fantasy
Royce and Hadrian are thieves for hire in a fantasy world
similar to medieval England. They agree to a risky scheme and end up being
framed for the king’s murder. They are
then pulled from certain punishment of death into the princess’ private scheme.
She believes that they did not kill the king and wants them to kidnap her
brother, the new king, to protect him from becoming the murderer’s next victim.
A grand adventure ensues. After that story arc completes, the second half of
the novel is a new adventure where Royce and Hadrian are pulled into assisting
a farm girl because she mentions that the wizard they met in the first half of
the novel sent her to find them.
Apparently, Michael J. Sullivan wrote an entire 6-novel series before
publishing anything. Later, his publishers chose to group these six books into
three novels for publishing. So Theft of Swords was really his first two books.
(The titles were originally The Crown Conspiracy and Avempartha.)
This novel was a wonderful adventure full of fun quests, fantasy,
royal intrigue, humor (I laughed out loud a few times!), danger, and a
(growing) band of newfound friends. The church was the main “bad guy” and exceled in that role. The fantasy elements were great.
I liked the first half of the novel better. The second half had less action, a slower pace,
and more lengthy descriptions, inner thoughts, and back stories. While this
allowed the reader to get to know some characters better, my interest wavered. There
were several situations that were too convenient and others that were too predictable.
By focusing on one set of characters more than seemed necessary, it gave away
the “punchline”. But, overall, Theft of Swords was a fun fantasy and I
forced myself to look past my complaints for the sake of enjoying the adventures
and the terrific characters.
I’ll probably read the next one in the series just so I can
see what happens to some of the characters.
Tim Gerard Reynolds, the audiobook narrator, was absolutely amazing! Easy A+! His vocal repertoire was humongous (each character had their own unique voice!) and his voice acting was superb. I can’t think of anything that needed improvement. He was very entertaining. BRAVO Mr. Reynolds!!
As with the first novel, the first half was better than the second. I continue to enjoy reading about Hadrian and Royce and their adventures but this novel had several slow sections that caused my mind to wander while listening to the audiobook.
A very satisfying conclusion to the Riyria Revelations series. As with the others, there were some slow sections and some very action-filled sections. But I loved the characters so much that I enjoyed this series overall.
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