Rating: 
Summary: Promising start not fulfilled
Review: The set-up in Ring of Lightning is quite interesting. Three brothers separated by politics and family conflict, cities powered by magical energies, looming international and internal conflict over the source and use of those magical energies, eldritch beings taking an interest in human doings, historical mysteries, an eighteenth-century style setting . . . This book was a decent read, as there was a certain amount of action and intrigue to draw you in and the characters were interesting enough to make you care about whether they would sort out their problems.
However, the story can be turgid at points, as events are continually reexamined from every character's point of view with the all concomitant wondering about motives, possible courses of action, etc.
There's also the issue of the next two books in the series. If you like Ring of Lightning, you may be severely disappointed by its sequels, as I was. They never fulfil the promise of Ring of Lightning in terms of plot, and descend into psycho-sexual/romantic personal dramas.
So, the first book is worth a look, but maybe you should read reviews of the sequels first to see if you really want to tackle this series as a whole.
Rating: 
Summary: A web of love, deceit, and misunderstanding.
Review: This book's focus centres on the three Rhomandi brothers Deymorin, Mikhyel, and Nikaenour and how they eventually - by way of a burgeoning psychic awareness of one another and their animosity towards their great aunt Anheliaa's plans for extending and maintaining the city of Rhomatum's influence upon neighbouring satellites of the Ley-web - discover that their suspicions of one another have been ill-founded ( due to a long term communication breakdown ), and that all three working together are a living Ley-node.The bedrock of this narrative is the usage of intense viewpoint to convey the psychological and motivational aspects of the brothers' concerns. Much is made of the Nikaenour character in respect to his own view of Deymorin and Mikhyel, and as a hub by way of which Deymorin and Mikhyel consider each other and Nikaenour, in conjunction with Anheliaa's influence on all of them. But in the end though, Deymorin's misconceptions about Mikhyel are probably the most poignant, as they have been the seed of the brothers' mistrust of one another to greater and lesser extents. As a backdrop to all this is the city of Rhomatum, which was founded by the brothers' ancestor Darius some three hundred years previously. A city born from Darius' vision: 'Today I looked into the rings and saw a new and better world'. And so it was that Darius built a tower upon a leythium-node wherein he set in motion a set of giant rings composed of leythium and silver from which the power of Rhomatum was established: a power that is the source of conflict between the resident ring-master Anheliaa and everyone else. A lot of the interconnections in this book are quite understated by conventional standards, making the wheels-within-wheels elements of the story a little hard to keep track of as the story evolves and unwinds. I found it really had to be read at least twice to get a better impression by way of hindsighted forewarning. Which for a book of this length is saying something, since from my point of view, it takes an interesting and engaging one for me to read once.
Rating:
Summary: Very Good first..
Review: This is a very good first book in this series. I thought the politics and intrigue was great. The family ties and confilics was really great. This book was a great read.. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Very Good first..
Review: This is a very good first book in this series. I thought the politics and intrigue was great. The family ties and confilics was really great. This book was a great read.. I highly recommend it.
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