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3.0étoiles sur 5
Fourth of the Saint-Germain series., Aoû 7 2002
This fourth book of the series, in terms of the order in which they were written, was at the time it was written the second in terms of internal chronology; the first book, "Hotel Transylvania", was set in 1700s France. The second, "The Palace", was set in late 1400s Italy. The third, "Blood Games", was set in first century Rome. This one is set in 1200s Asia, ranging from China to India.I was somewhat disappointed by this book; it started well and ended well, but dragged rather badly in the middle. Really, it should have been two separate books, as there were two female romantic leads, one early, one late, and my biggest complaint with the book is the abrupt death of the apparent female lead a third of the way into the book; the character deserved better treatment. Mind you, I don't object to the concept of Saint-Germain losing a lover; I understand that it's part of the character concept; an immortal vampire suffers a continuing series of losses of that sort throughout his life. But the character was good enough to deserve a climactic death at the end of a book, rather than being disposed of in mid-book, in a senseless and wasted death. And the second female lead was an interesting enough character, also, to deserve a book all her own, rather than first appearing 2/3 of the way through the book. On the other hand, both of these characters were nice deviations from the "damsel in distress" pattern we'd seen previously for Saint-Germain's lovers, and that's a definite plus as far as I'm concerned (although if part of what you like about the series is the "hero rescues damsel in distress" shtick that we've seen previously, you may be disappointed in this one). Then again, back on the negative "hand", the villains in this book are even more cardboard than we've seen previously in the series; there's nothing wrong with having stories with clear-cut divisions between good and evil, as Yarbro consistently does, but it helps if your villains are at least fleshed out sufficiently that the reader can fathom what it is that THEY think they're accomplishing. It was one thing to have the Mongol hordes be an implacable, mindless force (certainly, that's how they were perceived by their enemies historically) but the worshipper of the goddess Kali was simply a nutcase, with no more rationale given for her evil than that she was crazy, and no rationale at all given for WHY she was crazy. Now, I realize that there ARE people like that in the world, but it's a cheap out to use in fiction. Generally, even unabashedly evil characters should have SOME reasonable explanation for their actions; this book is the weakest of the series so far in that regard. On the other hand again, I really liked the ending. (I can't tell you more without making for an inexcusable spoiler.) As you can no doubt tell, I had mixed emotions about this book, so a three star rating seems about right.
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