The author grew and the writing got better with each book, the character became more nuanced, everything came together in the end and there were no boring bits like in the other two. Myron is back which is great. Arista got so much better and I finally fell for Hadrian and Royce mostly Royce.
On the downside, Sullivan can't do romance well. It's ok since it is more of a female author skill but still I am going to miss those two but no worries because I still have Riyria Chronicles to read. In spite of my frustrations with the beginning of this series, this story and these characters have truly won me over in the best way possible.
This was, without a doubt, one of the most satisfying conclusions I've ever read. If you've been following my reviews for awhile, you'll know that I actually DNFed the first book about two years ago. After incessantly hearing people rave about them though, I felt like I needed to give it another shot, so I made my way through book one for a second time and continued all the way through the trilogy as well.
Never have I been so pleasantly surprised. People who have read these books will know exactly what I mean when I say that this is not a series that you read with your mind. These are books that you read with your heart. Intellectually, these are certainly not the best books I've ever read. It was relatively unoriginal worldbuilding, the story appeared to be simple and straightforward during the first several books, and the prose was not especially flowery or poetic.
And yet, in spite of that, these books progressively became more and more meaningful to me. This last book, especially, went beyond just being a good book and turned into something truly special. And it's not something you experience because you're intellectually entertained or intrigued.
It's something you experience because it touches on many of the things that define us as human beings. Things that can't be conjured by thought, but are felt in the heart. It didn't avoid negative themes in it's attempt to emphasize the good. Rather, it perfectly balanced themes of justice and even revenge, with mercy. Themes of regret, with redemption. Themes of tragedy, with hope. Themes of misery and fear, with the discovery of true happiness in the midst of adverse circumstances.
Even themes of identity, as many characters wrestled with who they were becoming and who they were supposed to be. You'll get tired of hearing it, but seriously, the characters in this book are some of the most dynamic, likeable, and well developed people that you'll ever read.
It is one of the most character-driven fantasy series I've come across as a result, and for good reason. When I say that these characters are dynamic, I mean that many of the characters you read about in the first several books are not the same people by the time you finish the series, and this isn't forced at all. A pet peeve of mine is authors who write "dramatic transformations" or "changes of heart" into their stories to help move things along, but it is rarely believable.
Not so in these books. Sullivan takes his times, and as the reader, we get to walk alongside each of these characters as they are molded by all manner of circumstances. I can't think of a single character that wasn't done excellently well, and I'm a stickler about characters because it's the most important thing to me in a book. Even Magnus, the dwarf, who you spend most of the series hating is so well written.
The villains of the story, too, get plenty of air time - and there are some awesome awful? Sullivan writes both male and female characters who are convincing and believable. Royce and Hadrian, the primary duo of this entire series, are such a perfect combination. If I even tried to make a list of favorite characters, I don't think I'd know where to begin and where to stop.
A five star book or series can turn into a two star rating across the board if the ending is bad Hunger Games. The level of hate and dissatisfaction I had with that final book left a bad taste on my tongue for the entire series as a whole.
Good endings are so hard to come by, because many authors just meander their way to a conclusion in a way that slaps everything together in an almost careless manner. It's so easy to lose traction once you near the end. With that being said, I made it to the second half of Percepliquis book six and couldn't even believe what I was reading.
So many different layers ranging from elements of the story, worldbuilding, and characters came together in way that was absolutely brilliant, plain and simple. I can't even talk about it for fear of spoilers, but I was blown away when I realized the amount of foreshadowing that was done, going all the way back to book one.
This all reached it's peak at the climax of the story, and we were given a conclusion that wrapped everything up and left no loose ends untied. It was seriously good. My old abbot used to say, 'Life is only precious if you wish it to be. Seriously, if you were like me, and you put these books down after the first volume, pick it up again.
