished reading Jaran. It's a great book. The characters are excellently developed and seem like real people. Kate Elliott is an excellent writer who not only creates a new fascinating world but also connects it to history (In this case to the Mongol invasion of Western Europe and conquest of Eastern Europe and most of Asia.) This is a wonderful book but make sure you have some time to read it, and the sequels. It's not a huge cliffhanger, but you'll want to know what happens. Now I MUST comment on some of the other reviews. I don't know WHY anyone would think this book is “...fiction” or “unrealistic,” she had a few gay characters, so what...it’s just another element to the story that involves everything into convoluted plots... That’s excellent too, although I was dieing for the sequel when I finished the fourth. If you like Sci-Fi /Fantasy... you’ll like this.
Rating:
Summary: Rhui vs Middle Age Eastern Europe
Review: I love Sci Fi and History books and Kate Elliott gives it all at once. While the Crown of Stars novels feature a fantasy world which is simular the Western Europe during King Arthur, the Joran novels are simular to the Eastern Europe, specifically Russia during the Mongol invasion or the Kasaks tribes of Ukraine during the middle ages (Russian names, red shirts,horses and sabers)As a Russian myself I love it!
Rating:
Summary: WOW!!!!!!!!!
Review: I LOVE THIS SERIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Jaran has got to be one of the best books i've ever read. With this new trend towards making sci fi movies I think jaran should be considered!! I really love this book!! You get so attached to the characters and really feel for them. Ilya and Tess are such a great couple! Let me warn you now, unless you have the time and money to go out and buy the other three books in the series, refrane from reading until you have more time. I got so envolved with the series that I ended reading them all in a week!!! O and to warn you now there is a HUGE clifhanger at the end of book two! ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful! (And not "gay" fiction.)
Review: I picked up Jaran for about 25 cents at a library book sale, and I've never looked back. This was my first introduction to Kate Elliott's writing, and since then I've enjoyed the rest of the Jaran books and her Crown of Stars series (I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of the sixth book, and hoping for more on the growing romance between Ivar and Baldwin). I've since read my copy of Jaran into the ground, and have to replace it because the spine is broken in numerous places and the pages are beginning to fall out. What higher praise can there be, for an author, than to have a devoted reader replace a copy of a beloved novel instead of ending the relationship?That being said, I will try not to spoil anything. Jaran is not a fantasy book. There is no magic here, no wands or sourcery or incantations. It is pure science fiction, but without the monotonous and cliché use of outer space and starships as a setting. Rather, it is set on a "primitive" planet, where technology is sorely behind the times and the major cultural center surrounds a university. Tribes of Jaran roam the plains, and the Jahar, bands of Jaran warriors, war and explore in their beloved home. They've their own laws, myths, songs and stories, and ways of life, entirely different from those in more developed regions. Though the Jaran come from regions that are not technologically developed, they are still extremely intelligent. Definitely not the "brutes of the north" that some writers are so fond of! The book occasionally switches locations, focusing briefly on Tess' brother, the Duke, but this simply offers a bit of insight into why Tess does some of the things she does. It also offers characters a reason to appear later, so they don't simply drop out of nowhere with no readily apparent reason for their appearance. Romance is at the heart of Jaran, where the intelligent, confident, university-educated leader of a Jaran tribe (Ilyakoria Bahktiian) meets the heir of a planetary Dukedom (Tess Sorensen). However, the story is not about them alone, and the plot is supported by a host of interesting and well-developed supporting characters (Yuri, Kirill, and Nikolai, to name but a scant few). Traveling is not done in a haphazard way, but to seamlessly advance the plot. Each move has a point, and is not done simply to get characters from one place to another without explanation. There are no characters that are granted immunity, either. Many get injured, and friends, foes and family alike are all subject to death. Dialogue is executed very well, too, at times touching, at times witty, at times passionate and at others downright hilarious. Like the Jaran themselves, it varies with the moods of the speakers and the situations. Elliott's writing is absolutely superb, and of a quality that one rarely finds anymore. It's the writing of someone who takes her time, not someone who churns out book after book in order to satisfy the demands of publishers for more money and the public for more books. Settings are beautifully described, and the characters are developed very well. Not only are they remarkable to begin with, they grow as the story