Customer Reviews

Kirith Kirin

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

first off ide like to say i was torn between 4 and five stars i chose four for reasons i will go into the story overall is amazing its rich world and the charecters are people you care about the few problems i had with the book are when jessex learns about magic its very over done and over writen going into details that fill your brain and takes you away from the overall story if you like that kind of thing then its not an isue second the names for people places and things my god there very complicated the words are made up and trying to pronouce them in your mind as you read is a trick of magic in and of itself though to the writers benifit in the back of the book there is a kind of dictionary that tells you how they should sound i found myself going to the back of the book to see how a word should be sounded out the love story between jessex and kirith kirin the king who is deposed in the arthen forest is very tender and romantic if your looking for twadry sex scenes there not in this book there done tastefuly with just a bit of detail yes jessex is only 15 but in the back of the book it states that a year on this world is longer than a year on earth and he spends much time in another demension learning magic where he doesnt age where he spends moths and months and is put back in time at the moment he leaft based on that is he much older than 15 so i didnt have a problem with his age like some readers did haveing done the math in my head guessing his true age at around 18 i was very pleased to find the actual story to be so absorbing to find a book that has gay main charecters writen as if its the most natural thing in the world to be able to be a man and love a man the story covers much ground from the kings imrisonment in the arthen forest to the final battle as for the final battle i found it anti climactic allmost liek huh that is it and the final chapter (afterword) left me feeling sad wich for me is something i dont like ot feel at the end of a book im a sucker for happy endings i recomend this book for anyone who loves a true fantasy with magic and knights it incorperates all that i found myself thinking of token(the lord of the rings) when reading it i think its a great book for gay readers and open minded straight people as well i will most ikely re read this book again at some point when my memory of the sad ending has left me i recomend this book highly

Jim Grimsley is without a doubt my favorite contemporary author, and as a fan of gay fiction, and of fantasy, I was excited to hear that he had combined the two and produced "Kirith Kirin". While the book has many elements of a great fantasy, I didn't completely buy the romance and passion between the two main characters. For another author I would have applauded, but after reading Grimsley books like "Dream Boy" and "Winter Birds", I was expecting the same flesh and blood perfection in these characters, but it wasn't there. Perhaps the genre was a challenge because it seems Grimsley's greatest strength lies in his contemporary voice.

Grimsley's depiction of magic and lore is meticulous and consistent, but unlike the grand-daddy of all fantasy epics "Lord of the Rings", this book drags at times, as we wait for a new revelation or battle. I wonder if the book would have been more enjoyable had a bit more been edited to make it a swifter read.

All in all, still a good read for Grimsley fans, and I applaud any writer who refuses to be boxed into a particular genre.

The first 70% is a great read, but after the turning point of the story line: the war of the wizards, both the plot and the characters get thinner and flatter, as if the author tried to finished it in a hurry...

Grimsley is one of my favorite authors. Kirith Kirin is his first effort in fantasy and he has once again proven his talents. Kirith Kirin surpasses my expectation. It is an outstanding fantasy with an absorbing plot, a magical and colourful world and unique characters. I enjoy the book immensely and hope Grimsley will invest his talents in another fantasy soon.

This book surprised me. The cover, while very nice, doesn't give an accurate idea of what waits inside. This book is romantic and suspenseful, yes, but it is also literary, thought-provoking, and poignant. It subtley illuminates the world of energy, and somehow manages to help us better understand how our thoughts, feelings, and beliefs can manifest the circumstances of our external world. And anyway, it's a heck of exciting adventure!

For a start, let me say this book is very well written. Like Dream Boy, the prose is well constructed, and has a similar dreamlike quality at times. The story itself is slightly different to the standard fantasy fare, notably with the interest in dualism, which at times seems to border on obsession. It has a bittersweet, elegaic quality to it, reminding me of the same sort of atmosphere that is so prevalent in The Lord of the Rings, which marked that book out from its many clones that followed. Also interesting is the portrayal of the relationship between Jessex and Kirith Kirin. It is not even described as 'gay' as such. It is simply a relationship based on love, the gender of the 2 is shown to be irrelevant.

