Rating: 
Summary: If only there were more...
Review: I discovered this series orignally via a loan [yes, all were returned] over 10 years ago. Over the next 5 years I painstakingly collected them, all long-since out of print, for myself from used bookstores across California. Having read and reread them to the point of needing "new" copies yet again [thanks to Amazon this time], I cannot recommend the enire trilogy enough.This end piece wavers not at all with regard to the charaters, story, plot and tone as begun and carried through Sword of the Lamb and Shadow of the Swan. Alexand, Adrien, the Concord, the Phoenix, the Outside... you cannot help but be caught up in the personal, political and global struggles of the society which MK Wren has created. The technology developed as part of this post-Disasters environment makes their world only that much more appealing. Intensely detailed, the historian in me was just as delighted with the "archive lectures" as with the "current" story line. The lectures are also very much a necessary part of the first read-through. Within the character's lives and the attendant system-wide events they are a part of, there are enough challenges and setbacks to keep what is going right from feeling over sappy and preordained. I only wish that, like the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings [the only series I've gone through more copies of], there were more books to go with these three. Have I been vague enough in my praise? May I also say that I liked the original cover art better?
Rating:
Summary: If only there were more...
Review: I discovered this series orignally via a loan [yes, all were returned] over 10 years ago. Over the next 5 years I painstakingly collected them, all long-since out of print, for myself from used bookstores across California. Having read and reread them to the point of needing "new" copies yet again [thanks to Amazon this time], I cannot recommend the enire trilogy enough. This end piece wavers not at all with regard to the charaters, story, plot and tone as begun and carried through Sword of the Lamb and Shadow of the Swan. Alexand, Adrien, the Concord, the Phoenix, the Outside... you cannot help but be caught up in the personal, political and global struggles of the society which MK Wren has created. The technology developed as part of this post-Disasters environment makes their world only that much more appealing. Intensely detailed, the historian in me was just as delighted with the "archive lectures" as with the "current" story line. The lectures are also very much a necessary part of the first read-through. Within the character's lives and the attendant system-wide events they are a part of, there are enough challenges and setbacks to keep what is going right from feeling over sappy and preordained. I only wish that, like the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings [the only series I've gone through more copies of], there were more books to go with these three. Have I been vague enough in my praise? May I also say that I liked the original cover art better?
Rating:
Summary: Working on the third set
Review: I found the 2nd book (Shadow of the Swan) of the trilogy first and was immediately hooked. I found the first book (Sword of the Lamb) next in a used book store in Dallas ( this was years before Amazon.com) and searched for the third (House of the Wolf) for 3 years. It is the most engrossing and enthralling set of books I have found since the Lord of the Rings. I've worn out two sets and am now wearing out the 3rd. It has adventure, action, romance, morality (and immorality), philosophy, religion and can still be classified as hard sci-fi. Character development is superb and the historical progression into the time of the trilogy is frightingly believable and, given current events, terrifyingly possible. This is a trilogy that needs to be re-printed in hard cover and is appropriate for all but the youngest of readers, both male and female.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful to read and re-read.
Review: I read the first of these books when I was in 7th grade. It took me two years to locate a copy of the 2nd book and two more to find the 3rd. It was well worth the wait and I stayed up all night to read the final book. The characters are wonderfully crafted, the story line is multilevel. The only books I have read more times are "The Count of Monte Cristo" and "The Lord of the Rings". If you can locate a copy of these in a used book store, buy them! Don't let the romance novel apperance keep you from enjoying these great books.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful to read and re-read.
Review: I read the first of these books when I was in 7th grade. It took me two years to locate a copy of the 2nd book and two more to find the 3rd. It was well worth the wait and I stayed up all night to read the final book. The characters are wonderfully crafted, the story line is multilevel. The only books I have read more times are "The Count of Monte Cristo" and "The Lord of the Rings". If you can locate a copy of these in a used book store, buy them! Don't let the romance novel apperance keep you from enjoying these great books.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, needs a reprint in hard cover
Review: I seldom read anything except poetry and Shakespeare more than once. I have read this trilogy through three times. Like any great work of history it presents a fully realized, complex society, and compelling characters - heroes and villians, saints and sinners. I truly wish it had been produced in hard cover.
Rating:
Summary: A fully realized future history.
Review: I seldom read anything except poetry and Shakespeare more than once. I have read this trilogy through three times. Like any great work of history it presents a fully realized, complex society, and compelling characters - heroes and villians, saints and sinners. I truly wish it had been produced in hard cover.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, needs a reprint in hard cover
Review: Probably the best trilogy I've ever read. Unfortunately it is out of print, but it definitevely needs a reprint and then preferably in hard cover version
Rating:
Summary: One of the Best Science Fiction Books Ever Written
Review: This book, the third in the series of the House of The Wolf series, is a fully evolved, functional fictional world, where politics, ethics, and intrique are intertwined with a personal story. A very underrated (perhaps by being a mass market publication) opus.
Rating: 
Summary: Guilty pleasures
Review: When I first read this trilogy, I found it very deeply flawed. The drama was so over-the-top, the posturing of the characters so ludicrous, the general space-operaish feeling so unashamed. It was laughable. And still. I have come back again and again to the trilogy. It has everything: the appeal of the peek into aristocratic life, dashing princes (and even pirates!), beautiful princesses about to be ravished by depraved cowards, tyranny, slavery, a secret society to overthrow them... wow. If M.K. Wren had had a sense of humor and a sense of the ridicolous, she could easily have become Lois McMaster Bujold. Even as it is, this _is_, despite all, a good, engrossing read. There is no denying it: I shook my head a lot, but I was greatly entertained. The moment when archvillain Ussher dies bravely, owing his heroic resistance much more to madness than to greatness, was really, really great. All in all, I'm a bit disappointed that Wren has not written any more SF.
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