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I have since finished Sun Sword and I found it as lacking as the rest of you. Mostly because when I first encountered The Dominion in the first 3 House War books, I found them insufferable and the culture there annoying. I cared SO much more for what happened in the North and the Empire VS the demons…but the fist two books in Sun Sword gave me people to root for and some interesting events…but what it devolves into is a whole ass book about the Voyani (yawn), a whole ass book about the lead up to the war from the Dominion/Voyani perspective, and then a whole ass book that continues to lead up to the war within out from Northern characters…if I’m honest, it’s 6 books with barely 3 books of progression…and the best stuff is the initial betrayal of Tor Leone (book 1), and the contest where the Heir (Valadan) survives (book 2), and after that its just a lead up to a war where the demons split their forces anyways, some internal strife and then the war where things don’t really happen as you expect…it was a deeply unsatisfying ending to that story…but again I was never as invested in Sun Sword as I was in House War 1-3….i don’t care about the south, the Annagarians in Averalaan are treated as backwards anti-woman weirdos and I’m glad they are as that’s the culture they offer and I don’t like it.
I want to read about the North, the empire, breodalan, jewel and her Den (all of whom I watched her slowly assemble with their individual personalities), the other Seers, the mages, flying cats (yes)…the last 3 SunSword books felt like slog worthy WOT books…and after all that I feel like I never should have stopped House War to read them….theres some pertinent overall info, but for the most part I feel like the summaries West released to catch ppl up to House War 4 (SKIRMISH) do a fine job.
In that vein, I leapt back into House War years after I left it, and I’m about 200pgs into SKIRMISH, and man what a joy to be back in the series that sold me on West…it’s worth remembering that Sun Sword began in the 90’s and finished in the early 2000’s…House War wasn’t written till 2007, Wests writing, while still verbose is not nearly as scatterbrained as it was in Sun Sword, the cast is tighter, there is a lot less nonsense with 47 similar titles and cultural actions for every character like in the south. Much more straightforward quasi medieval fantasy…flying cats…I dunno…Jewels Den feels earned in a way that the Sun sword books aren’t. I know some of those southern characters will appear going forward, but if I’m really honest I’m glad to be done with the Sun sword as a side trip from the world House War introduced me to.
Anyways, I’ll update this thread as I go. Not sure if anyone else will ever read the House War books who read and tired of the Sun Sword series…but if you don’t want to catch those up, West posted a 4 part summary of the events in Sun sword one her website for people who didn’t want to read it and only wanted House War.
This post has been edited by QuickTidal: Today, 07:05 PM
