Magia, manipulación, asesinato. Con un pie plantado firmemente en lo mítico y el otro enraizado en las implacables calles de la ciudad de Nueva York, Aistling Sturbridge, Regente de la Capilla de los Cinco Distritos, hace las veces de líder, maestra y guardiana de los novicios encomendados a su cuidado. Pero por si contener en primera línea las embestidas del Sabbat no fuera suficiente desafío, Sturbridge debe desenmarañar un asesinato cometido en el corazón mismo de su capilla, frustrar las manipulaciones de sus rivales Tremere y sobrevivir a la creciente (y mal recibida) atención por parte de la casa madre de Viena. Todos estos esfuerzos, sin embargo, pueden resultar vanos si Sturbridge no logra encontrar una respuesta a sus propios y silenciosos acusadores: los rostros de los Niños del Pozo.
I don't think this book was QUITE as bad as Malkavian or Giovanni, but it's darned close. A couple of the characters are actually mildly interesting. which is what makes it better than Giovanni, and it isn't QUITE as inexplicable as Malkavian, although it's distressingly close considering that none of the characters are comlete, utter raving loony-tunes. But like Giovanni, and unlike Malkavian, it didn't seem to advance the overall plotline any, so all in all, it was pretty worthless. Certainly utterly worthless if you aren't trying to read the whole series, or if you aren't familiar with the White Wolf "World of Darkness" Vampire games. Anyone not familiar with the background coming in would be totally lost.
Even though I did not expect much out of a roleplaying game-based fiction I found the novel to be a complete and utter disaster. Loose plotlines and barely-defined characters coupled with an attempt to create a rich internal mental struggle based on some water-filled well of an afterlife reality did not leave a lasting impression.
This is the worst book of the entire clan novel series. The only redeeming and interesting parts were when the story switched to other characters.
I really enjoyed the clan novel series, however, the book series should not have ended with Tremere as the penultimate novel. I have only read the standalone books and not the combined and edited Clan Novel saga. I read all of the books in a week so I could tell right away that they reused chapters from old books in this one.
One gets the impression this was meant to be earlier in the series. Doesn't change it has a rather poorly explained finale and bunch of dream questing.
It's not as obtuse as the Malkavian novel, but there are whole chapters, that should either not be here, or should be mostly rewritten. Chapters that are mainly there to lend a bit of much needed weight to the ending. The story practically has nothing to do with the rest of the clan novels - that's what I mean by "rewritten". I think most of these books are three stars, but I'll give this one two; just to keep it one star higher than the Malkavian novel. It's not uninteresting, but it feels like a it should be it's on thing. And it should definitely not be the penultimate of the thirteen.
Vampire sorcerers in the middle of a war. What more could you really want? Well, some of the scenes just kind of end, but feels like more could've been done. While good, there are times when it feels like more could've been to flesh out the story for a better flow.
The vampire Chantry seems to be run like a preschool version of Hogwarts. It should be embarrassing to describe adults this way, but immortal hyper intelligent vampires? It’s embarrassing to read.
This is a fantastic series if you are a fan or player of the Vampire the Masquerade Table Top game. I gave it a 3 because I don't recomend this series to those who are not.