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The High King Vengeance eBook Steven Poore

Download As PDF : The High King Vengeance eBook Steven Poore

The High King Vengeance eBook Steven Poore

THE HIGH KING'S VENGEANCE takes up where THE HEIR TO THE NORTH left off. The wards around Caenthell have fallen, loosing spirits confined for centuries. The ghosts of the North are no longer the innocent victims they once were; over the long years of the curse they have been infected by its evil, becoming deadly wraiths intent on conquest and destruction. Neither healing nor restitution for the past is possible, and the only hope for the rest of the world is to destroy the menace that exists in the present.

Malessar is too weakened after his battle with Baum to remedy the situation, and he makes it clear to our protagonist—Cassia—that it is her problem to fix. But Cassia has learned that it is she who is the true Heir to Caenthell and the North, and even while she shoulders the burden he has placed on her the supernatural echoes of war drums and ghostly voices inside her mind provide a constant temptation for her to ally herself with the spirits instead.

Cassia is no trained sorceress, though it seems that she is endowed now with certain powers. And though she may be the distant descendent of an ancient king, the world knows her only as the daughter of Norrow the storyteller. She needs allies, the kind who can provide her with armies and supplies. But how is she to convince them that what is happening far to the north endangers them, too?

With the uninvited company of the brash young Prince Rais of Galliarca, she embarks on what will prove to be a long and harrowing journey. To write a synopsis of that journey would provide too many spoilers, so I won’t do that. I will say that it is at times as heartbreaking as it is grueling, even at times horrifying, but it doesn’t wallow in gore. Sometimes the terror is in what the characters don’t see and the reader is left to imagine.

As Cassia and Rais make their way north, she is joined by characters that readers will recognize from THE HEIR TO THE NORTH. As in the previous book, storytelling is still an important theme, and how all the familiar stories and histories simultaneously hide and reveal the truth of the past. But Cassia is wiser now, capable of seeing old friends and old adversaries more clearly than she did before—their faults and their virtues alike—and therefore so are we. Less trusting, she asks the questions that she failed to ask before, and as tales of past heroics and tragedies unfold history itself changes shape. Reading these passages I felt some of the same satisfaction I do in reading a good mystery novel, as one clue after another emerged and slotted into place.

(As for Rais, the new character, I found him a lot more appealing than Cassia seemed to. In fact, she appeared to go out of her way to find fault with him, which I sometimes found annoying. However, when I took time to think about it I realized she had her reasons for wanting to keep her distance, and regarding him as a pest did accomplish that.)

Perhaps more importantly, Cassia learns unexpected truths about herself and her family. All this makes her stronger, but also more vulnerable since she is leading the people to whom she feels the strongest ties into even worse danger than she dares to admit to them, and to a large extent she is making things up as she goes along. Or perhaps more charitably one might say: she is relying on instinct and the inspiration of the moment. And even when her instincts are true, this is war and by the very nature of the conflict she can’t save everyone.

There is magic aplenty in the tale, including an army of animated stone statues that act at Cassia’s command. There are dragons and sorcery, frequent skirmishes with the spirits (appearing most often as a deadly, devouring fog), and one spectacular battle near the end. But what makes this book special, I believe, is the characters, who are well-drawn, many-sided, and believable. Even those we thought we knew reveal new sides of themselves under the press of circumstances, and Poore handles these developments so well that none of it seems too convenient or too contrived, but rather the inevitable outcome of who these people truly are, their past experiences, and the choices they face.

The final scenes bring the tale begun in THE HEIR TO THE NORTH to a satisfying (if distinctly bittersweet) conclusion.

My one real complaint is that in order to fully appreciate what was happening in this book I had to go back and read passages of the former to refresh my memory on details I had forgotten. There is a great deal of complexity in this tale, and I don’t believe that my aging memory is entirely responsible for what I forgot in the time between the publication of the two volumes. (Largely responsible, but not entirely.) It seems a pity that the story was divided into two parts and not published as one stand-alone book. Considering the length of a single volume in so many popular fantasy series these days, the resulting book would not have been exceptionally long. However, with the publication of THE HIGH KING'S VENGEANCE readers who have yet to begin the series have the whole thing available to them now, and can read MALESSAR'S CURSE straight through from the beginning. I envy them the experience.

I rate this book four-and-a-half stars, rounding up to five.


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The High King Vengeance eBook Steven Poore Reviews

Loved it!
At the end of the last book, Cassia did the bad thing... she brought down the curse wards that had been keeping a powerful evil dormant in the North for centuries (as you do). Now it's her obligation to defeat the evil to make up for her mistakes, to do this she needs to raise an army and march to the North to fight it on its own doorstep.

Cassia is one of my all time favourite characters. She manages to pull everything together by being clever, resourceful and pigheaded. She makes alliances with dragons, which nobody has done since before Caenthell was cursed. She joins forces with a powerful prince, without making moon eyes at him the entire time.

New and familiar characters are brought together in this book to face one last battle, which was far more brutal than you'd expect. Nothing is certain throughout this book, so don't let the youth of the two main characters fool you into thinking it's going to be pretty.
Note this review is of the audiobook edition.

I really enjoyed the first book of this series, and this is an excellent follow up. Like many fantasy series, it just gets better once you know the world and are invested in the characters. I wish I could give it four and a half stars.

