Perilous Seas : Part Three of A Man of His Word

Rating:
Summary: Part 3 of a Man of his word
Review: Dave Duncan is one of the best scifi/fantasy writers there are every story is original and fresh he builds characters you love to see succeed and vilans you can't wait to see die a horible death. This is the third book of one of the best series ever written; Rap the lost stable boy with slowly emerging magical powers wonders the world in search of his love and his queen, Inos. Facing pirates and worse he tries to reach a distant waste land to save Inos from a barbarian king.

Rating:
Summary: The twists keep coming
Review: Duncan's series gets increasingly complex, and increasingly entertaining. This is probably the best book in this series. Major revelations about several characters, and further adventures across the intricate world Duncan has invited us into.

Rating:
Summary: Keeps going strong
Review: In this the third book of "A Man Of His Word" we continue the story of Rap's quest to rescue Queen Inus and incedently Queen Inus's attempts to survive the Zark Court. We meet some more of humanity's diverse races and Rap lerns a new WORD. all in all a veary good read filed with high adventure and political intrigue.

Rating:
Summary: Keeps going strong
Review: In this the third book of "A Man Of His Word" we continue the story of Rap's quest to rescue Queen Inus and incedently Queen Inus's attempts to survive the Zark Court. We meet some more of humanity's diverse races and Rap lerns a new WORD. all in all a veary good read filed with high adventure and political intrigue.

Rating:
Summary: Getting ever more ponderous...
Review: One of the problems with this series is that it has two protagonists, separated except for the male's love and devotion to the female, and that although I find the male protagonists' adventures rather interesting, I am expected to put up with the female's tiresome circumstances as well. By the end of this volume, which I finished reading back in '99, I was no longer interested in reading about "Queen Inos." Her sorry plight was an old cliche to begin with: can the high-born, well-bred princess overcome the "stuffiness" of her training to become a successful queen without losing her sense of humanity and connection with the masses? Puleeez!!! The answer is only of concern if we truly felt she was one of "the masses" (that includes US, the readers) to begin with. For this sort of thing, done in a real and thus more interesting setting, pull some volumes of Charles Dickens off the shelf. Books like these are what gives fantasy a bad name in the minds of many... There is no indication so far that ANY of this will resolve in a way that was worth devoting nearly 2,000 pages to! Although I suppose that I will eventually read the third book in the series, given enough time... no one should hold their breath waiting for my review of it. For those who actually enjoyed this series, I recommend the numerous series of David Eddings that dealt with the same sort of scenarios, but did it with a lot more gusto, humor, variety, and INTERESTING CHARACTERS! Still, it should surprise no one that the genre is dominated by formulaic adventures in which authors seem to be paid by the word. I would steer readers away from THIS Duncan series and back toward some of the better ones. To me it looks like Duncan is merely churning out more of the same. My tastes have turned toward the more humorous vein of fantasy. For ponderous outings like this, it is far better to read ACTUAL historical fiction where there is at least some educational benefit for the time that is spent. These sorts of formulaic meanderings are no longer of interest to me, or (I suspect) many fantasy readers who have already read the same sort of thing but in a different package (and probably, using far fewer words to relate the same content!!!)

Rating:
Summary: Book Three in A Man of His Word Series
Review: Perilous Seas picks up right were Faery Lands Forlorn left us with Queen Inos still stuck in Zark, land of the Djinns, captive of the Sorceress Rasha. Inos is about to despair of ever escaping the sorceress and she still doesn't know if she should accept the Sultan Azak's marriage proposal or not. The gods told her long ago to trust in love - but what does that mean! Surely it must mean to trust in Azak's love for her, even though she doesn't love him, or does it? When Inos and Azak make a desperate bid for freedom, Inos drags her beloved Aunt Kade all across the desert in strange disguises. She will do anything to make it to the Imperor to plead her case for her beloved people in her shabby little kingdom of Krasnegar. Along the way, she is stunned to see Rap's image appear in the middle of the desert. Surely he must be a demon come to torment her for leaving him to die in the tower long ago. But how could Rap be that cruel...

Rap is anything but dead. After escaping the land of Faerie in a Jotunn boat, captained by Gathmore, Rap is all but imprisoned on the island of Durthing. He was bought as a slave to work on the boat, but earned his freedom, however, his gift of farsight makes him far too valuable to risk losing. When the vicious Jotunn raider, Kalkor, arrives on Durthing, he slaughters every man, woman and child he finds - but he takes Rap and Gathmore on board his ship. For the first time Rap gets to see what the power of multiple words turns a person into. Kalkor no longer has a heart and Rap wonders if he even has a soul left. Desperate to get to Inos and restore her to her throne, Rap finds himself playing a cat and mouse game with Kalkor, playing his magical powers off of Kalkor's. But even if Rap finds an opportunity to escape, how can he find Inos in time to stop her from making a terrible mistake?

