Rating: 
Summary: best read in a long time
Review: I love this book! Sometimes I want to go to bed with Llewelyn (so I'm strange, I'll admit it), and sometimes I just want to kick him. Michalson's reluctantly evil protagonist is so believable because she takes us through his childhood and early adulthood and shows logically and believably how a sensitive, over-intellectual wizard comes to choose a dark path and find himself at war with everyone and everything. I especially liked the monastery scenes because they remind me so much of the politics and intrigue at my own university. Llewelyn's education in the monastery is a lot like mine and a lot of other people's that I know of, and I think that anybody that has ever been disillusioned by higher education will totally identify with these scenes, which are among the best in the book. But this is definitely not one of those overdone satires of academic life. This is pure, unadulterated high epic fantasy with tons of insight into what's wrong with education, government, capitalism, socialism and everything else. It is an entertaining read if you like fantasies that are more than just adventures, that make you think about issues. I put this book down - not quite done yet - and kept thinking so much here is like the real world that I'm sure I know real-life counterparts to these characters. I wisj more fantasy writers would take on the Big Ideas, like many science fiction writers do.
Rating: 
Summary: ANNOYING First Person Point of View
Review: I struggled to complete this book, eventually lost the will to do it, and read the end, which I have to say ranks up there with the WORST I have ever seen. Why do authors do this? First person [writing everything from the author's point of view] is hard to do well, even by experienced, talented authors. From what I can see, Ms. Michalson is neither. The endless droning of what is happening moment to moment made my head rock.I can only suggest that it is offensive to end a book with "here's the end of one of many stories." The series doesn't warrant another book, though I suspect the market will be subjected to at least one.
Rating:
Summary: Ironically wonderful word magic!
Review: If you love sinking your teeth into the artistic potential of the English language then you'll be in your glory reading Enemy Glory. Michalson doesn't waste a single word; each was carefully chosen for significance and impact either on the level of imagery or intellectual depth. This is a story about a young man who loves words and their magic. It's also a story about how academia destroys the creative imaginations of its students as "it" takes control of their minds, emotions, and lives. The character development from the psychological angle is thoughtful and substantive. The thematic irony reeks of real life experiences. And Llewelyn's passive aggressive rebellion is a thing of eccentric delight. Enemy Glory may be dark but it certainly isn't bleak. If you're in the mood for MORE than action adventure entertainment take a chance on Michalson's work. If not, well, we all know where to find the junk food.
Rating:
Summary: ENEMY GLORY
Review: Llewelyn muses in his epic story, ENEMY GLORY by Karen Michalson, that "Beauty is not truth. Beauty is when you stumble across truth accidentally outside itself" (322). Michalson certainly has outdone herself in portraying more than truth and beauty in Llewelyn's saga. Set in a country of great diversity and conflict, ENEMY GLORY tells the story of an evil cleric and his political and personal enterprises. The characters surrounding Llewelyn are three-dimensional, interesting folk who all have a stake in the outcome of the civil war. Llewelyn's personal adventures lead the reader through both the joys and ills of learning in a magical land. The language Michalson employs is exquisite, placing the first of several novels in the catagory of literary fiction as well as fantasy. This remarkable mixture of truth and beauty offers not only a great escape story but an interesting drama with elements like scholarship, friendship, and betrayal that relate to our daily lives.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Harry Potter - Modesitt on downers!
Review: Publishers Weekly described Enemy Glory as "a sort of Harry Potter on downers". It comes endorsed by heavyweights such as Samuel R. Delaney and is promoted as "a new fantasy saga in the dramatic tradition of George R. R. Martin's A GAME OF THRONES". However, given the plotline, I'd describe it as "Modesitt on downers", rather than making any comparison to George R. R. Martin in any way! ENEMY GLORY has taken me at least a month to read - it's one of those books which, when you take it up, you soon find yourself putting it down again, and picking up the local paper or the TV listings magazine. Either that, or you're forever flicking forward to see if it looks like it'll improve. I'm surprised at myself that I finished it. Avoid.
Rating:
Summary: Review of Enemy Glory
Review: The book is very descriptive and some times poetic. The biggest thing that draws me to this book is how the main characters deal with adversity with logic a lot like a game of chess rather than trying to triumph with sheer force. It turns out to be somewhat of a thinking book where you find the main character analyzing the situations much the same way you would rather than in less effective way just to help the plot along.
Rating:
Summary: I'm in love!
Review: The main character is sexy! Not in the cliched "evil is beautiful" way - but in a way I can't describe. He's evil but not in a way I've ever seen before. Every page (almost every page) made me see things in a different way and I never wanted it to end. I love the narrator. I wish he was real. I can't wait for more books.
Rating:
Summary: interesting narrator
Review: The way you feel about this book will depend on the way you feel about Michalson's first person narrator, Llewelyn. I have to say I found him intriguing in the first chapter when he is telling his life story to his mortal enemy. Then I actively disliked him as an awkward overblown adolescent, although I couldn't help but admire the author's skill at characterization while disliking the character. However, once he reached manhood I fell in love with him and can't wait for more books - he's edgy, complex, and very real, and his early awkward adolescence as background makes his maturity more real and his actions more human and convincing. Great character development. He is not simply evil - he spends as much time satirizing the philosophy of evil as he does embracing and practicing it, and Michalson is at her best in these passages. The moral complexity of this book becomes clear after Llewelyn risks his life for his friends and ends up betrayed by them, and then turns to evil while managing to remain distant from it. This part of the story is done brilliantly. I highly recommend this book, but be patient with the narrator's early personality before he enters the monastery. The payoff is worth it.
Rating:
Summary: weird but I liked it
Review: This is one weird book. I have to say I really liked it once I got into it, and that I will definitely buy the next one, but it is still one weird book. It's so weird I'm posting my comments about it, and I never post comments. I don't know if it is for everyone. There is much more here than you would expect to find in a fantasy novel, which might throw some people off. There is an intellectual component to this novel that you don't often find in genre fiction, yet it still reads like good genre fiction. I liked the writing and the hero (anti-hero?), and give it four, maybe five stars. As to content it is a bit alarming to the sensitive. There are several violent scenes that made my skin crawl, but they were all tastefully done and made statements about the implications of many of the ideas in this novel. It starts off with the narrator, who is dying, agreeing to tell his life story to his enemy, who used to be his friend. I thought it was fairly brave to put the hero at the point of death in the first chapter, and I had my doubts, but it totally worked for me in that I found myself instantly attracted to and caring about this dying evil protagonist. Llewelyn is not just a "charming villain" type - far from it - but he is so convincing, and the inner hurt and betrayal that drives him to evil so believable, that you end up liking and rooting for him. At other times you want to take his enemy's part and kill him yourself. That is what is so weird about this book, having a hero that you find yourself alternating between really liking and really getting annoyed with, and yet always wanting to keep reading. It ends on a real cliffhanger. I wish the next book was available now.
Rating:
Summary: Amazingly rich piece of work
Review: What an amazingly rich piece of work! Llewellyn's world is so real, the writing so lush and poetic! I'm just blown away by the breadth, depth, and quality. I initially put off reading the book because I felt daunted by the size, but after the first page, I was hooked.
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