It is worth the time it takes to get through the first book, and I'm sure you won't regret it. This series introduced me to characters that I learned to genuinely love, a story that touched me, and themes that I'm going to remember for a very, very long time. Michael Sullivan has officially made a fan out of me.
Shelves: favorites , fantasy. Full review now posted! Original review can be found at Booknest. I thought that Theft of Swords was fantastic, but Rise of Empire improved upon it greatly. Then along comes Heir of Novron, which blew away everything that proceeded it.
This series started out as a fun romp of a fantasy, fairly lighthearted and and fast-paced. Sullivan took the foundation he had laid in the first book, which was heavily influenced by classic fantasy, and ended up with something that felt deep and original and new by the last book. The mythos was beautifully rendered and was presented with a deft hand, never laden on too thick or thin. The characters were wonderfully developed, and watching them grow throughout the series was a joy.
The settings were varied and, while not always unique, were very well crafted and were lovely to behold. The plot took twists and turns that were surprising and heartbreaking and gratifying, often within the same chapter. The entire series was fun, but this book felt like something special. While there were so many fantastic aspects to this series, what really made it for me was the characters and how they grew over the course of the series.
My very favorite character is Myron, the little monk with the photographic memory who sees the good in literally everything. She worked hard to become the woman she is, and I really appreciate finding such a strong woman in a fantasy. In this series, we also have Gwen, Modina, Amilia, Lenare, and more. Sullivan did a wonderful job of creating remarkably strong women, and I applaud him for it.
Both the individuals and the duo go through tremendous adversity and character growth. Seeing how each man handles the difficulties that life throws his way, as well as how those hardships affect their friendship, was always enthralling to watch. Not always comfortable or fun to witness, but always enthralling. One last thing that I would really like to applaud Sullivan for: his approach to romance. There is no insta-love here. There is no use of romance as a plot substitute.
The romance here grows over the course of the story. And that realism is what made any romance that came to fruition within the series mean so much more to me as a reader. There was struggle, as there should be for anything that matters. Bookish friends are the best friends! View all 17 comments. Humour, tragedy, action, drama, adventure. This one had it all. After a patchy start in book 1 this omnibus has fully realized the development of this series into one of my all-time favourites.
Heir of Novron featured an awesome cast of diverse, likeable characters with the protagonists from the previous books returning along with many of the great supporting characters. While the plot was in many ways a typical fantasy epic it was written masterfully and the tension remained high due to Sulliva Humour, tragedy, action, drama, adventure. Wintertide - 4.
As the plot progresses the story picks up pace with all of the main characters who were previously scattered around the world now together in one place all snared in different ways in a complex web of danger and intrigue and locked in a battle against time. All of the main character from previous books returned in this one and put in some interesting turns. However this book ultimately belonged to Modina.
After 2 books of being a mindless puppet the empress finally arrives. Percepliquis - 4. However Sullivan wrote this story brilliantly and the journey was filled with intriguing mysteries, epic trials and the constant threat of sudden, brutal death, even for main characters, a threat Sullivan was merciless in following through with.
A feature I really enjoyed about this book was the return of so many great secondary characters from earlier in the series. The appearances of Alric, Magnus and Lenare Pickering who was a disappointingly underused character, delivering one of the most badass scenes in the entire series early on then remaining quietly in the background for the rest of the book.
I thought she would have made an awesome addition to the quest but anyway…. Overall I found the ending to be extremely satisfying. On the Brightside I thought the ending for pretty much everyone else was perfect.
Or am I mis-remembering? I also thought the way the future of the empire was handled in this one was great. Modina was non-stop awesome since unleashing the kraken at the end of the previous book and I thought her plans for the Empire were perfect. I was also really psyched at how she found the perfect place for all of the gang; Hadrian, Arista, Myron , Magnus… even Gaunt unfortunately.
Each instalment has added something; another layer of depth to the main characters, more brilliantly drawn secondary characters, intriguing new facets to the world building. As another reviewer noted this series can be extremely hard to define within the genre and with each book that definition became harder.
