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The Siren Song: Flint & Steel, Fire & Shadow 3
The Taleeli fleet has set sail to avenge the incursion into their Northern Holdings by the shadowed realm of Acaross. Meanwhile Tuan, the sun shard wielder, and his companions seek to discover the fate of Commander Kaziviere, lost during the defeat of the incursion. The Flint Folk have armed for war and for the first time have black powder weapons, seeking to avenge past wrongs. Escaping captivity in the realm of Acaross, Kaziviere and his companion Nurarna, are seeking a way home, with knowledge of their foe and its dark god. A foe who has found a way into the very heart of the Seminary at Taleel.
497 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 15, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 6, 2020
Very very nice read.
High end fantasy literature. Awesome plot with believable characters in a make believe world. Excellent action scenes, especially those on the high seas. Tolkien meets the Ghibli studios is how it landed on my delighted little grey cells. A worthy edition to an excellent series. The only downside, is the wait for book 4.
Review by R Southworth author of the Ripper Legacies and Spartacus Chronicles.
High end fantasy literature. Awesome plot with believable characters in a make believe world. Excellent action scenes, especially those on the high seas. Tolkien meets the Ghibli studios is how it landed on my delighted little grey cells. A worthy edition to an excellent series. The only downside, is the wait for book 4.
Review by R Southworth author of the Ripper Legacies and Spartacus Chronicles.
March 6, 2022
This is the third book in Bayliss' series of Flint and Steel, Fire and Shadow, a fantasy set in a world where war has dominated for decades. I really enjoyed the first two and was looking forward to learn the fates of the characters in the next. Mr Bayliss uses a multitude of characters who make up this epic narrative of good versus bad and so there is much to remember which is helped by the device of using memory flashbacks of what happened in the first and second book.
The thing I liked most about this book is the mix of different societies and cultures, the idea that magic underpins everything that has been going on, and the vast character list and different threads that are all somehow connected and delivered into the narrative seamlessly. I feel a little bit confused at times with the long flashbacks, which I felt slowed the pace and could have been trimmed, but i know how difficult it can be as a writer, to ensure that the reader is aware of the full picture, especially if they are reading the story without the benefit of the first two books.
Mr Bayliss is indeed a great writer. His wonderful prose appears naturally on the page and I often found myself sighing that I wished I could write stuff as good as this. The whole story races across the page and the various threads come together in a crescendo of breathtaking scenes before tying up nicely at the end in a twist which leads us into the next part of the series. Can't wait.
The thing I liked most about this book is the mix of different societies and cultures, the idea that magic underpins everything that has been going on, and the vast character list and different threads that are all somehow connected and delivered into the narrative seamlessly. I feel a little bit confused at times with the long flashbacks, which I felt slowed the pace and could have been trimmed, but i know how difficult it can be as a writer, to ensure that the reader is aware of the full picture, especially if they are reading the story without the benefit of the first two books.
Mr Bayliss is indeed a great writer. His wonderful prose appears naturally on the page and I often found myself sighing that I wished I could write stuff as good as this. The whole story races across the page and the various threads come together in a crescendo of breathtaking scenes before tying up nicely at the end in a twist which leads us into the next part of the series. Can't wait.
August 18, 2020
Siren Song is book #3 in what is building into a long-running series by Rob Bayliss. It has been a while since #2, and I had some anxieties as to whether I would remember the plot from the earlier books. Happily, Rob has included numerous flashback reminders in a way which enhances Siren Song rather than interrupting the flow. I suspect that new readers will still want to start from the beginning (The Sun Shard, then The Dead Gods), but if someone wanted to jump straight in here, I think it would be possible.
Siren Song amplifies some of the themes which have been present from the start - what could have been a saga of long drawn-out conflict between two nations and their satellite dependencies, turns out to rest on underlying magical and spiritual causes. It is easy to side oneself as reader with one of the two adversaries, but matters are rarely that simple. A mix of ambition, jealousy, and corruption means that "the good guys" are not always obvious. It is not always clear which side of the grey line a particular individual or group has chosen.
The social and technological level of the world is complex - magic and mammoths coexist with gunpowder and sophisticated naval engineering. City-dwellers and empires negotiate with nomads and hunter-gatherers. There is no single period of our own world which corresponds to this: you have to immerse yourself in what seems initially a wild mix of cultures.
The story does not end here: we learn at the end that volume four of the conflict is in preparation. Battle lines are being established, and allegiances tested by events. The fortunes of war do not all flow in the same direction. My guess is that one should not look for resolution in #4... there seem to be too many loose ends and unresolved conflicts to be neatly tied up in one book. That remains to be seen - meanwhile Siren Song moves the plot along and escalates the stakes.
On a technical note, the book would have benefited from an additional editing sweep, but this did not diminish my enjoyment of the story.
Siren Song amplifies some of the themes which have been present from the start - what could have been a saga of long drawn-out conflict between two nations and their satellite dependencies, turns out to rest on underlying magical and spiritual causes. It is easy to side oneself as reader with one of the two adversaries, but matters are rarely that simple. A mix of ambition, jealousy, and corruption means that "the good guys" are not always obvious. It is not always clear which side of the grey line a particular individual or group has chosen.
The social and technological level of the world is complex - magic and mammoths coexist with gunpowder and sophisticated naval engineering. City-dwellers and empires negotiate with nomads and hunter-gatherers. There is no single period of our own world which corresponds to this: you have to immerse yourself in what seems initially a wild mix of cultures.
The story does not end here: we learn at the end that volume four of the conflict is in preparation. Battle lines are being established, and allegiances tested by events. The fortunes of war do not all flow in the same direction. My guess is that one should not look for resolution in #4... there seem to be too many loose ends and unresolved conflicts to be neatly tied up in one book. That remains to be seen - meanwhile Siren Song moves the plot along and escalates the stakes.
On a technical note, the book would have benefited from an additional editing sweep, but this did not diminish my enjoyment of the story.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews