The Smoke Ring

The sequel to The Integral Trees. An interesting world, and an interesting premise. Not the easiest book to describe in a couple of sentences. A lot of floating trees. A bunch of people who were stranded there 500 years earlier. A wacked out computer who takes after HAL. The story moves along, and there are some interesting moments. As you can tell from my use of the word interesting, on the whole I found this an interesting, if not good book.

The Elvenbane

This book was on my "B" reading list for a long time, and the other day I figured I'd give it a turn.  All in all this was a pretty fair read.  Humans, Elves, Dragons, magic, etc.  No deep meaning or anything, but it was a good fantasy romp, and it left me wanting more.

Elvenblood (©1995)

As good as the first.  If you like the easy brainless fantasy that takes you away for a bit this book, and its predecessor are for you.

Elvenblood (©2002)

Well, after a number of years Norton and Lackey put out another addition to the Halfblood Chronicles. Still an easy reading fantasy that goes by quickly and doesn't take a lot of brain power to digest. This time around we meet up with an honorable elf, who likes to read history and play war games. We get equal measures on intrigue and action along with some small "s" social commentary.

Considering the time between books I was pleased that Elvenborn didn't pick up where the last one left off and assume you had an eidetic memory. The way things unfolded I remembered what I needed to as it went along.

This was a really good piece of escapism. I doubt it'll ever be a classic, but it was entertaining and left me wanting more.

Reviewed April 2003