Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #484896 in Books
• Published on: 2005-01-13
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 640 pages

Customer Reviews

Drop in standard
A hugely complex novel, intelligently written and thought-provoking. In my opinion, though, it is also hugely flawed.
Book one set up a great premise, a believeable, gritty world, using the crusades as its template much as Martin used the War of the Roses for his Ice and Fire masterpiece, and featuring a wide range of different and interesting characters. Also there was a real sense of growing tension in the behind-the-scenes scheming of the extremely creepy Consult - the skin-spies are utter genius. But in this book the whole process - plot, character, action, pacing - is hopelessly bogged down in reams and reams of psycho-babble. A certain amount gave depth to the characters, revealing motivations, helping the reader understand choices etc. but the balance seems to have seriously gone astray.
The other major problem is the central character. It is very difficult to maintain interest in a book when the central character, who, lets face it, we all like to root for, is so overwhelmingly unapealing. Kellhus is utterly devoid of all morality, just manipulating those around him in such a cold, heartless manner that it is impossible to feel any kind of sympathy for the man. By the end of the book I was hoping that Bakker would do something original and kill him. Other characters, more interesting and with more 'heart,' such as Cnaiur, are given very little room. The only character left of any real interest is Achamian, and it was to finish his story that i persevered.
In saying all this the book still has a lot going for it. Epic is an understatement, and clearly much time and thought has gone into the building of this world - the history is complex and believable.
I just get the sense that it is all taking itself a little too seriously.
Very dissapointing given the 'set up' of book one.

Continuation of a great series...
The Warrior-Prophet is a worthy sequel to the first book, which was absolutely brilliant. Like it's predecessor, it's superbly written with well-crafted characters and story. Unfortunately, it has more flaws than the first book. The battle scenes are simply not believable enough, no new characters are introduced, the holy-war drags on up to the point that you don't really care what happens next, and Kellus's mysteriousness is just a smokescreen to hide the author's characterization failures. Although I enjoy lengthy books, this book is simply too long and could have been truncated.
I know this sounds a bit grim, but apart from its flaws, The Warrior-Prophet is a great book which continues a fantastic series. Read this book!

Oh dear
I had hoped book 2 would be better than book one, but it wasn't. Gory and dour with very little to recommend it.