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Phoenix (Legend of the Five Rings 4) ReviewI gave the first 3 books 4 stars and gave this one 3 stars only because it doesn't wrap up a story like the other previous books. That would have been nice...
Having said that, I guess you'd have to say that "The Empire Strikes Back" was a terrible movie because it didn't have a satisfying 'good guys win' sort of ending. Or that the first two books of "The Lord of the Rings" were weak because they didn't wrap things up at the end of each.
Wrong.
This series is (I think) 7 books long. ...Like LOTR, you can't take one of these books and read it alone except for maybe "The Scorpion". Legend Of The Five Rings:Clan Wars" is a huge story that is slowly developed through each book. There are major plot elements from the previous 2 books that are described in this book and make it clear what the heck has been behind them. Specifically where the plague came from and who's sending out all these monsters and undead to wreak havok on the land. That alone is worth the price of the book.
This book takes place during the same period of time that books 2 and 3 take place. Although events from those books are only briefly touched upon just to give you some bearing as to when things are, I didn't mind. I read those events already and don't need to read about them again. "Unicorn" and "Crane" seem intertwined, but "Phoenix" is pretty much independent.
There is a lot of action in this book. Since the Phoenix use sorcery, there are a lot of battles that are not just desciption of what a guys sword was doing... although there is a lot of that too. This time there is a good deal of magic doing the fighting. Armies burst into flame, strong winds push bad guys around, rocks suddenly jut out of the ground to impale bad guys. Very cool stuff.
Some things someone posted that I thought were misleading:
1- "Then, magically, Tadaka is transformed into something EVIL. No mucking about here; Tadaka goes from an obsessed, but good, priest to a demon-worshipping man who murders his best friend."
This is not really true. Tadaka is changing, but he's not worshiping any demons. He's doing something else with demons, but not worshiping them. He also doesn't kill his best friend. It wasn't like this "friend" was someone he knew all his life... let alone was 'friendly' with. It is shocking when he kills him, but not completely out of character. I believe he did half-heartedly attack him earlier in the book (to make him go away... not something you would do to a 'best friend'). Tadaka is changing. He's been tainted by evil because he's accessed the Black Scrolls and is slowly being consumed by that evil. Using a Black Scroll is something that caused another character in the first chapter to turn evil. It's all spelled out... not coming from out of nowhere. Killing his friend is more like a device to show that he's not the same anymore. What's more, there's no telling if he really killed his 'friend' or not. Read the book and you'll probably see what I mean.
2- "He befriends natives of the Shadowlands, the hellish locale where Junzo lurks, but they somehow prove inept at surviving their own front lawn."
Not really. It wasn't their front lawn. They were actually taking Tadaka to a region that they are afraid of and don't go to. The trek took many days to get there, so it wasn't exactly their neighborhood. When some die, they are taken by surprise or natural selection takes over and they die because they were stupid. Only one in the group actually knows the terrain and that character DOES survive.
Although I liked this book a lot, there were two things that bothered me:
1- The word "cool" was used to describe something as being good. This was done by a character whose speech is a lot closer to an American than a denizen of ancient Japan, but it still seemed wrong. You could assume, however that there was a Japanese term like it that he used and that translates into English as "Cool". It still seemed wrong.
2- I think the author is running out of decriptions. He tends to use the same words to describe things over and over. I'm really tired of reading the word 'sinews'. There's always something going on with 'sinews'. Would it kill him to use the word 'tendon' once in a while? Also, there were two situations only a couple chapters apart (or so it seemed) where 2 different characters did the same thing. They stuck their swords through the eye and out the back of the skull of a zombie. I could be wrong about the sword going throught the back of the head in both cases, but jeezz. Another one through the Eye? Maybe there was a reason for this, but it seemed random enough to me that another body part could have been used. There are also a lot of other descritpions that you know you've just read a bunch of times already. There could have been different ways to describe the same thing if it had to be described again. When I read what appears to be the same sentence over again... sometimes just on the next page... it pops me out of the story and I'm reminded that there was an author to this book. It's not really happening, it was written.
Those are pretty small gripes. Other than that, it was a good read. I wouldn't recommend it unless you've read the previous books, though. But I wouldn't recommend "LOTR: Two Towers" without reading "LOTR: Fellowship of the Rings" first... This is a huge epic that requires you to read all the books to get the whole story...
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