The main character in particular has a fantastic arc, and unlike many series I have read, she doesn't stop learning and improving at the beginning of the first book, but continues throughout. It seems like the author did a lot of thinking about how he wants his characters to develop and has spaced it throughout the books, augmenting the epic experience and general sense of reality. One of my favorite elements of the story was a certain dark undercurrent that flows throughout and really heightens the suspense and the mood. It was really well done.

The world itself is incredibly rich and detailed. My one criticism would be that the speech is anachronistic, sometimes using idioms or even contemporary slag which feels out of place with the rest of the story tone. I did clench my teeth a few times over this. However, I liked the story so much that it was worth that minor irritation.

The narration was very nice.

I received this book for free at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
I think I need to re-listen to this when I can fully focus. I will not write a short synopsis in fear of stating something incorrectly. I always listen to audiobooks while working or housecleaning and rarely does this present an issue. With this book however, I found myself constantly rewinding to try to understand where the story was going. I constantly felt like it was following one path, then abruptly would take a 90 degree turn, but my thoughts were still going forward. Then things would not make sense and I’d have to backup to find where it veered off.
I did find the story intriguing and am curious if it was the writing or my attention at fault.

This is the first book I’ve read/listened to by this author and I would listen to another.

This is the first book I’ve listened to by this narrator (Diana Croft) and I would listen to another. She did well giving each character a distinct voice and brought the story to life.

There are no explicit sex scenes, excessive violence or swearing.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and voluntarily left this unbiased review
THE HIGH KING'S VENGEANCE takes up where THE HEIR TO THE NORTH left off. The wards around Caenthell have fallen, loosing spirits confined for centuries. The ghosts of the North are no longer the innocent victims they once were; over the long years of the curse they have been infected by its evil, becoming deadly wraiths intent on conquest and destruction. Neither healing nor restitution for the past is possible, and the only hope for the rest of the world is to destroy the menace that exists in the present.

Malessar is too weakened after his battle with Baum to remedy the situation, and he makes it clear to our protagonist—Cassia—that it is her problem to fix. But Cassia has learned that it is she who is the true Heir to Caenthell and the North, and even while she shoulders the burden he has placed on her the supernatural echoes of war drums and ghostly voices inside her mind provide a constant temptation for her to ally herself with the spirits instead.

Cassia is no trained sorceress, though it seems that she is endowed now with certain powers. And though she may be the distant descendent of an ancient king, the world knows her only as the daughter of Norrow the storyteller. She needs allies, the kind who can provide her with armies and supplies. But how is she to convince them that what is happening far to the north endangers them, too?

With the uninvited company of the brash young Prince Rais of Galliarca, she embarks on what will prove to be a long and harrowing journey. To write a synopsis of that journey would provide too many spoilers, so I won’t do that. I will say that it is at times as heartbreaking as it is grueling, even at times horrifying, but it doesn’t wallow in gore. Sometimes the terror is in what the characters don’t see and the reader is left to imagine.

As Cassia and Rais make their way north, she is joined by characters that readers will recognize from THE HEIR TO THE NORTH. As in the previous book, storytelling is still an important theme, and how all the familiar stories and histories simultaneously hide and reveal the truth of the past. But Cassia is wiser now, capable of seeing old friends and old adversaries more clearly than she did before—their faults and their virtues alike—and therefore so are we. Less trusting, she asks the questions that she failed to ask before, and as tales of past heroics and tragedies unfold history itself changes shape. Reading these passages I felt some of the same satisfaction I do in reading a good mystery novel, as one clue after another emerged and slotted into place.

(As for Rais, the new character, I found him a lot more appealing than Cassia seemed to. In fact, she appeared to go out of her way to find fault with him, which I sometimes found annoying. However, when I took time to think about it I realized she had her reasons for wanting to keep her distance, and regarding him as a pest did accomplish that.)

Perhaps more importantly, Cassia learns unexpected truths about herself and her family. All this makes her stronger, but also more vulnerable since she is leading the people to whom she feels the strongest ties into even worse danger than she dares to admit to them, and to a large extent she is making things up as she goes along. Or perhaps more charitably one might say she is relying on instinct and the inspiration of the moment. And even when her instincts are true, this is war and by the very nature of the conflict she can’t save everyone.

There is magic aplenty in the tale, including an army of animated stone statues that act at Cassia’s command. There are dragons and sorcery, frequent skirmishes with the spirits (appearing most often as a deadly, devouring fog), and one spectacular battle near the end. But what makes this book special, I believe, is the characters, who are well-drawn, many-sided, and believable. Even those we thought we knew reveal new sides of themselves under the press of circumstances, and Poore handles these developments so well that none of it seems too convenient or too contrived, but rather the inevitable outcome of who these people truly are, their past experiences, and the choices they face.

The final scenes bring the tale begun in THE HEIR TO THE NORTH to a satisfying (if distinctly bittersweet) conclusion.

My one real complaint is that in order to fully appreciate what was happening in this book I had to go back and read passages of the former to refresh my memory on details I had forgotten. There is a great deal of complexity in this tale, and I don’t believe that my aging memory is entirely responsible for what I forgot in the time between the publication of the two volumes. (Largely responsible, but not entirely.) It seems a pity that the story was divided into two parts and not published as one stand-alone book. Considering the length of a single volume in so many popular fantasy series these days, the resulting book would not have been exceptionally long. However, with the publication of THE HIGH KING'S VENGEANCE readers who have yet to begin the series have the whole thing available to them now, and can read MALESSAR'S CURSE straight through from the beginning. I envy them the experience.

I rate this book four-and-a-half stars, rounding up to five.