progresses. Though other books follow it, Jaran can easily stand on its own as a remarkable work. Several reviewers have said that this is a "gay book," or that Ms. Elliott has an "obsession with gay themes." This is not true. While homosexual attractions are included as a very minor part of her Crown of Stars series, they are not the focus of it. The same is true for Jaran. Yes, there *is* a tribe of gay men, who have forsaken their tribes and people because they do not conform to the idea of getting married to women and having children. Yes, they would far rather sleep with each other. Yes, their leader is in love with Bahktiian. But this does *not* make Jaran a gay story! Again, that group of people who are different merely serves to enrich the world (and in a romance, the presence of gay characters is rare indeed... such tales usually revolve around heterosexual ideals alone). Do not let the label of "gay fiction" given to this work by some deter you from reading an amazing story. Even if you are uncomfortable with homosexuality, you won't mind this. There are no graphic sexual descriptions, or depictions of men kissing or touching other men sexually. It's simply an interesting little plot twist, not a major storyline. (I would not, however, object if Ms. Elliott wished to write a Jaran installment about the gay tribe in particular. I *adore* gay sci-fi and fantasy, thank you very much, and I only wish that there were more of it! If Ms. Elliott happens to find this, I register a plea: more Ivar and Baldwin! I was most engrossed and appreciative, and hope to see more.) Simply put, Jaran is a wonderful sci-fi romance. It will make you laugh, it will make you cry, and it will undoubtedly leave you changed, even if only a little bit. *This* is high sci-fi, what every author should strive for: a unique world, well-developed and unique characters, and such wonder that readers will gladly return to the realm of the Jaran time and time again.
Rating:
Summary: Why Jaran is one of the best books I have ever read!
Review: I read alot and have read many wonderful books; Jaran is one of the best. If not the best. What I really enjoyed about this book is that the first page was alittle slow but every page after kept me emersed. I could not put this book down! I ended up reading it all through the night. I really got into the character's and when one character died I felt like I had suffered a great lose. I felt like I really had met the character's and that we were good friends. I strongly recomend that anyone that enjoy's an action/love story read it. Be sure though that when you read it you will not be needed for the next 24 hours!
Rating: 
Summary: why buy it when the series has never ended?
Review: I read this book the first year it was published. It was great. I wanted more and read the following books but guess what? Kate Elliott has NEVER finished or wrapped up this series and I highly doubt that she will. Not only does she NOT wrap up the series, but she turns against the main hero in this book and makes him a laughingstock in following stories. I found it ludricrous that the publisher came out with an Anniversary Edition celebrating a book that was never completed!! All this book will do - in the long run - is disappoint and sadden you. Although this story ends, it teases you into a series that has no conclusive ending. The hero becomes the village idiot, and Kate Elliott is off writing a completely different series! Golly, I guess the publishing world can't get enough of the fantasy series that never ends.
Rating:
Summary: SF EPIC BEGINS
Review: I REALLY ENJOYED JARAN. ELLIOTT TAKES US TO EXOTIC WORLDS. ELLIOTT TAKES US TO RHUI, A WORLD FILLED WITH WARRING TRIBES
OF PEOPLE. SHE GIVES A FUTURE EARTH THAT TRYING TO OVERTHOW
IT'S ALIEN CONQUERORS, AND SHE SHOWS US SOME SECRETS OF THE HUMAN HEART. THE ONLY FAULT I SEE WITH HER SAGA IS THAT SHE
NEEDS TO GIVE A GLOSSARY TO LIST ALL THE CHARACTERS.
Rating:
Summary: Jaran is a feminine 'Dune'
Review: I thouroughly enjoyed it. Kate Elliot is a serious writer; it was NOT a fluffy sci-fi or fantasy book 'for girls' along the lines of something by Mercedes Lackey; rather it was a well thought out, perfectly executed novel that engages you in the characters and the dialogue. While I liked the subsequent novels in the series, you can also stop reading at the first one and be satisifed as well; it is not a horrendous cliff-hanger or a ploy to continue the series...etc. I really like Kate Elliot.
Rating:
Summary: Way to go, Kate Elliott - you've got a winner here!
Review: I was halfway through this book before I realised that this was quite simply one of the best pieces of humanistic sci-fi writing I have ever encountered. On the one hand, the storyline sticks to the basic civilised-traveler-in-a-hostile-land theme, but the characterisation is marvelously deep and nuanced, and the world-building reminds me of Jean Auel. Lest all the stylistic notes make the book sound forbidding, I have to add that it's immensely readable. Page-turner is an understatement. When characters die, you cry; when characters kiss, you cheer. The next two books did nothing to change my mind. Way to go, Kate Elliott - you've got a winner here.
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