Book Review: "Sword of Flame"

Sword of Flame turned out to be a fair novel although in dealing with all the subplots we start to lose some of the characterization. It read well, moved well, and all our favorite characters are still there. The plot is starting to have a lot of holes to me. In the realm of rational thinking, some of the elements start to break down.

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The plot of course picks up where Harp of Winds left off. You need to read the first two novels before jumping into this one. Aurian and Anvar have returned spring to the land much to Eliseth's (evil weather mage) dismay. Now they need to reorganize their little group and head North back home. They need to find and claim the Sword of Flame and only Aurian can do that. They need this power to defeat Miathan (Archmage, who wants to rule the world) although I cannot understand why they need the sword. Miathan has no more power than either Aurian or Anvar. Miathan does have the Caldron of Life, but Aurian has the Staff of Earth and Anvar the Harp of Winds–why can't they defeat him together? Also I cannot figure out why Aurian cannot break the curse on her son. It placed there with the Caldron and if all the artifacts are equal in power which they are supposed to be (except for the sword which is more powerful), why can't Aurian break the curse with the staff of Earth? Those are just a couple of things that have bothered me in the plot–they plain don't make sense. Aurian and Anvar are also having trouble with some of their allies who are not as loyal as they should be. The Winged folk desert them in their time of need and the Xandim (horse people) attack them. Why they are attacked by the Xandim makes no sense either. And I believe Chiamara, the windeye who has mage powers but is a Xandim, even says that in response to his people's attack on his new friends. Its seems a lot of things in the book make no sense. The characters either have it way too hard for the situation or way too easy. For a quest novel, the journeying has been really easy and really quick. There are many subplots involving side characters but I will not bore you with those.

Anvar, who is turning out to be my favorite character, is losing some of his character in this novel. He is basically now saving or supporting Aurian. He is becoming a typical supporting character, which I hate–he was the best character in the book. Aurian is not much of a character. She is always snapping at people, ordering them about without consulting the group, has left her child many times to go off somewhere else, and frankly to me didn't grieve long enough for her dead love. But she is supposed to be this wonderful caring person which in this novel I only see when she talks to the leviathan. Granted, she is always telling Anvar how much she cares about him and there is a little (very little) of their character banter that was so much fun in the beginning. I just cannot identify with her and care little about her survival except how it would effect Anvar. Shia is still a cool character, but then again talking cats always are. I wish we would hear more from Shia's new mate Khanu, he is also a big black cat. He started out to be a great character, since the society is reversed in the cats (females in power), he was the decenting male (which is usually the female role). He was shaping up to be great, but then he is silenced when the cats rejoin the group and we hear no more from him. There is so much potential in these novels that are just being tossed, makes me want to scream and grind my teeth.

This series could have been really great, the story is a great idea, and the characters could be vastly interesting and nifty (with some tweaking), but it keeps falling short of my expectations. I can think of several series which are better including any Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar set you care to pick up or David Eddings' the Elenium Trilogy followed by the Tamuli Trilogy. Once you have read these, then you might pick this series up, but so far its been disappointing. Not that is terrible, it just could have been so much better.