Perilous Seas is the third book in A Man of His Word series by David Duncan and it is the weakest of the quartet, but it is still superbly written and I still loved most of the characters. It is true that Inos is kind of grating in this book and that I found myself rushing through her misadventures to get to the better story with Rap, but I like to think that Inos is growing as a character and getting to be more likeable. Still, it would be great if she dropped that whole I-am-a-princess-and-can't-believe-this-is-happening-to-me attitude. On the other hand, Rap is a great character who is still humble and completely oblivious to the fact that he doesn't live anything approaching a normal life anymore. Again, the host of secondary characters are superb and give additional life and sparkle to the third book of the series. I can't wait to see how it ends! If you like fantasy books that are just a bit different with clearly defined magical rules and different races set in an intriguing world, don't miss this set of 4 books!

Rating:
Summary: Book Three in A Man of His Word Series
Review: Perilous Seas picks up right were Faery Lands Forlorn left us with Queen Inos still stuck in Zark, land of the Djinns, captive of the Sorceress Rasha. Inos is about to despair of ever escaping the sorceress and she still doesn't know if she should accept the Sultan Azak's marriage proposal or not. The gods told her long ago to trust in love - but what does that mean! Surely it must mean to trust in Azak's love for her, even though she doesn't love him, or does it? When Inos and Azak make a desperate bid for freedom, Inos drags her beloved Aunt Kade all across the desert in strange disguises. She will do anything to make it to the Imperor to plead her case for her beloved people in her shabby little kingdom of Krasnegar. Along the way, she is stunned to see Rap's image appear in the middle of the desert. Surely he must be a demon come to torment her for leaving him to die in the tower long ago. But how could Rap be that cruel...

Rap is anything but dead. After escaping the land of Faerie in a Jotunn boat, captained by Gathmore, Rap is all but imprisoned on the island of Durthing. He was bought as a slave to work on the boat, but earned his freedom, however, his gift of farsight makes him far too valuable to risk losing. When the vicious Jotunn raider, Kalkor, arrives on Durthing, he slaughters every man, woman and child he finds - but he takes Rap and Gathmore on board his ship. For the first time Rap gets to see what the power of multiple words turns a person into. Kalkor no longer has a heart and Rap wonders if he even has a soul left. Desperate to get to Inos and restore her to her throne, Rap finds himself playing a cat and mouse game with Kalkor, playing his magical powers off of Kalkor's. But even if Rap finds an opportunity to escape, how can he find Inos in time to stop her from making a terrible mistake?

Perilous Seas is the third book in A Man of His Word series by David Duncan and it is the weakest of the quartet, but it is still superbly written and I still loved most of the characters. It is true that Inos is kind of grating in this book and that I found myself rushing through her misadventures to get to the better story with Rap, but I like to think that Inos is growing as a character and getting to be more likeable. Still, it would be great if she dropped that whole I-am-a-princess-and-can't-believe-this-is-happening-to-me attitude. On the other hand, Rap is a great character who is still humble and completely oblivious to the fact that he doesn't live anything approaching a normal life anymore. Again, the host of secondary characters are superb and give additional life and sparkle to the third book of the series. I can't wait to see how it ends! If you like fantasy books that are just a bit different with clearly defined magical rules and different races set in an intriguing world, don't miss this set of 4 books!

Rating:
Summary: Things Get More Complicated
Review: Rap's travels and travails show us more of the world of Pandemia; Inos struggles to stay afloat in Zark's male-chauvinist culture.

Gathmore and Rap are captured by the mad Jotunn raider, Kalkor, and meet up on his ship with old "friend" Darad.

In a sequence that is equally sad and lovely and horrifying, we see just what kind of power sorcerors weild -- and how after a while they become rather casual and capricious about how they treat mere mundanes, even mundanes close to them.

Duncan's version of dragons is neat, i must say, and the gnome sorceror who is Warden of the Dragon Reaches is one of the most interesting and sympathetic characters in the series -- gnomes are considered disgusting and sub-human by the other races, but they have feelings -- they can hurt and love and hate, too.

Captured by one of the Four -- the four witches and warlocks who regulate the use of magic under the Compact, who have been using Rap and Inos as gaming pieces in their own internal and global intrigues -- Rap and Gathmore and Jalon are given one possible chance to rescue Inos from marriage to Azak.

It's a race against time...

And Time almost always wins in the end.

Will Rap and Gathmore arrive in time to Stop The Wedding?

(Three stars this time because this one is primarily a bridge, though it contains important elements of the story as a whole; also, we get to see something about the Elves, this time.)