Avaryan Resplendent [Paperback]

This omnibus has somewhat better fleshed out female characters than the previous one Avaryan Rising, which was a nice improvement, although they're still not ideal. However, I found myself annoyed that the main characters in the royal family keep getting progressively lighter in skin color as the generations go on. The series started out prominently featuring people of color... so why the whitewashing in the later books? Yes, different races and cultures have been intermarrying for several generations now, but these last two royals are being described as pretty pale. They're also considered the most powerful in the line. (Well, except for the original son of the sun Mirain.) Why are the most powerful pale? And, umm... is anybody ever going to wake Mirain up? Ever?

4) Arrows of the Sun
I find it amusing that throughout most, if not all, of the book the title is a phrase to refer to the emperor's sperm, and Tarr just decided that that particular thing had to be the title. Ahem. Anyway, it's been awhile since the events of A Fall of Princes, almost a century. Although the previously squabbling kingdoms likewise featured in the previous books are now united, there's still tension among various factors and squabbling is starting up again. The young emperor must head into hostile territory to avert civil war and take on the roles and culture of the side of his joint-empire that is pretty much foreign to him. The book's got something of the stranger in a strange land to it and several painful self sacrifices on the parts of various characters. There are culture clashes and relationship dissolutions and passion found in unexpected places. I spent a large part of the book angry at the way the various characters were behaving though. If they'd only talked to each other a little more, they could've avoided a lot of trouble. Also, the magic system in the world starts getting some heavy duty expansion that wasn't really hinted at in the previous books. A bit more consistency or build up in that regard would have been nice as well.

5) Spear of Heaven
The lead female here is intriguing but not necessarily appealing to me. She's a mother, but not the most devoted one that anyone could hope for. She also basically strategically bred herself to a particular man (who I believe was married) in order to get specific qualities that she wanted for her offspring. She is distant and analytical and rebellious and a bit bored with her position as emperor's granddaughter. So, of course, this book is about how she finally finds love! And saves the world! Sorta. The Worldgates that provide instant transport between various areas of the realm are starting to collapse and no one knows why. In the midst of this, the lead female sneaks out to go exploring. (Her young daughter similarly sneaks into the expedition without her mother's knowledge. Troublesome royals. The kid and her new friends and her blond ninja bodyguards are cute though. I wish more of the book had been about their interactions.) They end up in a distant land whose people I believe may have had their physical appearance and culture modeled at least in part on Tibet. (I really need to better acquaint myself with non-European cultures.) Developing rapport with the locals is a tedious but necessary process, made difficult by that culture's banning of magic and the imperial family essentially reeking of it. Imperial way wins out in the end (as such things tended to do), and it's a good thing they were there too when the magical showdowns for the gates begins.

6) Tides of Darkness
The child in the previous book is an adult in this one and the current Lady of the Gates. However, much of the focus of the book is on a young nobleman. He starts out as a well known, dissolute hedonist who is, of course, supremely talented but hides his magical abilities rather than put forth the effort of receiving training in them. All in all, not my favorite character archetype. Another primary focus is the male lead from book four (amazingly still alive and well; these are some long-lived magical people), who is the great grandfather to the female lead in this book. Young nobleman gets in trouble for using his powers improperly and breaking the Gate Laws and is sent to the care of the former emperor in his retirement as a shepherd. Yeah. So, an evil force is still going around destroying the Gates and also destroys what is essentially the main hub of the Gates' power. During this, the retired emperor gets flung into an alternative universe (Egypt) and finds his soul mate in a pharaoh's widow. Meanwhile, our young nobleman finds some discipline, taps into his natural skills, gets the girl (another underdeveloped romance ::sigh::), and saves the day. Was there ever any doubt that's how it would go for him? The book does feature a fairly awesome use of cats as security though.

All in all, I wouldn't say these books are my favorite things, yet they do appeal to me on some level that I haven't quite figured out yet. There are some flashes of brilliance interspersed across them, and the idea of following the same family for generations is intriguing to me, if only some of the super powered, god modding would stop. There are also enough lose threads (and one particular massive plot hole) dangling that I don't think we've seen the end of this series yet.

› Go to Amazon U.S. to see the review  3.0 out of 5 stars