Revelation by Carol Berg

Solid follow-up, but bloated in places and lacking in characterization.by PhoenixFalls

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October 06, 2009: Sadly, Revelation is nowhere near as involving as Transformation was. While Transformation was flawed, its beating heart was the relationship between Seyonne and Aleksander, and that relationship was almost completely absent in this follow-up. Instead, the novel follows Seyonne back to Ezzaria and then through several large set-pieces, each of which felt too dragged out. None of the new characters grabbed me, and the resolution was obvious from 200 pages away.

I think the major flaw in this novel is its female characters. Carol Berg has admitted that writing women did not come naturally to her, and I think that is fairly obvious in Revelation. The story revolves around Seyonne's relationship with three women: his Aife Fiona, his wife Ysanne, and the demoness Vallynne. The plot rests on whether or not each of these women will trust him. And unfortunately, none of them is ever explored enough for the reader to make any sense of their decisions. Fiona in particular is given a clunky backstory at the very end of the novel that explains everything while explaining nothing. Each of the women was extraordinarily interesting in theory and completely flat in practice.

Still, it was a decent novel. Berg's writing is never painful, though her pacing continues to be problematic, and when I think about the novel I can see the bones of a brilliant story. It is definitely strong enough (and leaves enough unresolved, though the novel has enough of an ending to satisfy temporarily) for me to read the final volume. I just hope that Aleksander returns and that Fiona, at the very least, is made more real than she was in this novel.

I Also Recommend: Curse of Chalion (Chalion Series #1), Spindle's End.

my opinionby Anonymous

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April 08, 2005: I thought the first one was way better. I thought this book was a little annoying because of the fact that Seyonne goes off on another path for a while and totallly forgets what he's supposed to be doing.This was the longest part of the book too and I was all like dude get on with it already and go back on the main story. However the author provides enough points of interest from the beginning of the book to make you want to keep reading and see what happens. Another thing i didn't like was that the lovely Prince Alekzander barely made an appearance in this book which was disappointing for me cause I really liked him! Well it doesn't take away from the book though and the author introduces some other good new characters. My final point is this: HASN'T SEYONNE SUFFERED ENOUGH! Geez he goes through sooooo much in this book I feel so bad for him. Well in the end it's still a good book and makes you really want to read the third one.