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Swords of Raemllyn #2
A Yoke of Magic
Fiction, Fantasy Adventure, Second in the Swords of Raemllyn Series
195 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published July 1, 1985
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 5, 2024
This is not about a magical egg.
January 25, 2022
Second read-through(2021).
The second Swords of Raemllyn book is better than the first but is still hampered by the same problems as its prequel. While well written and entertaining, it is also discordantly dark in places and overall, very dated. The road trip and adventuring across the land of Raemllyn is fun but marred by too much dirt.
I remember this series being lighter of tone and setting, but the first chapter right away features torture, female subjugation, rape and slavery. Where the first book started in the perspective of the god of Death going about their business, I found it entertaining, but it’s become clearer that the writers meant this world to be a dark and gritty one, despite the humor and comedic dialogues.
It’s this high contrast of not knowing which way a chapter will go that makes this unpleasant to read.
More so than in the first book, the writing and prose are well done with great descriptions and atmospheric locations. The same goes for the characters, they are distinct, often complex and interesting. Especially the three main characters, Davin, Goran and Lijena get much love. This complexity is, however, overshadowed by an apparently uncontrollable sex-drive in all character, resulting in every other page describing their fantasies or active erotic escapades.
To a certain level I don’t mind that in my writing when well handled, it never reaches the physical and almost vulgar descriptions of A Song of Ice and Fire. But the fact that every character seems to spend most of their waking moments craving the bodies of others is distracting, if not downright disturbing. While some of the woman that are part of these intercourses are strong, individualistic and in control in these situations, there, again, is a flipside. All descriptions of woman are objectifying them as to how sexy and good looking they are, this is coupled with the need to have most of them be subject to fondling, harassment or downright rape. Two of them are possessed by demons forcing them to lust and crave sex and murder.
It’s this demonic possession that turns Lijena from a decently layered character with big potential into an agentless pawn to be played with and used by pretty much everyone she encounters. This all serves as a basis for her character development later on, but as it stands, these first two books are quite horrible for her.
The same goes for Goran, an entertaining character with great dialogue and the interesting premise of being a genderless, otherworldly being trapped in a man’s body. The book explores interesting moments of gender/body changes making them in essence a trans-gender character. There is some actually decent ruminations and reflections to what this means for the character; quite good for 1985. But, again, it’s overshadowed by this body changing being mainly used to yet more erotic experimentation and exploitation.
In the end I probably should read these books with a different mindset. I certainly enjoyed them more the last time. The plot will expand, and go to quite interesting places; despite my problems I found myself often eagerly turning the pages now due to the writing style and storytelling. I am still hoping things get better, but will put it down for now.
The second Swords of Raemllyn book is better than the first but is still hampered by the same problems as its prequel. While well written and entertaining, it is also discordantly dark in places and overall, very dated. The road trip and adventuring across the land of Raemllyn is fun but marred by too much dirt.
I remember this series being lighter of tone and setting, but the first chapter right away features torture, female subjugation, rape and slavery. Where the first book started in the perspective of the god of Death going about their business, I found it entertaining, but it’s become clearer that the writers meant this world to be a dark and gritty one, despite the humor and comedic dialogues.
It’s this high contrast of not knowing which way a chapter will go that makes this unpleasant to read.
More so than in the first book, the writing and prose are well done with great descriptions and atmospheric locations. The same goes for the characters, they are distinct, often complex and interesting. Especially the three main characters, Davin, Goran and Lijena get much love. This complexity is, however, overshadowed by an apparently uncontrollable sex-drive in all character, resulting in every other page describing their fantasies or active erotic escapades.
To a certain level I don’t mind that in my writing when well handled, it never reaches the physical and almost vulgar descriptions of A Song of Ice and Fire. But the fact that every character seems to spend most of their waking moments craving the bodies of others is distracting, if not downright disturbing. While some of the woman that are part of these intercourses are strong, individualistic and in control in these situations, there, again, is a flipside. All descriptions of woman are objectifying them as to how sexy and good looking they are, this is coupled with the need to have most of them be subject to fondling, harassment or downright rape. Two of them are possessed by demons forcing them to lust and crave sex and murder.
It’s this demonic possession that turns Lijena from a decently layered character with big potential into an agentless pawn to be played with and used by pretty much everyone she encounters. This all serves as a basis for her character development later on, but as it stands, these first two books are quite horrible for her.
The same goes for Goran, an entertaining character with great dialogue and the interesting premise of being a genderless, otherworldly being trapped in a man’s body. The book explores interesting moments of gender/body changes making them in essence a trans-gender character. There is some actually decent ruminations and reflections to what this means for the character; quite good for 1985. But, again, it’s overshadowed by this body changing being mainly used to yet more erotic experimentation and exploitation.
In the end I probably should read these books with a different mindset. I certainly enjoyed them more the last time. The plot will expand, and go to quite interesting places; despite my problems I found myself often eagerly turning the pages now due to the writing style and storytelling. I am still hoping things get better, but will put it down for now.
January 20, 2010
Sadly, I really believe the first three books of this series would have made one nice book. Maybe it was the addition of a co-author, but I don’t think it’s as strong as Vardeman’s Cenotaph Road series that went much longer than three books. Of course, these books were designed to go longer than three books and, apparently, finished at six. I won’t really be chasing down Death’s Acolyte or any of the others. And that’s too bad! There were a lot of interesting ideas: the protagonist who betrays someone and then spends a significant amount of time (as represented in more than three books) in trying to rescue that person, a legendary mage who turns out to be as trapped by his magic as everyone else is held impotent by it, a shape-changing “co-star” who is sometimes shockingly comfortable in his/her own skin, a brother who makes Cain seem like good family, and a cast of villains who double-cross each other more often than a fugitive crosses water to confuse the hounds. Unfortunately, the way the plot is extended over the three books, the surprises and twists are no longer surprises and twists by the time they are revealed. I’m not always the brightest light on the tree when it comes to anticipating plot twists, but the easily discernable plot of an episode of The Dresden Files is more opaque than the transparent events of this series.
Don’t get me wrong. There are definitely moments in these books. It is just that the pacing had me constantly shifting from my leisure-reading pace to my speed-reading, have to get done with this section to get back to what interests me. These books are fine for train or plane reading, but they aren’t likely to hook anyone just sitting at home looking for a good read. (2 stars)
Don’t get me wrong. There are definitely moments in these books. It is just that the pacing had me constantly shifting from my leisure-reading pace to my speed-reading, have to get done with this section to get back to what interests me. These books are fine for train or plane reading, but they aren’t likely to hook anyone just sitting at home looking for a good read. (2 stars)
March 6, 2016
Loved it, but not as much as the first book. There are a few things I just didn't like about this one. First, the author reprints the last chapter of To Demons Bound as the first chapter of this one. Second Lijena, the female lead, just cannot catch a break. It seems she cannot keep from being hunted or abused from every man in this story and the fact that she is possessed by a demon just makes her situation even worse. This book is not a stand alone book. It is part of a larger story that spans nine books. So that needs to be understood going into it because there is not a clear resolution.
March 24, 2013
I read this as an anthology
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews