Lacking any kind of nobility
924971
It is wrong of me to review this book because I haven't yet finished it!  On the other hand, I may NOT finish it.  It is
about a loser named Stanley Manning and his horror of a mother-in-law.  The writing is good, the plot keeps you going
along.  It is inevitably pointing toward a disastrous conclusion for Stanley, but I don't yet know what.  In that sense
it resembles King Lear.  What sets it apart from King Lear or any great tragedy is that the protagonist is such a
sleazy, worthless zero, utterly lacking any kind of nobility.  So much so that you have the sense the author is looking down
from on high and judging and pulling the strings on the puppets.  Is the author too completely lacking in nobility, or just
slightly less lacking than her characters?  Why should I care about predictable worthless Stanley Manning?  Being good at
crosswords comes nowhere near redeeming his weakness and sneaky self-serving dishonesty and snivelling hatred and envy of those who
succeed through hard work and love and merit.

I have an unfortunate tendency, when I am reading any novel, to take on the character of the protagonist.  This is not so bad
if the main character is, say, Horatio Hornblower or Eugene Gant.  But it's horrible if the main character is, say, Popeye in
Faulkner's Sanctuary or ... Stanley Manning.  I feel sleazy and mean after reading it.  That's why I may not finish.  I think
Ms. Rendell has done much better in later novels.
2308487
The characters in the book have very little to them, there are either the good guys or the bad guys, no middle ground, (There is one exception to this.) Every person who is bad is also a murderer, a rapist, and a sadist. Every person who is good is intelligent, strong (not necessarily physically,) and although it is out of place, able to kill any person in any situation with ease, (which doesn't strike me something a good person could and would do.)

(A minor Spoiler:) A point in the book has a character come across a wounded dragon, and because of her people's creed to protect wounded animals, (which seemed to be made up on the spot,) the character murdered five innocent people whom were attempting to kill the dragon. My issue with this is that the author seems to think that those actions were good.

This book seems to be something written for teenagers and young adults, however I would only recommend it to someone as the book being akin to a badly made movie that you may watch to laugh at, or to see what mistakes that one should avoid when writing.
4436476
It's already been said, but I figured I would add my two cents worth. - I kept waiting for the good guy to show up. - By the time I got three-quarters of the way I finally realized that there was not going to be a good character. I can be exceptionally stubborn about not giving up on a book, but this one stretched my limits. The brothers are evil, serving an evil wizard, fighting for an ignorant self-serving moron of a king. The sorceress elven lady, who is supposed to be on the side of the "good guys" ignores the horrible acts of evil committed by one of the brothers because he is just so adorable and innocent at heart. It's like the mom of a serial killer saying, "he was always such a good boy" after brutally murdering 100 people, half of them small children.  These are the book's heroes? Maybe it is our modern cynical society that draws people to read about evil triumphing over good, or at the very least mostly evil triumphing over totally evil. I prefer my fantasy a bit more clean. I don't mind flawed heroes, but absolutely evil ones are just too much. If I really want to read dark evil over evil stories I'll read the newspaper.
1930664
Unfortunately this is 1 series I will not be considering continuing.  The language was disgusting (even for a Royal who is a bad boy and who is not Prince Charming).  Some language can be okay but the amount of times and the context it was used in this book was not necessary and at times seemed as though it was used just to increase the number of words.  I did not consider it hot or romantic and there was nothing in the description to warn me of the filth this book contained.  Being about Royals I expected it to contain dignity and respect however that was something that did not appear.  This book seemed to demean females and make them appear as objects without a will or brain of their own...a perceptive society already has that is hard to overcome.
1552464
I love historical fiction, & I think alternate histories have an important place within that genre, asking us difficult questions about our assumptions, showing the character, intelligence, etc of our heroes and villains and how those may have been influenced by their circumstances or altered by a different course of events.

The Year of the Hangman, however, does not ask difficult questions. It does not offer any kind of insight from its altered perspective. It offers neither plot nor redeeming value or point or *anything* that makes a story worth reading.

Unless that was, after all, the point--the pointlessness of the American Revolution, of war in general for any cause, of patriotism. Blackwood calls up our cultural heroes to villainize themselves as merely politicians seeking power via tax benefits or kills them off in acts of cowardice & stupidity; he puppeteers our villains into the shadows to become nameless, insignificant tokens--to the point of wondering why they were included at all.

After all of this, though, the British are painted as 2-dimensionally evil as ever, so you're not taken on a journey of seeing things from their perspective. You're led to throw up your hands & surrender any kind of hope or triumph or purpose or MEANING. (Does my bitterness at having lost several hours on this book show too much?)

I'm an American, so I hold the ideals of freedom, democracy, & the heroes of the Revolution dear, but because I'm an American, I also hold them with an open hand--willing to reconsider, for the sake of freedom, those leaders and those ideals. That is not what Blackwood has done here. He has taken something fine & beautiful in history & trampled it with cheap prose for the sake of commerce--the very crime the Patriots in his story ascribe to themselves.
784425
A shortsighted knight (Dennis Quaid as Bowen) is so wrapped up in his own love of the Old Code of chivalry that he fails to notice that his student, prince Einon, is every bit as evil as his tyrannical father King Freyne, and has absolutely no interest in maintaining any code of ethics.  Bowen blames dragons for this sad lacking in the young prince, because a dragon gave part of his heart to save the wretched boy.  Instead of dealing with the problem at hand, Bowen sets about causing the extinction of dragons.  The last one he sets his sights on is Draco (Sean Connery), the very dragon that supposedly made the boy evil with his heart.
As a morality play this film is par for the course.  It glosses over the more troublesome aspects of the story in favor of a lot of comic relief.  Peasants are slaughtered, the new king (David Thewlis as the adult Einon) is a butcher intent on immortality, his mother (Julie Christie as Queen Aislinn) plots to undo her mistake, theres an attempted rape, and various murders.  Meanwhile, Bowen and Draco seek to fleece the local yokels with a scam not unlike the plot of The Reluctant Dragon!

The sequel was very much an offering for children, producer Raffaella De Laurentiis made that very clear.  And it plays like a live action cartoon.  The plot is limited in scope.  A stable boy (Christopher Masterson as Geoff) dreams and schemes of becoming a knight.  He is encouraged in his delusion by the EVIL Lord Osric who has dreams and schemes of his own, which involves revenge and taking over the kingdom!  The sole purpose of this movie was to resurrect dragons, which had been made extinct thanks to the dragon-hunter in the first film.  It serves its purpose and little else.
3632029
When I read a Mercedes Lackey book I expect to care about what happens to *someone* in the book.  There was no one here who was 'real' enough to care about.  The people all felt like shadows, without true substance (or reasons) to their actions.  I couldn't find reasons to cheer for anyone.  One problem is there were too many people to follow easily.  Since there were so many none of them were drawn richly enough to draw me into their world.
1697096
I actively seek out books that teach good morals, but this one was way over the top sanctimonious. Our protagonist, Shelby, is whiny, weak and simplistic. (Oh, but she's a believer, so that makes it all okay.) Ditto for her love interest, Prince Nick. Dialog is flat, unnatural and preachy. And, really, everyone seems to behave like little automatons, with nothing more to do than wring their hands and pray over our main characters' marriage. I found NO realistic or interesting characters in this book. And while this is an age-old storyline centered around an arraged marriage turned love match, I believe that with (much) more deft handling, it could have been made interesting. Try Lizz Curtis Higgs or Francine Rivers for Christian romance that you can sink your teeth into. "The Princess" was little more than stilted dialog interlaced with preaching--a dash of needless fretting thrown in for good measure. Ugh.
1855488
This is a mean-spirited and vindictive book that makes no pretense about actually revelling in the mounting misfortunes of the British upper classes.  It offers very little historical research, but a great deal of waxing eloquent on the uselessness of the aristocracy.

He gets so into this, that much of what he says is wrong: he describes Winston "Churchill's family and forebearers were hardly those which any politician, eager to establish an unimpeachable public reputaition, would have freely chosen."  Um, except that they were all well-respected politicians in their own right, and Winston's father had been considered, for many years, next in line to be Prime Minister (a raging case of syphillus drove him mad and that was the end of that... but his affliction was not public knowledge and wouldn't have hampered his son's career).

