Most helpful customer reviews
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Real Life History, Feb 2 2004
Anyone who performed or vended at either "Big Faire", which is what Californians call the two nine week long every summer Rennaisance Faires, one Northern, one Southern, will recognize this book as a fantasy utilizing what happened when Southern Faire's site for years was bulldozed and the Faire had to move. Not surprising as Lackey herself has connections to the Faire folk.Other than that, the book itself is interesting, not the least because it broke Lackey's invariable pattern of doing trilogies. Knight of Ghosts and Shadows is actually the second book in a "trilogy", if you want to call it that, book one being bowery Boyz I beleiv, about a healer witch in a modern day city slum who does not return until the second half of book three, summoned to tourney....and of course Lackety then continued on with a second "trilogy" on bard eric's life alone after she managed to get rid of the other two main characters in Knight of Ghosts and Shadows. Rather funny, it was...first, a tripod was the strongest thing in nature, and then POOF, the beginning of the first book in the second "trilogy" disposes thoroughly of the idea. It could be read as an object lesson in ignoring conditions you yourself set up in writing, I suppose, as well as a historical reference. The book itself is decent, as is its antecendent and sequel, I'd just advice not to read these three and the second three after Lackey breaks up her threesome. Pick one or the other, instead.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Not as good as the SERRAted Edge series, Jan 27 2001
By A Customer
I'm a fan of Mercedes Lackey from a long time back so when I saw this book at the bookstore, I immediately snatched it up. It's the story of a melancholy street-busker, Eric Banyon, and how his talents with the flute earn him the love of the warrior elf Korendil and the witch/rockstar Beth, and also the eternal gratitude of the elves in California for creating a new home for them after their's is bulldozed. That's it. It's a pretty good story but it's definitely got some flaws.First of all, Korendil is an extremely flat character. He just stands there in his armor and smiles. Throughout the book, Mercedes lackey flips from person to person to tell the story from several points of view but Kory hardly speaks at all. As for the flipping view points, I did like that we got to hear the opinions of the main bad girl, Ria, but all that flipping around got confusing. I found myself flipping around more than once trying to find out what was happening. One final caveat: there is a very small, miniscule amount of homosexuality in this book. In fact, compared to Ms. Lackey's Magic's Price, Promise, Pawn series this is nothing. But, if this kind of thing offends you, don't read the book. The thing I loved most was the magical music, literally. Anyone with a passion for music should read this book. Hearing the sounds she matched the music to made me want to go downstairs and play the piano. If you love the idea of magic and music together, buy this book. Those parts made my heart soar! If you liked this book, the SERRAted Edge series is ten times better. It is very similar to this book but the characters are more interesting, in my opinion. It is also by Mercedes Lackey and she recently re-released the four books of the series into two volumes. Mercedes Lackey rocks!
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, Jun 10 2000
This book was very enjoyable, another well-done work of Mercedes Lackey's. The characters were all very interesting and well developed. Sometimes Banyon's tendency to run away from problems got annoying, but this "flaw" in his character only made him seem more real to me. Beth and Korendil were great additions to the story as well, though I coudn't exactly call the latter realistic. The classic story of hope lost, found, lost and found a couple more times, then, triumph over the ultimate evil. This book has definitely gone on my favorite's list.
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