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Katsunami · 01-16-2016, 12:28 PM

Jean M. Auel Earth's Children series.

Also, some stuff by Sarah Douglass. The Axis Trilogy, The Wayfarer Redemption, Darkglass Mountain (in that order), The Hanging Wall and Threshold (these last two ended up being prequels to Darkglass Mountain).

One warning: you have to not care about some things, especially with the Axis Trilogy:
- Deus Ex Machina... used liberally. (How TF are they going to solve th... *stuff*... solved. Oh. Right.)
- The story starts out with a protagonist (obviously), and another main character. When getting further into the story, that other main character is almost written out of the story. Then this character was basically discarded and replaced by a different character... and those two become very good friends. (Huh? WTF?)
- Then, the replacement character rises to power so fast and in such an extreme measure, that the entire story comes to depend on that character (who is a big part of the Deus Ex Machina's), outshining the protagonist. In the end, the protagonist is shown to be even more powerful, but it's the side character actually driving the story. It's as if the author has suddenly decided that this character should be the protagonist... which leads to the last point of critique.
- And oh, the protagonist has to do some final stuff to close off the story. He must do the thing the entire story was written for. Because said protagonist has almost become irrelevant, he does it within 10 pages or so. It would have been better if Douglass had killed the protagonist off, making readers think that the cause was lost, and then use another Deus Ex Machina to get the side character to actually fix it.

So... while the Axis Trilogy is very good, the use of Deus Ex Machina, the discarding of a person I *liked* to replace her with a pet character that becomes too powerful too fast, and the anti-climactic end leads me to giving it a 7 out of 10 instead of 10/10.

edit: This is one of the reasons why The Axis Trilogy, and some other of Sarah Douglass' work has only average reviews. There seem to be two camps: the ones who don't care about the above and give the works a 10/10, and they ones who are highly annoyed, giving it 1/10 ratings. I'm one of the few who sits somewhere in the middle.

01-16-2016, 12:28 PM	#28
Katsunami Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,111 Karma: 34000001 Join Date: Mar 2008 Device: KPW1, KA1	Jean M. Auel Earth's Children series. Also, some stuff by Sarah Douglass. The Axis Trilogy, The Wayfarer Redemption, Darkglass Mountain (in that order), The Hanging Wall and Threshold (these last two ended up being prequels to Darkglass Mountain). One warning: you have to not care about some things, especially with the Axis Trilogy: - Deus Ex Machina... used liberally. (How TF are they going to solve th... stuff... solved. Oh. Right.) - The story starts out with a protagonist (obviously), and another main character. When getting further into the story, that other main character is almost written out of the story. Then this character was basically discarded and replaced by a different character... and those two become very good friends. (Huh? WTF?) - Then, the replacement character rises to power so fast and in such an extreme measure, that the entire story comes to depend on that character (who is a big part of the Deus Ex Machina's), outshining the protagonist. In the end, the protagonist is shown to be even more powerful, but it's the side character actually driving the story. It's as if the author has suddenly decided that this character should be the protagonist... which leads to the last point of critique. - And oh, the protagonist has to do some final stuff to close off the story. He must do the thing the entire story was written for. Because said protagonist has almost become irrelevant, he does it within 10 pages or so. It would have been better if Douglass had killed the protagonist off, making readers think that the cause was lost, and then use another Deus Ex Machina to get the side character to actually fix it. So... while the Axis Trilogy is very good, the use of Deus Ex Machina, the discarding of a person I liked to replace her with a pet character that becomes too powerful too fast, and the anti-climactic end leads me to giving it a 7 out of 10 instead of 10/10. edit: This is one of the reasons why The Axis Trilogy, and some other of Sarah Douglass' work has only average reviews. There seem to be two camps: the ones who don't care about the above and give the works a 10/10, and they ones who are highly annoyed, giving it 1/10 ratings. I'm one of the few who sits somewhere in the middle. Last edited by Katsunami; 01-16-2016 at 01:14 PM.