He takes great joy in describing the misfortunes of the upper classes, without actually examining the causes: more often than not these declines had to do with the rising cost of living in a huge stone palace (as electricity, plumbing, and heating became necessary), the decline of the sevice industry (as factory work became a better option for the lower classes), the decline of the agricultural industry from which most of these people supported themselves with (as cheaper food could be imported from overseas), and a few significant stock market crashes.  Instead, he drops hints that the sudden and disasterous lack of money was purely a personal fault.

He discusses the people who hang on to their country houses but require government aid to support them, completely ignoring the fact that 1) the government won't let the owners tear them down because they're historic and architectural landmarks and 2) the owners literally can't GIVE them away because the National Trust is already glutted with them and can't afford the upkeep on the ones they already have.

Cannadine's thesis is one that deserves taking into consideration: that it's time historians stopped fawning over the upper classes and started to look at them, warts and all.  However, by the time this book was published, this was hardly an original notion and it was difficult to find a book that didn't take a critical view of the aristocracy.  And it should be taken into consideration that, after a career built on mocking the upper classes, Mr. Cannadine's last TWO books have both been fawning histories talking about how the entire British Empire was built on the bravery, daring, and intelligence of the aristocrats.  I guess he decided the tide had turned and it was time to jump on another bandwaggon?
602915
OK, first off, skip the ENTIRE BEGINNING SECTION of this book - it is perfectly pointless today.  In it, Hobbes is basically trying to do away with the concept of an immortal soul, thereby creating an atheistic society that cares nothing for religious matters.  Hobbes is NOT known for his Philosophy of Mind.
What everyone remembers about Leviathan is Hobbes' terse, cynical, and on-the-money observation that life is "nasty, brutish, and short."  Of course, what he means by this is life in the State of Nature.  In order to try to make life a little better, man comes together to form societies.
So far, so good.  What most people take exception to is the kind of Social Contract that Hobbes endorses.  Hobbes says that a society should come together to form a Social Contract in which everyone is OBEY THE SOVEREIGN UNCONDITIONALLY NO MATTER WHAT.  Here's the kicker, the sovereign or king himself exists OUTSIDE OF THE SOCIAL CONTRACT AND IS NOT BOUND BY IT.  In other words, the sovereign can do whatever he likes and the people must obey his commands no matter how cruel or ridiculous.
Now, Hobbes was really trying to be more reasonable than he sounds.  He lived at a time when England had spent years torn apart by constant war.  He was also a self-professed coward: "Fear and I were born twins."  Basically, what he wanted was an end to war at all costs.  For him, that meant obeying a STRONG RULER - in his case, Oliver Cromwell.  The second section is addressed to the people trying to make them understand why this is in their best interests.
The last section is addressed to the sovereign himself.  Yes, he says, you can be a tyrant and do anything you want, BUT that will only cause you more trouble than it's worth.  I have some advice for you to follow.  Hobbes then goes on to RECOMMEND ways in which the sovereign could be a good ruler.
In the end, Hobbes thought he was being an eminently practical man.  To him, the "natural rights theorists" would just be talking nonsense.
2190592
Other authors have written the same type of books before and the only twist seems to be the overt criticism of Catholicism.  None of the characters had enough charm, honor, or repentence to root for good or bad.
3941071
The latest in the League series we get to learn more about Bastien Cabarro, erstwhile Kirovarian prince who has been under a League death sentence for years for supposedly murdering his family. Needless to say, he was framed. I had a hard time with this book. Not because Bastien isn't as broodingly tragic and initially clueless as the rest of the heroes in this series, because he is, but because the sisters are so appallingly unsympathetic and unrealistic.
It's glaringly apparent practically from page one that Alura is a Class A bitch. And yet none of her family members call her on it. None of them. Ever. Including Ember, who is supposedly a high ranking special forces officer. Who ever heard of a special forces officer who didn't exhibit a certain amount of courage and self-confidence? But no. Ember turns into a hand wringing shrinking violet whenever she is confronted with her spoiled little sister. All of her supposedly militaristic sisters do. I found that particularly unbelievable. Even if the parents chose to ignore every single one of Alura's glaring faults, five older sisters are unlikely to refrain from putting her firmly in her place or, at the very least, never believing a single word that came out of her mouth.
