Helpful Score: 1
To Ride a Rathorn by P.C. Hodgell
This is the 4th book in the God Stalker Chronicles. I picked it up off my shelf and began reading it after learning that one of my favorite authors (Stross) is also a fan. So, what's it about?
Jame makes it to Tentir, effectively the Kencyrath military academy for Highborn and Kendar. Jame, being Jame, arrives among calamity and destruction, oddly procedes to win friends in her usual manner. She also begins to bang against what being an officer and leader among the Kencyrath means. She also runs flat into a old vendetta no one will tell her about.
After a lot of bumbling, she does get to the bottom of the vendetta, the reason for the assassination of the Knorth highborn women and even makes two forms of peace with those who would be her enemies. And, her unusual status that came about at the end of Seeker's Mask is touched on and seems to be pointing to a big resolution at the end of the fifth book of the series.
I liked it a lot and will reread the other three books, and the fifth, Bloodbound when it comes out.
This is the 4th book in the God Stalker Chronicles. I picked it up off my shelf and began reading it after learning that one of my favorite authors (Stross) is also a fan. So, what's it about?
Jame makes it to Tentir, effectively the Kencyrath military academy for Highborn and Kendar. Jame, being Jame, arrives among calamity and destruction, oddly procedes to win friends in her usual manner. She also begins to bang against what being an officer and leader among the Kencyrath means. She also runs flat into a old vendetta no one will tell her about.
After a lot of bumbling, she does get to the bottom of the vendetta, the reason for the assassination of the Knorth highborn women and even makes two forms of peace with those who would be her enemies. And, her unusual status that came about at the end of Seeker's Mask is touched on and seems to be pointing to a big resolution at the end of the fifth book of the series.
I liked it a lot and will reread the other three books, and the fifth, Bloodbound when it comes out.
Another exciting outing for Jame, lots of adventures while she tries to make her way through officer's training school. I made liberal use of the maps and the glossary in back, it's not usually so hard for me to keep up in a book but there are a LOT of characters. And since in Hodgell's world, the landscape occasionally gets up and rearranges itself, I need the maps! But it also seemed to me that Hodgell spent less time flinging her characters into imaginary dreamscapes than she did in the last book. I liked that we spent a lot more time with Jame than Tori, I think she's a better character. Tori is mostly evident trying to run from the matriarchs of the other houses who want him to contract with one of their available women. That whole side of the Kencyrath is a little odd. Lots of crazy people, lots of gods and ghosts. Only a few buildings fall down. Jame does finally seem to be finding her way to figuring out what she's doing.
