The Crippled Angel

Last week I finished The Crippled Angel the last book in The Crucible Series which includes The Wounded Hawk and The Nameless Day.

Semi-spoilers ahead.

I really enjoyed the series. It takes place around 1380. Although based on a quick look through wikipedia I think that some the "real" parts of the story are a bit off and shifted in time. Since I don't know anything about the time period I don't actually know, but it seems like she makes it feel like you are in the 1370s.

The part that makes it far more interesting is the religion/magic mix which gets more and more hilariously anti-religion. She does a good job of changing things up through out the story. Which is extra nice since so many fantasy stories take the LOTR approach - Froto you have to destroy the ring then a whole bunch of pages later he destroys the ring. Actually there is some similarity to part of LOTR - Froto finds out he is going to take away the power of the Elf queen and that Elven town would be destroyed. This series kind of takes that idea and runs with it. Plus add in some Harry Potter where the main character is interlinked with the bad guy (except by then who's bad and good has gotten mixed around). I'm trying to be somewhat vague because of the number of twists.

Overall good stuff - I'd recommend it to any fantasy fans out there. I would say that the series really reads as a single book so approach it that way. The first one is good, but is really the background and build up. The action, humor and more interesting stuff (such as explanations for what the heck is going on) is really in the next two books.

One thing I did pick up from this book is being king really wasn't such a great deal in a feudal society. I'd really rather be king at a later point when kings had more direct control rather than just trying to get the support of the lords who have the real military power and money. In general I always figured I'd rather be the King's cousin than the King - nice life style without all the responsibility and people trying to kill you. But in a feudal society that just meant being a lord so there was still responsibility and assassination attempts. So the take away is if you are going to become European royalty at some point in history think more 1600s than 1300s.