Unrealistic family dynamics aside, Bastien winds up as the scapegoat of his uncle's nefarious plot to murder his parents and steal the throne. He then spends about ten years dodging a League death sentence. Possibly the best thing that comes out of this period of his life is that Bastien connects up with his paternal cousin Jullien, who is also under a familial death warrant, and who turned out to be surprisingly sympathetic and heroic in Born of Legend. Jullien keeps in touch with Bastien who is hiding out, ironically enough, in the same smuggler's den featured in Born of Night. Jullien also smuggles much needed supplies to Bastien whenever he is able to do so. At this point Bastien's story intersects significantly with other books in the League series, specifically Born of Fury. We get to experience large chunks of Hauk's story retold from Bastien's perspective.
Of course, the heart of the story revolves around Bastien's feelings for Ember and vice versa. The pair are reunited under perilous circumstances as Bastien attempts to clear his name and avenge his family.  Bastien learns that Alura lied to him about a significant fact (shock!) and that Ember is actually the mother of his son that he has never met. Bastien now has even more reason to clear his name in order to protect Ember and Florian from his evil uncle. Ember's sisters, who now have miraculously seen the light with respect to Alura, jump on board to help. With their assistance Bastien learns not only that he has a half brother he never knew existed but that not quite all of his family had been killed as he thought. Bastien discovers enough evidence to confront his uncle, with an ax, and clear his name, thereby retaking his throne. Bastien and Ember finally get their happily ever after but queue the foreshadowing of evil yet to come when Kyr escapes custody before Nykerion can collect him.
The ending promises more adventure to come! (less)
4434743
normally I can tolerate Stockholm syndrome dressed as romance in fiction, but the hero starts from a position of excessive entitlement even for this genre and period. then there's the self-pitying blame-it-on-upbringing angle that took the storyline from barely tolerable to 'nup, that's it's.
4282423
On this 100th annaversary of the Armenian Genocide, it would have been especially timely to have a strong piece of historical fiction to support the undeniable facts. Instead, what we get is this somewhat bland romanticized account showing something of both sides. There is no real anger or contempt for the Turkish people who were complicit just as the Germans, Poles, Austrians, French, and other Europeans were against the Jews. Hey, bad things happen whenever there are human beings around. Whatever happened to "never again?" A totally empty phrase if there ever was one. We wouldn't want to insult our great allies, the Turkish people, by calling attention to the indisputable fact that they eliminated more then 1,000,000 people just because they were Christians and culturally different. This book is disappointingly weak.
710864
The book was just a mindless collection of stories of people from the old days. The ridiculous thing is that the hardships that supposedly shaped their characters were self-inflicted based on the belief that people do not deserve much. This is totally not true in today's world. Instead of reading this book and thinking that hardships are to be appreciated, I would rather think of what hardships are created by my dumb mind based on old conditionings, and life a free and happy life :)  I did not like this book.
3301802
This book was a competent story, no more. I don't know about other 'romance' readers, but I hate novels which start out with the hero swiving his lewd mistress. Even worse, he goes on to complain he hasn't had a wench for a whole week, and says to the heroine on their wedding night,"If I had had known virgins were like this I would have had one long ago." Talk about crass. He is like a barbarian. Rose is feisty and the only thing that redeems the book. Veronica the mistress is a pain, and Dominic too stupid in his dealings with her. But because he does not care about anyone'ss feelings but his own, he ignores the strife even though he wounds Rose badly in the process. The whole kidnap and rose trapped in her uncles castle was slapstick and silly. The endless background wittering about bad old King John  and the Magna Carta was way too dull. When they couple finaly say they are in love with each other, well,  most of us could not have cared less.  Apart from some varied positions and word you would  not use in front of your granny, this book was not in the least sexy. Where is the sensual detail, the smell, taste, feel of falling in love, not just putting up with each other because of proximity?
3166497
My enjoyment of a book requires a flow and "truthiness" of the human interactions to help the dramatic, ridiculous parts go down smoothly.
This book does not have it. The protagonist, "Lord" Hawke, is at turns ridiculously emotional and impulsive, and/or impeccably composed and cultured. Often this will occur in the same paragraph, with sudden rages and deep hates expressed frequently enough to become as laughable as the smooth interaction with royalty and elite soldiery becomes. All this from a thirty-something blueblood hardcase with sixty years of experience and self assurance.

I plowed (ploughed?) through this anglophile excrescence in grim determination to get some value from my purchase. In vain. Meh.