Rating: 
Summary: The best thing I've read since Tolkien
Review: When I first read the comments comparing "The Ill-Made Mute" to the work of Tolkien I was naturally skeptical. I was wrong. I can't think of enough words to praise this book. It is one of the best I have ever read and I can't wait to read the sequels. I honestly couldn't put it down, after the first few pages got me hooked. The world of Erith is amazing, full of weird creatures and beautiful scenery. I want to go there! I'd recommend this book to ANYONE who likes reading Tolkien and other classic fantasy.
Rating:
Summary: A truly gorgeous book!
Review: I think this is the first book published for Ms Dart-Thornton, and what a great way to start a career. This book is just beautiful... I just loved all the gorgeous descriptions of scenery, they really set up this new world in my mind. But this was only the back drop for a wonderful story. It is a great story of adventures and suspense but I was so glad that it was not full of horror. Yes, there are scary parts but there is an underlying sense of peace and beauty in this book, that made me feel I could really indulge myself, relax, read and get to know all the characters.These characters are so well drawn they seem like real people. Not just 'baddies' and 'goodies' but people with multi-faceted characters. I came to really identify with the main character and could not put down this book...I wanted to rush through and find out what happened next, but instead made myself slow down to savour every part of the story. There is a lot of really well researched information in this book. I really enjoyed reading the explanations and pronounciations of words and the sources of the old tales of fantasy creatures that Ms Dart-Thornton provided in the back of the book. I thoroughly recommend this beautiful book and I am really wishing that the next two books of the trilogy were available RIGHT NOW as I want to find out what happens next!!
Rating: 
Summary: Dictionary Abuse
Review: I found the prose affected and almost pious.
The author used some terms which appear in no dictionary, and surrounded them with so many polysyllabic confections of language that even someone with an unusually strong grasp on English could get frustrated.
This in addition to comments posted above.
Rating: 
Summary: anything but bitter
Review: It took me a while to get into this book - dart-thorton's use of an 'ugly' main character is interesting and I found it took a while to become used to the many different wights and descriptions of transport etc. But once in, I was hooked. The development of Imrhien, once she discovers her sex and that people will talk to her, is extrodinary and dart-thorton makes every pain and joy exquisitely real. I am now starting 'the lady of the sorrows' and can only hope it is as beautifully rendered as the first bitterbynde tale.
Rating:
Summary: Wade through the words for a great story
Review: Having read a number of the reviews of this book here I just thought I would add my 2 cents and say I can see why some people love this book and why others absolutely loathe it.
Like many, it seems, I commenced this book with high expectations, fuelled by the proclamation on the front cover of the author as a new Tolkien - and the suggestion that the book was a departure from the hack/slash style of the Fantasy genre (not that I don't mind a bit of hack and slash). To be honest, I felt pretty let-down as I began to read.
For the first hundred or so pages, there were times I felt like tearing my eyes out, due to the excessively and unnecessarily complex language employed at every turn. It's a pity, because I would suggest it may have turned many away from what turns out to be a pretty fantastic story. It's just that nothing much happens at the start - we have an awful lot of scene-setting, folklore-telling and wondering what on earth this story is going to be about. I was so close to quitting.....then all of a sudden it just clicked into another gear and we were away on a fabulous adventure, with great, relatively original characters, lush settings and a very believable (if overwrought) cosmological (or mythological?) context; which provides a superb backdrop to a slow-reveal of the central character's nature and identity (which I assume continues in the next two books of this trilogy).
As it turns out there is quite a story hidden in that jungle of words, and after a while I found myself getting into the groove of Dart-Thornton's style and approach, which also seems to settle down a little. That is not to say, however, that there were not chunks of descriptive prose that I decided to skim or skip through.
Having just finished the Ill-Made Mute, I am now about 60 pages into the Lady of the Sorrows and can say that the story-line is still going strong. My hopes for this tale, which started high and were brutally lowered, have been on the steady rise since leaving Isse Tower behind. So do yourself a favour, if you are not getting it in the first 25% or so, persist to about half-way and THEN decide if it's worthy of your time and effort.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty good read.
Review: Yes, the writer throws her entire mental lexicon at us. Did i care really?? Not so much. It doesn't take away from the story line, and even if there were words I had never heard in my life the contexual clues help you out. This book is a great start for an interesting fantasy read. I would have given the book more stars except for one nagging point. When a writer starts out with such an interesting character and world, I expect a little more. The main character jumped around a lot in the first book, and a lot of critical events got crammed into a single binding. However, it truly is an original concept and the sheer fact that I really wanted to know so much more about the underlying mysteries really pulled this book along well.
| 
