I finished the Godspeaker trilogy by Karen Miller, Empress (of Mijak), The Riven Kingdom, and The Hammer of God. I found the premise of the first book intriguing. I found the second book less so and the third even less. It was a downhill slope into an abyss of mundanity unfortunately. (no it's not a word, but we are making it one for the next few moments.)
Interestingly you can learn a lot about yourself by how you felt about the first book. Lets take a look.
By the end of the first book you:
- Still like the main character - You are an extremely forgiving human being! Perhaps you should fix that a bit.
- Don't understand why Zandakar stopped - Might have a bit too much bloodlust in you, perhaps should seek anger management classes.
- Thought Hekat was a horrible person from the beginning- Perhaps some soul searching is in order for why you are so angry at a child for their initial strugglings.
- Think she's evil for clawing her way up - Try to rethink your ideas about where women are supposed to be in the world. I'm pretty sure they aren't sound.
- Thought Vortka was weak- I'd look back at the different definitions of silent strength, moments where people survive and try to help in horrible circumstances.
I actually found the Vortka was the most interesting and unfortunately, pleasant character to follow around the series. Even if you started out liking the main character in the beginning, the author's goal is to have you hate her/despise what she's become by the end of it. I'd say that she is pretty cut and dry about how she does that. The lack of empathy that I had for most of the characters in the story after the first third of the book is an interesting indication of how unpleasant I thought they were.
That being said, watching her change and claw her way to the top, regardless of if I didn't like her, did make for a very interesting story.
The second book however shows us the kingdom of Riven. A "forward" thinking society. (keep in mind that Mijak has men and women training together equally and nothing is thought of it, but this is seen as barbarous)
So forward thinking that their crown princess must wed in order to become queen. Because of course, she can't become queen by herself without a man around.
This *ahem* tough, strong *ahem* leading lady, then proceeds to be lead around by a random toymaker who is randomly being used by their god to prove to the populace that she is the rightful heir to the throne.
So... if there weren't god's intervention, there would be no book. She wouldn't be able to do anything on her own, since she doesn't do anything that isn't lead by the godspeaker on Riven side. It's a depressing jaunt around the countryside, generally feeling like their god is leading you, as the reader, around by the nose. Problem shows up! Oh no! The god will come solve it! When in doubt you can be assured that this will occur often and with great annoyance. Between Hekat and Rhian, Hekat is a much more interesting person to follow around, and that should worry you.
This book and the one after set up Mijak as the Evil Kingdom, where they are worshipping a anceint evil blood demon (dun dum DUUUH!) Hekat's love and devotions are misplaced! Our hearts are broken, askew, torn asunder! How could the author do this to us, kind readers that we are?
The remainder of the second book is them preparing for the underwhelming fight between Mijak and the Riven Kingdom. After an extremely anticlimactic section, the book ends, and I was left feeling extremely unsatisfied. The ends were messy and haphazard, it gave the impression that she didn't actually know how to end it well.
As far as basic fantasy novels go, the last two are very par for the genre, with themes we've seen before, women not being able to rule, males in authority over religion, war coming to bear, ect ect. The "good kingdom" looking extremely, sounding extremely like something you'd find in Europe somewhere, and the sand laden Mijak somewhere in Africa, not to mention their friends from the (not Asian country) that sounds terribly like China when I read about their dress and action. So if you are looking for those, you might as well pick them up, they aren't terrible, but not my cup of tea.
Because I did actually find Empress (of Mijak) entertaining for the most part, enough to try the second book.(And even to give the third a valiant effort) It shows to me that she can write a compelling novel with interesting characters, I would be interested in checking out some of her other two part series to have a gander at.
In the mean time however, I will continue to read 1Q84 (I'm on book 2 :) ) and eagerly await the next Dresden with a fresh pot of tea.
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