As for flaws... the characters are a little sketchily drawn, but this seems to be a feature of Grimsley's writing. He provides the framework, and we fill in the details. The magic system was well described but seemed self-indulgent: the depth of description made me glaze over on occasion, and did not seem strictly necessary. As for the supposed 'pedophilia', I would direct the reader to the contents page, which states that the year of Aeryn is substantially longer than our own, making Jessex at least 18 in our terms at the time he first slept with Kirith Kirin.

Overall, an original fantasy well worth giving your time to. Will reward with ideas that people like Terry Goodkind can only wish they could write about.

I quite like this book. It is not extraordinarily good, but in comparison to many fantasy books I've lately been reading, it definitely is not bad at all.

I agree with some of the reviewers who think Jessex is somewhat improbable because he seems much older than he really is and above all more mature than his lover and king, Kirith Kirin.
In truth I must say it is all Kirith Kirin's fault, who is not much of a character: he is a bit too insignificant and colourless to be realistic if you consider that he is the immortal and millenary king who is ruling Athryn since thousands of years.
Even the love affair between them is quite odd since you have the absurd sensation that it is Jessex who always takes all the initiative, which is at best unlikely if you think that he is fifteen years old --and virgin--, whereas his partner is much more experienced (I suppose he has been having some sex along thousands of years!).

The magic is quite interesting and much better built than in Goodkind's or Marston's or Constantine's books (or even Flewelling's -who stands among my favorite authors-), the magic towers are a good and well developed idea.

I liked it.
It is worthy of the expense and of your time.

Have you ever read something that kept dragging you along in expectation of Something Is Going To Happen, only to get to the end and realize Nothing Did? That was my experience with Kirith Kirin. I can't fault it for its fantasy content -- the magical system was well enough done that I didn't spend a lot of time questioning it. I rather enjoyed the world created by the author. Plot wise, it was a little on the mundane side in that most of what I thought was going to happen did happen, and there was only one real surprise for me. The characters were somewhat -- ok, enough with the qualifiers, the characters were little cardboard cutout people who walked around doing what they advertised. The heroes were heroic, the villains were villainous, but in the end it wasn't really anyone's fault and its because the whole world is changing...bah. I ended up not caring.

About two thirds of the way through I stopped reading the book and left it lying beside the bed for nearly a month. Pure stubbornness and the fact that it was a Meisha Merlin publication made me read to the end. I had the feeling that Mr. Grimsley got tired of the novel himself, that he really didn't love it or care much about it. Maybe it was a ...stepchild, something he thought would be fun to write and then became a contractual obligation. I don't know. I do know that I didn't love it, and that it went into the box as a used book store trade in.

I didn't hate it, either. I was just sort of hanging, not really caring what happened to these characters or their fairly interesting world anymore. That's about the worst indictment I can make against a book -- I didn't care.

Jessex is a normal boy who grew up as all little boys do, but he soon was called upon to enter the service of the exiled king. There he fulfilled prophecy after prophecy and was trained to be a wizard or Thaanarc. When his training is complete, he is immediately thrust into battle against an evil wizard who has ruled the kingdom for far too many lifetimes. At his side are the king, Kirith Kirin, and the other twice-named. The twice-named can be killed, but if they are not killed in battle, poisoned, etc., then they live forever. This is the story of their battle to regain the kingdom of Arthyn for Kirith Kirin.

Jim Grimsley does a superb job on crafting a completely different world. He creates a richly textured land complete with details as to how magic works, how different races came to be and how the land is ruled. The details really make this world come alive and helps the reader understand all of the subtle ramifications that come from one small act.

This book is written as a type of personal history that Jessex wrote long after all of this happened and, as such, is written in third person instead of the more active first person. This is a bit disorienting at first, but the reader soon adjusts and is captivated all the same.

Take a chance on this novel - you will come to love the world and the characters. Hopefully Jim Grimsley will be inspired to write more fantasy novels that seem as real as this one.

You'd think a 15 year old faced with being the salvation of an immortal king, the keystone of an army of thousands and integral the future of the entire world would be overwhelmed, frightened, excited, disbelieving, in awe-- but Jessex, the protaganist of this novel is about as wooden as he is perfect. And Oh, is he ever perfect. Jessex has none of the frailty or humanity we've come to expect from even the cheapest dime-store fantasy novels. As a result, the book is a near complete loss... I truly pity Kirith Kirin, facing the prospect of several lifetimes with someone so completely uninteresting.