From rec.arts.sf.reviews Wed Oct 20 12:32:59 1999 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!news-feed1.tiac.net!howland.erols.net!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!usenet From: "Aaron M. Renn" Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Dawnthief by James Barclay Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 11 Oct 1999 22:57:20 -0400 Organization: GNU's Not Unix! Lines: 38 Sender: wex@deepspace.media.mit.edu Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: deepspace.media.mit.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.3 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2474 Dawnthief, James Barclay Review Copyright (c) 1999 Aaron M. Renn Conclusion: Mindless fantasy adventure - Worth Reading This is your basic swords and sorcery type adventure story, albeit one with a high attrition rate. The Raven are a mercenary outfit in the fantasy land of Balaia. Originally there are seven, but they proceed to die off at the astounding rate of one every fifty pages. This pace abates about half way through the book however, and the Raven go back to being the invincible good guys they've always been. The plot is that they have to break into this legendary old wizard's workshop to find the details of a super-spell needed to kill off some powerful evil creatures called the Wytch Lords. These Wytch Lords had been defeated in a previous generation, but oddly enough weren't killed, but simply imprisoned. Now they've escaped and only the super-spell can stop them. The Raven better find it fast or the bad guys will win. This is decent light fantasy reading, though it's probably a little expensive for what you get. It's the first of three books, but basically stands alone. I expect the rest of the books in the trilogy will have that "continuing adventures of the Raven" feel. %A Barclay, James %T Dawnthief %S Chronicles of the Raven %V Book One %I Victor Gollancz/Orion %D 1999 %G ISBN 1-85798-594-X %P 416 pp. %O trade paperback, £9.99 Reviewed on 1999-09-26 Aaron M. Renn (arenn@urbanophile.com) http://www.urbanophile.com/arenn/