It combines warm humour with sudden, shocking tragedy, heroism and adventure with the unexpected and unchangeable consequences of violence. This series has been a great read and I look forward to seeing what Sullivan will do in the future. Heir of Novron is the omnibus containing Wintertide and Percepliquis, books 5 and 6 of Riyria Revelations.
Wintertide This was a surprisingly short book. Not that its short length stopped Wintertide being one of the best books in the series.
I loved this book. It was fast paced and exciting from start to finish and was filled with action, humor, intrigue, and adventure. Despite the fun feel to the book it was still full of plenty of dark and shocking moments.
Especially towards the end! I loved Hadrian's time spent as a "false" knight. It was hilarious. I enjoyed how this installment of the series did a great job of further developing characters like Nimbus, Royce, and Modina. This was probably the peak time in the series for cool villains as Sauly, Archie, and Merrick were well developed and interesting characters. Rating: 5 stars.
Percepliquis This suffered from a slightly slow start. I like quest plot arcs in general and the team Modina put together to seek the Horn of Novron and the lost city of Percepliquis was a good one. Unfortunately the early stages of the journey were not all that exciting.
The second half of the book was a lot more intense, both in pacing and in actual happenings. A lot of Sullivan's long running mysteries came to exciting fruition's. Some in quite surprising fashion! Myron and Magnus were the star picks from the secondary characters. I loved how both were developed over the course of the story. Royce, Hadrian, and Arista were as great as ever and I was happy Modina continued to progress in the right direction. I was not happy with everything.
I was pretty disappointed with some Gwen related revelations and the source of the mysterious threat Esrahadden had long warned people about. I did enjoy this a lot and was mostly happy with the ending. Rating: 4 stars. He has a talent for voice acting. It is just a pity he sometimes chooses awful accents for major characters! The last book of the series. The interactions between Hadrian and Royce are back, and so are some really interesting characters sadly absent from the previous book.
This book will keep you reading just one more page at night - up until around 5 am guilty. The end of the series is almost perfect with some things which caught me completely by surprise. Conclusion for the whole series: if you like fantasy - read these books now, they are great. Some of the dialog is brilliant and the plot has eno The last book of the series.
Some of the dialog is brilliant and the plot has enough twists and turns to keep you guessing until the very end. My thanks to the author for creating really entertaining books.
View all 5 comments. Two books in a dense series mean a whole lot of action, plot-twists, turning points and un expected developments revelations. As this is essentially a story-driven tale , there is no point in even trying to give you a teaser what awaits or the essence of what is coming as it would only result in spoilers.
Suffice to say that centuries of planning are f "Sometimes the price of dreams is achieving them. Suffice to say that centuries of planning are finally coalescing into a shape and the conspiracies from the previous book took root and bore fruit. Even I have to admit that there were no corners cut in this book. I have read repeatedly and usually falsely in reviews of many recent epic fantasies that even though they base on the standard set of protagonists and motives, they rework them in a fresh way.
Mr Sullivan achieved this feature: the arcs and tropes are both standard and not. Some things are as comfy as old pyjamas, but just when you think nothing will surprise you, a unique alteration of the known changes expected into an unpredictable. I got caught this way once or twice and it is a nice feeling, especially for a seasoned fantasy reader like myself.
I can see that Mr Sullivan definitely grew as a writer and his writing gains depth. There is more substance to characters, both primary and secondary, they become more nuanced, multidimensional. The tale is balanced and all the characters are given their chance to shine without Arista one person dominating the events. Undoubtedly readers rooting for the Empress or her Secretary or those with a soft spot for Myron or Nimbus that would be me, yes will be happy to hear that. What I appreciated the most is that there are really no loose ends.
No hastily sketched explanations. Every single sentence, every bizarre occurrence from previous books finds its place in the overall picture. Mr Sullivan, quite smugly, shows how the clues were all there for those smart enough to see them and understand.
