Customer Reviews

House Of Bairn 03 Magelord Trilogy

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I have not read the first two books in the MageLord trilogy; if they are similar to "The House of Bairn," I probably never will. Actually, I never felt a need to read them, even to make sense of the third book. That could mean either that each of the three books can stand alone, or it could mean that Martin almost completely dropped earlier plot threads. Based on the book itself, which contained some hints and references to the two earlier books, I'm inclined to suspect the latter.

"The House of Bairn" opens with Bjorn, a mage-gifted hunter, accidentally unleashing a MageLord on his unsuspecting world. This Lord, Soren, transported himself from the distant past, before the MageLords died in a world-devastating war, and he sends Bjorn back in time to balance his spell.

In the past, Bjorn, now called Bairn, becomes an apprentice to the MageLord Rylur. He learns magic and math, while plotting the destruction of the MageLords, who rule the world with no consideration for the powerless. Martin makes an interesting link between this world's magic and modern theories about subatomic particles, and the conversion of matter to energy; in this world, magical Power is produced by the destruction of matter, not a nuclear explosion.

Bairn eventually provokes a war between the male Northern Alliance and the female Southern Alliance. After the war, he ends up as the most powerful man in the world, lives for thousands of years until the time he, as Bjorn, released Soren, and returns to set the world to rights. He defeats Soren, and forcibly establishes peace between normal people and the magi, who have lived in hiding according to his laws. He also miraculously saves his parents from death, and ends up with three loving wives.

This whole book is basically adolescent wish-fulfillment. Bairn, alone of all people, is willing to study Power reservoirs, and so learns the secret of converting matter to Power; he doesn't tell anyone, and for some reason, Martin assumes no one would ever be able to duplicate Bairn's experiments. Be serious, please.

Also, Bairn has so much Power that he can effectively take over the world, and for many intents, does so. He provokes a world-devastating war, instead of trying to change the future. He could save thousands in the years he spends on the moon, yet he only saves his parents. He imposes sanctions against any normal people who harm the magi, and enforces them, yet doesn't do a thing to stop any other crimes. We're supposed to treat this man as the hero? This is supposed to be an emotionally satisfying conclusion to a story of hideous persecution?

"The House of Bairn" is selfish, childish trash. No, I wrong trash. This is tripe. It is, however, reasonably well-written and entertaining tripe, though it left me with a very bad taste in my mouth.

The reason this book is so bad is because there is a lame storyline. The Holocaust has been written as a story over and over but this one by far is the lamest. He takes mages and creates a storyline for them to be hunted (and killed) by the followers of Hrothgar and some bozo priest. The reason, because the fear the power that they will hold over common non-mage folk. Sounds like the X-men to me, there is not an original thought in this book. The main character who becomes the almight mage Bairn plays a decepitve game of learning all the "powerful" spell he can, become a magelord and take over the world!! In this case it was easier done than said because the "magelords" whom this fraud was being perpatrated were watching re-runs of Max Headroom whilst our "hero" plotted to destroy them. In the first book Valerian is an awesome and powerful mage but we come to find out that he is a low-level chump of one of the dumbest characters ever in a fantasy novel, Rylur the magelord. Valerian, almost single handedly destroyed the entire planet in the first book as a lower mage but the mages in the third book who are much more powerful are like the Keystone Kops. There was no thought or effort into this book, the author was attempting to make a deadline. This book was such a waste of time and money.

This book was as fun to read as rearranging my sock drawer. The plot was predictable, the "Magelords" were really a bunch of chowderheads. Save the money, buy more socks.

The reason this book is so great is because theres so much magic! In other books people can do dumb stuff like light candles and make lightning bolts come from the sky. Big deal! This book was all action and major magic. The first book pretty good, but there were to many boring war scenes, and the second book wasn't very good, but this was amazing! Where in the Awakening, there were a lot of war scenes, there is a lot of politics in this book. Thats usually bad, but this book combined politics, betrayal, and magic perfectly. If you like magic, you'll love this book!

This book was BAD! From the start of the first page you knew EXACTLY how the book was going to end. No thought went into this book whatsoever. All the story lines at the end of the second book vanished into thin air. This book disappointed me greatly. I was suprised because the first two were fairly good.

By far the best Magelord book. A must-read, especially if you've read the first two books.

this book definitely makes this series worth reading. where the other two books dragged on with boring war stories this book gave a ending that i would of never of thought to occur. it is certainly diffrent with a story line simillar to Revlations in the Holy Bible.

This is one of my favioret books. It is so intesting. I only wish it was longer, you would have thought an extra houndred pages could have fit into those thousand years. It just got better and better in this series.

This was the last book in a series which I borrowed from a friend (thank god I didn't BUY these things!) I speed read and love to read sci/fi and fantasy, but I could BARELY keep myself interested in these sad works of fiction. In short, use them for firewood before reading them, you'll be glad you did.

Of the three books in this series, this one was my favorite. The history of why the events in the first two books made it even better.