The first thing you notice about John Lawson’s The Raven is the size of it at just over 600 pages. This may scare some people, but if you’ve read Witch Ember, it’s prequel, you know you’re in for a treat. In my opinion Lawson could never be constrained to a 300 page book. His worlds are so richly developed, his stories well thought out and thoroughly explained with all of their myths, legends, creations and creatures brought into vivid detail. And his characters are truly some of the most memorable I’ve read and I have no doubt that they’ll stick with me for a long time.
So let’s start with characters for this review since the story focuses around one main character. I honestly thought I would be disappointed with this book as I first started reading it because it departs from the main character of the first book, Witch Ember (my review and Nymeth’s wonderful review can be read by clicking on these links). In fact, she’s not in The Raven at all except as a memory. The main character of The Raven is a man named Guiromelans, who played a role in the latter half of Witch Ember.
Guiromelans is a Raven, a knight of the highest rank of the Medianist church who is sworn to serve God and rid the world of heresy. In Witch Ember, he fought against Esmeree, a witch that he loved yet was doomed to destroy because of her heresy and was defeated by her. So now, in The Raven, the focus turns to him. Why has God turned his back on him and allowed a witch to defeat him? Why was he unable to kill her when he knew that he swore a vow to God to destroy heretics? Guiromelans sets sail on a boat find his answers and atone for his shortcomings and seek forgiveness and redemption.
But along the way he is faced with many trials and battles and meets many new friends and foes. He is forced to re-examine his training as a Raven even as he trains his own young squire. He has always accepted the fact that the only way to be in God’s favor is to be a believer in God whether you are a good person or not. But how could some who claim to believe in God yet commit atrocities be in God’s favor? And how could some who believe in a different god yet shine with radiance be damned to hell? These are all questions that Guiromelans must face as he struggles to atone for his past while facing the demons that he both phsyically and emotionally fights in this amazing sequel to Witch Ember.
On top of all of this is John Lawson’s wonderful skill of creating some of the most amazing battle scenes and fantasy worlds out there. Guiromelans and his crew arrive at a land called Hardanger where dark creatures called Udyronde which are centaur like creatures with four arms, sharp talons, and teeth like nobody’s business have been destroying it’s citizens. The most disturbing part is that the dead tend to come back and join in the destruction later on. As one of his many acts of redemption, Guiromelans vows to restore safety to a town that worships the Thunderer god…in other words, there are many conflicts along the way.
As with Witch Ember, I can’t say enough about this book except for check it out. You won’t be disappointed. For lovers of dark fantasy or epic fantasy especially, you can’t go wrong with this series.
More info on the series can be found at his website. In fact you can buy both books there autographed!
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On a completely different note, I wanted everyone to know that Kim is doing an awesome giveaway of 4 books over at her blog Bold.Blue.Adventure to celebrate her 100th post!! Yay Kim!!! Keep going!
Also, author J. Scott Savage is having lots of fun over at his blog and so am I. He’s doing a sort of March Madness thing with fantasy series! He started with 60 fantasy series and every day you vote for your 5 favorites of the ones he has listed until we have them all the way down to the number 1 fantasy series out there…join in the fun over on his blog!
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Wow.. that is a big book !! I’m sure glad you liked it! lol I looked back to see the other book review you did and they sound interesting… maybe maybe maybe lol.. sheesh.
I’ve been voting over at Scotts blog lol… and over at Dashners too (his friend who’s book I will most likely finish tonight) They are having some fun even with all the work they are doing ! Nice to see that !
I’m not thinking 600 pages is gonna fly over here any time soon. But, maybe this summer. You are so good at reading blogs around the blogosphere and keeping us all posted.
Chris, thanks so much for your review and your kind words. It means so much, because good word-of-mouth like yours is the best marketing I could ask for.
Thanks again!
John
I went to Kim’s blog to say congrats and pick a book, I went to John’s to vote (but noted he missed three fantasy series!), and just thought I’d say hi and thanks to you, I did all this tonight!!! I will NOT be reading Lawson anytime soon, but maybe next year…..if only we were all paid to read, we could stay home and read and get all the books read we wanted to!
Sounds like another amazing book. From what you said, it seems to approach some of the same themes from Witch Ember from a different angle. I’ll definitely be getting this one in the near future.
I read yours and Nymeth’s reviews of the first book and am definitely interested. I am not really put off by the size of a book, sometimes it;s lovely to lose yourself in something more chunky and really immerse yourself into that world. I will look out for these thanks!