This happens rarely in the genre that far too often veers towards banal plots full of convenient magical fix-ups. If you wonder why the book does not merit the full mark for me, the reason is very simple. It did not manage to touch me emotionally even once. As I read, I often found myself drifting away and needed to go back a couple of paragraphs, especially of those were the personal backstories and reflections or romance scenes Mr Sullivan, you really write quite atrocious romances.
I still remain indifferent towards all the major characters save Nimbus, naturally. It is a light and funny vanilla fantasy but the vanilla flavour intensifies and becomes a clockwork vanilla at times. While I can recommend the series and the writer, I cannot say I share the ubiquitous enthusiasm of numerous fans.
To discover Riyria was fun but not that revelational. Note on the rating: 3,5 rounded up because of the deftness of the overall plot design.
View all 7 comments. However this novel would certainly have to be up the top as another of my favourite books read in Isn't it nice to know that when the world ends in December cough I'll at least have read some great books. In my reviews for Theft of Swords and Rise of Empire I mentioned the fantasy genre and storytelling in general respectively. I want to do something different again and connect the two to mention why I enjoyed this series so much.
As such I will provide five main reasons. The characters Personally the first thing that must attract me in any book is the characters. The second thing I look at generally is the quality of the writing, story and plot but that comes secondary to characters.
For a novel to really grab me I have to believe in the characters and feel emotions for and with them. And in this series I certainly found all the heroic characters highly memorable. I felt for the dilemmas Hadrian was caught in. I sympathised with the anger and pain of sullen Royce.
I admired Arista's bravado and the mental strength of Modina. Who could forget Myron I was so glad he was brought back for the third book - he was such an awesome scholarly character. And then there was Alric, Mauvin and Magnus. I even liked the really minor characters like Nimbus. I felt that Michael J. Sulivan could place a lot of depth into his characters throughout the series and particularly in this last book. No character really felt forced or artificial.
They felt as close to fluid and organic as any created character can. This third volume was grand in how it could evoke all those emotions I had felt for the characters. It drew upon all the thoughts and ideas I had previously experienced and reminded me of why I liked them all so very much. And also of why I had disliked the villainous characters.
I don't think I've read a more moving character death for a while. The world I also loved this series for the world which Michael J. Sulivan created. He may not have been creating a world of deep description like your Tolkien, Rothfuss or Sanderson but he did create a world that was uniquely his own. There was almost a sense that those fantasy races were representative of how humans have treated other 'races' race being a mythical idea biologically in the past.
Either way while it may not have the detail of other fantasy authors this world still contained depth. The intrigue Many of the surprises could be picked up before they occurred. As such I found the suspense, intrigue and twists in the story neat and clever. Royce being the emperor was brilliant and made sense of a lot of various things like who killed Gwen for instance.
I should have picked it up better than I did. But I ended up getting stuck on the fact that Gaunt was not the heir and that maybe the girl was somehow. The writing I rather enjoyed the writing style of the entire series. It was unpretentious and uncluttered with unnecessary words. It was a style that worked for what the author was creating. It didn't need to be a literary masterpiece but rather a piece of fiction that anyone could enjoy.
And I believe that good writing is in being able to tailor your writing style to your audience and genre. I believe Michael J. Sullivan did that in his Riyria Revelations novels I say this because I read one of his works in progress where he was experimenting with a more literary style which was different.
That's not to say the writing is bad. In fact I personally liked the style as someone rather eclectic in my tastes. A combination of elements What worked about the entire series was that everything combined nicely. It had the fantasy elements which was nice but it boiled everything together to create more importantly a plotted story.
It had pace and skipped the need to excessively dull the reader with explanation after explanation that simplicity was part of the strength of its writing - you came to see, rather than need to be told, what was occurring. It had romance, it had humour, it had characters, it had fantasy and action, it had fun and fancy, it had dire circumstances and twists, it had magic and mystery.
Of themselves those elements would have fallen flat but together they created a wonderful sequence of books that demand to be read and re-read. And I must say that I have rarely read a stronger or more poetic final few lines to any trilogy or series. Yes I do love Sam declaring that he's home in The Lord of the Rings and I like how the Mistborn Trilogy ends but there was a great poetic rightness about how this story ended.
It was a brilliant move and one I wholly enjoyed. I have one final thing to say and that is that anyone who complains about it being unoriginal as a series I believe is missing the point. But then that's their opinion.
I merely want to quote John Frow an Australian literary critic who wrote that 'No text is unique; we would not recognise it if it were. View all 28 comments. Excellent ending to a fine fantasy series. It took me ages to get to a point where I could sit down and read this last book. Something that surprised me was how emotional these books can be.
Sullivan is not afraid to give the reader a bit of heartache. Whilst character deaths are certainly not a new plot device, I feel that in a lot of books nowadays the author is too scared to kill characters off.
Especially important secondary characters. I love it when characters die and make a meaningful sacrifice. It takes the meaning out of the sacrifice! I got so attached to the characters in this series.
Another surprise given the POV style, which is quite impersonal. Somehow, even though the reader is never fully in any one characters mind, the characters grow so much. Not only Royce and Hadrian but most of the secondary cast as well. Sullivan far exceeded my expectations. This book was probably my favourite out of the three. It was so well constructed and high octane. The stakes were so very high and all the way through I was uncertain as to how the story was going to unfold.
A few of the twists took me by surprise and changed my perception of previous events. Some other twists were a little predictable but the impact they made was so satisfying to read. I feel like this series is one that you should go into with the intention of reading in its entirety. The whole overarching plot and story is marvellous, and terribly clever.
I love it when the author leaves a little up to the reader to decide how things go from there. Also anymore time I can spend with Hadrian and my love Royce will be thoroughly enjoyed. At long last after all these months and an end of year which kept me busy i finished to read the riyria trilogy. My feeling right now is one of amazement. Michael j sullivan kept me out of breath with this stunning ending.
The strong point of this trilogy is definetely the characters and of course the plot. I appreciate the balance Sullivan struck in the Riyria Chronicles--too often books of this genre get polluted with gratuitous violence and raunchiness that merely mask a storyline that may not have been as well developed by an author before embarking on the literary journey.
As a reader, while I appreciate a good action scene of which the Heir of Novron, among the others, had plenty of fantastic action scenes--which Tim Gerard Reynolds did great justice to in his narration , I appreciated the n I appreciate the balance Sullivan struck in the Riyria Chronicles--too often books of this genre get polluted with gratuitous violence and raunchiness that merely mask a storyline that may not have been as well developed by an author before embarking on the literary journey.
If you've followed the journey this far, chances are you're gonna like this last installment. It's like the previous books, except faster paced and more dramatic. The other minor difference is there's less character development.
Since all the main players have already been introduced, the narrative is more plot driven, which is kind of the point since we all or maybe just me by this time want to get to the e "Still Searching for Red Herrings" could be a subtitle for this last set of the series.
Since all the main players have already been introduced, the narrative is more plot driven, which is kind of the point since we all or maybe just me by this time want to get to the end finally and solve the heir of Novron mystery once and for all. On the high holiday of Wintertide, the Witch of Melengar will be burned and the Heir of Novron executed. On that same day the Empress faces a forced marriage, with a fatal accident soon follow.
The New Empire is confident in the totality of its triumph but there's just one problem-Royce and Hadrian have finally found the true Heir of Novron -- -and they have their own holiday plans. Sullivan has lived in Vermont, North Carolina, and Virginia. He worked as a commercial artist and illustrator, founding his own advertising agency in , which he closed in to pursue writing full-time. The Crown Conspiracy is his first published work. He currently resides in Fairfax, Virginia with his wife and three children.
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