- Paperback: 896 pages
- Publisher: Bantam; New edition edition (1 July 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0553814532
- ISBN-13: 978-0553814538
- Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 3.7 x 17.7 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 724,709 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Fifth Sorceress (Chronicles of Blood & Stone 1)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
The Fifth Sorceress is an undoubtedly impressive debut in epic fantasy for Robert Newcomb. It has a dark magnificence in many of its set pieces of slaughter and magic, even though it is seriously flawed by a prurient paranoia about powerful women and unfettered female sexuality. Young Tristan is about to inherit the throne of Eustracia and resents the fact that his entire life has been mapped out for him--30 years of kingship followed by immortality as a wizard. Nothing, though, is going to be as he expects; centuries earlier the wizards of Eustracia exiled four powerful sorceresses, who had almost won a particularly vicious civil war. Now that Tristan and his sister have been born--filled, unknown to themselves, with magic potential--the sorceresses' plans have matured and they are about to return in blood and terror. Newcomb has a real gift for describing violent action and intense emotional states; he puts his hero through a series of ordeals as upsetting as they are thrilling. Tristan wins, as we always expect him to, and then Newcomb gives us a slingshot ending that implies fascinating sequels of ever escalating wonder and terror. --Roz Kaveney
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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‘Beautifully and vividly drawn ...impressive’
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Heralds the beginning of another awesome fantasy epic,
By soulwielder (missoula, mt United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Fifth Sorceress (The chronicles of blood & stone) (Paperback)
I picked this book up after seeing the massive advertising campaign that Newcomb's American publisher, Del Rey was throwing around for such a new author. I had hopes that it would even be half as good as the publisher claimed. I was well rewarded. Del Rey makes the claim up front of similarities between Robert Newcomb and Terry Goodkind, and for once those kind of claims bear out.Newcomb has created his own unique world, with characters that I found to be highly believable, characters that are "flawed" as the now popular saying goes, but are still heroic. Through all of this Newcomb creates a feel, an atmosphere to his work which is very "Goodkindian", while still being unique unto himself. Some of the negative reviews around the Net are preposterous, of course the book has a few rough edges, after all it is the first novel that Robert Newcomb has ever written, but his writing improves with every chapter, which is also very similar to Goodkind. As far as some of the other comments go about being sexist and what not, all Robert Newcomb has done is reverse the tables, instead of the "Dark Lord" we have the "Dark Sorceresses", instead of evil men pillaging and raping, we have evil women doing it. According to some of the reviewers here it seems ok when men are evil and participate in despicable acts, but when women do it, and the author is a man, then the author and his world are sexist. To me, this adds uniqueness to Newcomb's world, and there are many times where he stresses that women are not evil, and that not even all Sorceresses are evil, just some of the most powerful ones in the world at this time. As far as the violence within the book, there is certainly no more than you would find in a Jordan, Goodkind, or Martin book, and indeed if you do not like their works, or are too faint of heart for it, then you should not read Newcomb, after all, on the inside front cover, Del Rey compares him to Goodkind, and I find that Goodkind is far more descriptive of not only violence, but depravity as well. Truthfully after only one book, I appreciate Newcomb more than I do Goodkind. I get the same feel out of Newcomb, yet he writes with more control than does Goodkind. It is obvious from the beginning that Newcomb has a plan for his series, and is well aware of where it is going, whereas Goodkind, by his own admission writes as he goes along with little pre-planning. Over time I think that Newcomb and The Chronicles of Blood and Stone as his series is called, will rise to grander heights than that of Goodkind's Sword of Truth. I finished The Fifth Sorceress in two days, and as soon as I finished the final sentence, I was impatient for the next book in the series. I can only hope that it will come quickly enough.
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
has all the elements for a fantastic book...,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Fifth Sorceress: Volume I of the Chronicles of Blood and Stone (Mass Market Paperback)
and that's just what they are, they never form a whole. The central characters flit from one emotional state to another with no discernable reason for anything. They go from knowing nothing about a situation and being powerless to do anything, to having supreme insight and the capability to sort out the situation in a sentence. Also there are glaring inconsistancies that had me re-reading several sections.I really wanted to like this book, and I really wanted to like the characters, but it's difficult to build up any enthusiasm when you get the over-riding feeling that the main plot was sketched out and then the detail was never filled in. The magic system was never explained adequately - for certain powerful spells rituals have to be performed and beams of light come from the sky, and yet for a sorceress to float about the room and make magical cages appear takes no effort whatsoever. Why? How are they doing it? The book reminded me of children playing "I'm an evil sorceress and I'm attacking you with a lightning bolt"..."well I'm using my anti-lightning bolt cloak that I've just found behind this tree to protect myself" - okay it's not literally like that but pretty close upon occasion. To add to it all there then seemed to be some printing areas, with paragraphs from later chapters appearing in the middle of earlier chapters. Get this book from the library and if you like it then by it. I persevered to the end and then threw it in the bin straight away.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Very poorly written,
By
This review is from: The Fifth Sorceress (Chronicles of Blood & Stone 1) (Paperback)
This book is very poorly and amaturishly written. The author does succeed in engaging the readers interest because you can't help wanting to know what happens next despite the novel's bad construction and characters which are barely even two dimensional. The author has clearly been influenced by Terry Goodkind's Wizard's first rule and Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books, and thought I can do that, only without any of Jordan's creative talents and Goodkind's originality with his first novel. The titular fifth sorceress is depicted as the traditional golden haired princess, there is so little attempt to develop her character that by the end of the book the reader knows little to nothing about her beyond the inital description.
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