Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lymond series No 5: Brilliant, but not for everyone, 21 April 2006
This is the fifth book in a series which you will either love or hate. It is also one of those multi-book series which must if at all possible be read in the right order, which is
1) The Game of Kings
2) Queen's Play
3) The Disorderly Knights
4) Pawn in Frankincense
5) The Ringed Castle
6) Checkmate
The Ringed Castle has one of the more memorable opening lines in historical fiction: "Not to every young girl is it given to enter the harem of the Sultan of Turkey and return to her homeland a virgin."
After the shattering events of book 4, "Pawn in Frankincense", Phillipa Somerville so returns to England, while Francis Crawford of Lymond goes to Russia and takes service with Ivan the Terrible.
There are two reasons why this series, and indeed the author's similar "Niccolo" series, should be read in chronological order. The first is that the plots are incredibly complicated and if you read them out of sequence you have no chance of understanding what is going on.
The second is that many of the characters meet their deaths in ways which are exceptionally unpleasant both for themselves and for the characters who survive them. If you read the books out of sequence, advance knowledge of how characters are going to die, can have a significant impact on the pleasure you would otherwise have had in reading about the earlier events of their lives when you do get around to reading the earlier books.
Like the books, the central character, Francis Crawford of Lymond, is brilliant, violent, and extremely complicated. Unlike the books he is very flawed. Lymond is a mercenary with particular interests in Scotland and France, and gets involved in nefarious deeds all over the world as 16th century Europeans knew it. Dunnett brings the splendour, cultural ferment, and violent cruelty of the Renaissance world splendidly to life.
In this book Phillipa Somerville, who was scarcely more than a girl when she first appeared in the stories, becomes a more important viewpoint character, developing as a heroine and counterweight to Franci Crawford.
If you are at all squeamish, or do not like having to make your brain work overtime to follow a book, leave this series alone. Lymond's story is neither "chewing gum for the brain" nor a comfortable read. And even if you prefer flawed heroes to knights in shining armour, Lymond may infuriate you from time to time. But if you can put up with these features, these books will richly reward the effort you make in reading them.
There is no middle ground: you will either hate the Lymond series or recognise these books as one of the greatest works of historical fiction ever written. Or very possibly both !
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lymond in Russia, 26 Mar 2008
Dunnett's dedicated fans seem to be split over this book: people either love it or hate it (perhaps that's the same with the whole series?) but personally this is my favourite in the series.
After the heated and heart-crushing journey in Pawn in Frankincense, Lymond is in Russia, building an army for the increasingly-insane Tsar Ivan (the Terrible). Like the Russian landscape itself, he is cold, frigid, icy, unreachable to either his own men of St Mary's or the potential new friends such as the navigator and explorer Diccon Chancellor. But no-one in Europe can leave him alone, not the people who love him like his estranged mother Sybilla nor those who hate him; and so Lymond is brought back to England where the fortress of his heart is suddenly breached, and no-one is more shocked than him.
Lymond is the most incrediable character you will ever meet in fiction, but a far cry from the average 'romantic' hero. These books are wonderful, opaque, frustrating and ultimately hugely rewarding but they're not an easy read. Once you start though they are the most compulsive reading ever, so set aside the time they deserve - to be read and re-read.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Book #5 in the Lymond Chronicles as Philippa matures and becomes a force to be reckoned with, 10 Mar 2008
"Not to every young girl is it given to enter the harem of the Sultan of Turkey and return to her homeland a virgin." Now that's what I call an attention getting opening! The Ringed Castle begins book #5 in the series as Philippa returns home to England a very self assured young woman and Francis has hitched his wagon to the mysterious Guzel and heads to Russia to bring Tsar Ivan and his army out of the dark ages with the aid of Francis' highly trained mercenary corps.
As Francis treads the treacherous waters of the Russian court and political intrigues, there is a traitor amongst his troop who has been hired to kill him. At the same time, Philippa is called to court to serve as lady in waiting to Mary Tudor and the delightfully evil Countess Margaret Lennox continues her intrigues against Francis and Philippa. Eventually Francis is ordered by the Tsar to leave Russia, and after a harrowing sail through the dangerous waters of the northern seas, Francis comes to London as part of Russia's trade embassy. There he is reunited with his wife, Philippa, who has stumbled across a long hidden mystery regarding Francis' paternity.
As with the first four books in the series, Francis Crawford is a fascinating hero, and is as suave, debonair, flawed and fascinating as only a 16th Century version of James Bond could be. While I thoroughly enjoyed this book, I didn't find it as fast paced as the previous four, particularly the time spent in Russia, although necessary to set up the rest of the story. What I very much enjoyed was the maturation of Philippa and she has become the perfect foil for Lymond, she matched word for word in all their verbal battles and was the highlight of the book. I am dying to read the last book in the series, Checkmate and anxiously await the answers to just who fathered Francis Crawford of Lymond. Five stars.
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by Dorothy Dunnett
by Dorothy Dunnett
by Dorothy Dunnett
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