I really, really, really want to get these! They sound like the type of books I could get lost in and be sad that they were ‘only’ 600 pages. So, it’s not the length that’s holding me back, but all the other books I’ve gone and committed myself to. I put Witch Ember on my wish list after your review…I’m now off to add this one, too. I’m going to make sure to get them on a challenge list for next year, as that seems the only way I get a book read anymore
Thanks for the fabulous review, Chris!
The dead tend to come back? Oh my!!!!!! Oooooooh, my!
::smile:: The things we spec-fic readers take for granted and say so glibly. The lovers of mainstream worlds can never even begin to understand our worlds.
Great review. -C
Deslily, I’m glad that I liked it too! It would’ve been a big disappointment had I not after reading such a long book. Glad to see that you’re giving this one a maybe
It’s really good! I having tons of fun voting at Savage’s blog!
Bellezza, It’s one of those epic fantasy books, so you may want to ease your way into this type of book if you’re not used to really reading this type of fantasy. It’s a great series so far though. Glad you’re enjoying the links! There’s lots of great ones out there!
John, Thank YOU for writing this one! I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed reading it. Hopefully you can get the next one published soon
Can’t wait to see what that one is about!
Susan, Hi back! Yeah, Savage had the big “pick your favorite series” about a week back and we all listed our favorite fantasy series coming up with about 60 of them…and now we’re widdling down to one! Maybe he’ll add some if you suggest them! These books are long, but they’re quite worth it, so I hope you get to them some time, but I completely understand the huge TBR piles!!
Nymeth, It does exactly that…approaches some of the same themes as Witch Ember just from a different angle. What I liked most about it was that I really didn’t have much sympathy at all for Guiromelans character in Witch Ember but I liked him a lot in this book. I think you’ll like it quite a bit!
Rhinoa, Totally agree and these books really couldn’t have been written any other way. I love the way that he built up the worlds so well and made the book such an epic. It’s a great series so far.
Debi, Exactly! You really do get lost in these books. I completely understand that overwhelming feeling of being committed to so many other reads :p Isn’t it sad when challenges take over our lives? Oh well, at least they’re fun and we feel accomplished when we finish them!! I really think you’ll like Witch Ember!
Carole, They do indeed come back and in a harrowing way! He did such a good job at creating all of these different cultures and religions and I really enjoyed reading them. Great stuff!
Ooh, i love different cultures and religions. Found this really good article btw. Written last year…but made me smile cause i love this kinda thing.
http://www.swantower.com/marie/essays/philosophy/cf-manifesto.html
-C
Oh, geez, don’t you love it when the author drops by to thank you? How cool is that?
You made this one sound tempting. But, 600 pages . . . oh, dear. Not quite ready for that. I’ll just have to enjoy your review, for the moment. I do love your reviews.
Forgot to ask how your life is going. Since I’ve been gone a while, I don’t know anything about the progress of the job hunt, etc. Fill me in?
Carole, cool! Thanks for the article, I’ll check it out!
Bookfool, It is always nice to have the author stop by! John Lawson actually sent the books to me for review and he’s been a really cool guy…I’ve gotten to talk to him a couple of times through email. This series is really good and I’d highly recommend it, but yeah, it’s long :p Life is going ok in the meantime…the job hunt is still on :/ There seems to be more jobs turning up though lately so I’ve been applying for more and one in particular is looking good! So that’s a bit of good news. We’ll see where it lands. Aside from that, there’s not much going on. Same ol’ sh** as they say
I seem to have lost interest in reading today, so hopefully that comes back soon! I was doing so good!
this sounds very interesting. really fresh and with a very cool angle.
and also, obviously, addressing issues we can relate to but in different setting, giving a different flavour.
Surprised myself that I haven’t heard of these books before, but your and nymeth’s reviews have certainly persuaded me to give them a read…600 pages or no!
thanks!
Mariel, You probably haven’t heard of these because they’re not really available in most bookstores. Unfortunately John hasn’t been picked up by a mainstream publisher yet which is really unfortunate as his books are excellent! He publishes through Publish America which from what I understand is a publish on demand publisher. The best way to get them is directly through the publisher or through his website though. They’re really great!!!
chris-a belated thank you for mentioning my giveaway!
No prob Kim!
Brilliant – more books for my list. I’ve been doing really well during my on/off absence from blogland too! Then, I should know by now what happens when I check in with you and Carl.
Seriously, this one and the prequel sound great. May have to pick them up soon!
Quix, It was such a great series so far! And he has like 3 more books that are already written to publish too…I hope that he gets them published soon. I really enjoyed them. Hope you check them out!
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