Rating: 
Summary: Angel with a sword-The truth
Review: Angel with a Sword is not the second book in the Merovigen Nights series.It is a seprate book written beforehand by C.J Cherryh alone, with no colaboration with any other authors.The Merovingen Nights series is a follow up to this book and features seperate stories by different authors which are linked up time-wise so that they read like a complete novel.These stories also are written from the veiw-point of different characters in the overall book-ie.a minor charactor in one story would the main character in another and so on.
Rating:
Summary: A good book from a great author.
Review: Before I talk about the story, you need to know two things about the book.
First, the story is set in the universe of the Union-Alliance novels, yet you don't need those books to know what's going on. The book is a stand alone and has lots of information in the back with maps, chapters on history, fashion and even language.
Second, this was meant to be the first in a series of books, very much like the Thieves' World series, but instead of a walled city of the Middle-Ages filled with magic and crime, this was more like a city-state of Italy (during the Renaissance) filled with politics and, sometimes, guns.
And the series did go on as other authors added their own skill and stories to the books that followed.
Now, for the story. Like all of her books, C.J. Cherryh starts small, with a character we think of as normal and a daily event. Altair Jones, the main female character, rescues a man who is tossed into one of the canals. This is normal - bodies are always being tossed in by gangs. But he lived and happens to be a high-born. He also happens to be in the middle of something that seems to get bigger and bigger as the story moves along. By saving him Altair might have also gotten herself involved with a mess that could end up with HER in the canals.
The dangers increase as the knots in this plot are untied and we get close to the truth about what is going on and why. C.J. Cherryh is an artist, crafting the story carefully from start to finish, she never wastes a page, a word or a letter.
This is a must for any of her fans or a good book to start with for people who don't know her works.
I plan to find the rest to see how well the saga went!
Rating: 
Summary: The Usual Stuff
Review: Certain aspects of this book are overly commonplace in the fantasy genre. The characters, for example. There always seems to be one streetwise, tough, poor, smart gal running around. While this type of character can be very interesting if brought to life well, Altair Jones doesn't come across as being very real- and neither does Mondragon. There is a lack of serious portrayal about these two, or anyone else for that matter. Then there's the fact that some things just don't seem beleivable. Altair was raised by her mother to think that men are the scum of the earth. So how does she suddenly fall madly in love with the blond aristocrat? Fateful love? I don't think so. The author doesn't take the time to subtly engage them- instead, they both are in love a few moments after they meet, and wham! they sleep together. The dialogue seems pretentious- the boat-talk of Altair is unconvincing, and Cherryh would have done better to have dropped it out altogether. There is not enough detail about this world to make it real in our minds. The plot drags. The dialogue seems uninspired. There is too much unnecessary details that makes turning each page a chore. I've seen much better books.
Rating:
Summary: The Usual Stuff
Review: Certain aspects of this book are overly commonplace in the fantasy genre. The characters, for example. There always seems to be one streetwise, tough, poor, smart gal running around. While this type of character can be very interesting if brought to life well, Altair Jones doesn't come across as being very real- and neither does Mondragon. There is a lack of serious portrayal about these two, or anyone else for that matter. Then there's the fact that some things just don't seem beleivable. Altair was raised by her mother to think that men are the scum of the earth. So how does she suddenly fall madly in love with the blond aristocrat? Fateful love? I don't think so. The author doesn't take the time to subtly engage them- instead, they both are in love a few moments after they meet, and wham! they sleep together. The dialogue seems pretentious- the boat-talk of Altair is unconvincing, and Cherryh would have done better to have dropped it out altogether. There is not enough detail about this world to make it real in our minds. The plot drags. The dialogue seems uninspired. There is too much unnecessary details that makes turning each page a chore. I've seen much better books.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Science-Fantasy
Review: I have read "Angel with the Sword" more times than I can count and the reasons for doing so are myriad. The main character, Altain Jones, is an engaging young woman, tough, streetwise, and her romantic prospect, Tom Mondragon, is an aristocrat who nevertheless knows how to fight dirty. Their romance is my favorite part of these books, but the science-fiction element is also quite wonderful. They are set in a futuristic world that has somewhat regressed to Renaissance times. Jones is a poleboater in Merovingen, a city somewhat like Venice. The other reason I love the Merovingen Nights books is that they are short stories cut up and intertwined--I think they call it "braided" style. That way you can follow your favorite characters as they interact with the other ones. Many of my other favorite authors have written in these "anthologies," but C.J. Cherryh's Jones and Mondragon stories are the best, which is why I love the introductory book, solely written by her, all about them.
Rating: 
Summary: Ummmm? What was the main plot?
Review: Ignore any bad reviews of this book. Ignore the off the wall numbering system. Any book that kicks off a series like Merovingen Nights is a really good book. so who needs a really strange but coherent socio-political-religious system that evolved to meet an identifiable, reasonable problem and makes sense of everything that happens? Most science fiction books do. Only some of them have it-like this one. Who needs a lecture to get it straight? most of them, but not this one. who needs starcrossed teenage lovers who act just like teenagers? well, Shakespeare did, so did Cherryh. They got them. Altair Jones is a star-struck, insecure, inconsistent teenage orphan who talks real tough; Thomas Mondragon is a smooth young aristocrat, a cynical, idealistic rebel-turned- adventurer who's out of his element and in a lot of trouble. They need each other, and they'll turn the whole town upside down. this is the story Shakespeare might have written if Juliet had had a backbone and a boat, and Romeo's whole faction had just been wiped out. The plot is rich: the villains are deadly, the bystanders are nervous, the politics are dizzying, the action is intense, but for Altair Jones, self-centered teenager, every thing is just one thing- Mondragon and her. It's funny, it's fast, it's exciting..it's exceptional. Read this book- you won't see many like it.
Rating:
Summary: C.J. Cherryh builds worlds..within worlds..within worlds
Review: Ignore any bad reviews of this book. Ignore the off the wall numbering system. Any book that kicks off a series like Merovingen Nights is a really good book. so who needs a really strange but coherent socio-political-religious system that evolved to meet an identifiable, reasonable problem and makes sense of everything that happens? Most science fiction books do. Only some of them have it-like this one. Who needs a lecture to get it straight? most of them, but not this one. who needs starcrossed teenage lovers who act just like teenagers? well, Shakespeare did, so did Cherryh. They got them. Altair Jones is a star-struck, insecure, inconsistent teenage orphan who talks real tough; Thomas Mondragon is a smooth young aristocrat, a cynical, idealistic rebel-turned- adventurer who's out of his element and in a lot of trouble. They need each other, and they'll turn the whole town upside down. this is the story Shakespeare might have written if Juliet had had a backbone and a boat, and Romeo's whole faction had just been wiped out. The plot is rich: the villains are deadly, the bystanders are nervous, the politics are dizzying, the action is intense, but for Altair Jones, self-centered teenager, every thing is just one thing- Mondragon and her. It's funny, it's fast, it's exciting..it's exceptional. Read this book- you won't see many like it.
Rating:
Summary: Pilot for series
Review: Note that amazon.com lists both fever season and angel with a sword as MN #2. angel with a sword is the original and pilot for the series, of which 'troubled waters' is #2. i too love the book, and the series, and was dismayed to find out that i am missing #2 and #3. the romance between altair jones, street girl, and exiled nobleman tom mondragan is pretty much background to the story and not too intrusive for those who dont want to get bogged down with a love story when searching for new worlds. it lends motivation to the characters to get into all sorts of strange plots and tangles. there are other engaging characters introduced as well. rif and rat the singers, and undercover agents of technology loving 'janes', the orphan brothers denny and raj, justice, richard and marina kamat, chanoum and casseiopia... characters that get a bit of their own storyhere and there, and then you see them itneracting as secondaries in another story.. and the best thing is that the series keeps taking the stories on. its entrancing, because you are always reading feverishly through one section to find out what happened where the story left off with the LAST batch of characters.
Rating:
Summary: Pilot for series
Review: Note that amazon.com lists both fever season and angel with a sword as MN #2. angel with a sword is the original and pilot for the series, of which 'troubled waters' is #2. i too love the book, and the series, and was dismayed to find out that i am missing #2 and #3. the romance between altair jones, street girl, and exiled nobleman tom mondragan is pretty much background to the story and not too intrusive for those who dont want to get bogged down with a love story when searching for new worlds. it lends motivation to the characters to get into all sorts of strange plots and tangles. there are other engaging characters introduced as well. rif and rat the singers, and undercover agents of technology loving 'janes', the orphan brothers denny and raj, justice, richard and marina kamat, chanoum and casseiopia... characters that get a bit of their own storyhere and there, and then you see them itneracting as secondaries in another story.. and the best thing is that the series keeps taking the stories on. its entrancing, because you are always reading feverishly through one section to find out what happened where the story left off with the LAST batch of characters.
Rating:
Summary: I'm 14 and I got the entire book!
Review: ok alot of people didn't really get it, I did. I'm not sure if I just have good reading skills or what. I loved this book, after the first time I read it, I bought it. I love the characters, the descriptions of the scenes and the people were very precise and detailed, alot of books don't give me that clear of an image of the setting to which the author wanted to depict. this one did and it made the reading experience more enjoyable, the plot was difficult and thus made it more interesting and hard to follow, giving the reader more to think about and to keep guessing. I love books like these and I wish authors would write more like them.
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