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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN num: 9780553586688
ISBN number: 0553586688
Label: Spectra
Manufacturer: Spectra
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 576
Printing Date: March 30, 2004
Publishing house: Spectra
Release Date: March 30, 2004
Sale Popularity Level: 17184
Studio: Spectra
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Product Description:
On the world Ranadon there is no night as both suns shine brightly. The intervention of Belagren, High Priestess of the Shadowdancers, and the sacrifice of a child of royal blood, has banished the Age of Shadows from the skies. Belagren's position is unquestioned . . . until circumstances begin to tip political rivalries into a deadlier game altogether.
A volcanic eruption rocks the seas separating the Kingdom of Dhevyn and the mainland Kingdom of Senet, and a mysterious sailour is shipwrecked on the island of Elcast. Badly wounded, his arrival stirs up old hatreds and unravels old secrets. His presence is enough to even bring Antonov, the powerful Lion of Senet, to the island and fear to the Keep of the Duke of Elcast.
A strong friendship develops between Dirk, second son of the Duke, and Kirshov Latanya, second son of the Lion of Senet. But will they, and their friendship, survive the chain of events set in motion by the ambitions of the ruthless High Priestess of the Shadowdancers and the domineering Lion of Senet?
This very first book of the Second Sons Trilogy establishes Jennifer Fallon as one of the most unique voices in fantasy fiction, as she creates full characters, and takes intelligent plotting to a whole new level in order to establish unparalleled complexity and tension.?
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Rated by buyers -
You have to like the idea for this book. A world with two suns, where every now and then one sun will duck behind the other and throw the whole world off for a bit, and whoever can figure out when that will happen, can control civilization. In this case, "civilization" refers to the usual fantasy book world semi-medieval society, but one where basic math skills are in very short supply. Therefore, there's this group of people who have co-opted their own religious cult based upon knowing when one of the suns will disappear.
Enter "Our Hero". Is he a magnificient warrior felling villians by the hundreds with a huge sword? No, he is not. Is he a fantastic wizard, learning new magic and teaching people how to make nightlights for when it gets dark? No, he is not. Is he a disgruntled youth, with a secret past who must find his way amongst a bunch of evil people who want to use his special abilities for their own ends? Why, yes he is!! You knew there was a typical fantasy story in there somewhere, right? Except in this case, the "special abilities" mean he is really good at math. That's right, mathematics.
I thought this was a great idea for a story. Unfortunately, the kid never really does any math in this book. In fact, he really doesn't do much of anything except talk. Actually, no one in this book does anything except talk. Pretty much the whole book is dialogue. There is literally NO action in this novel, which is quite an achievement, actually. And, you know what? It's interesting dialogue. The story moves along at a decent pace and the hero, such as he is, uses his intelligence in other ways besides solving math problems. It's kind of a fun read, and probably the best of the three. Certainly, Ms. Fallon must be complimented for sticking to a trilogy format for this series, because with all the talking, she could easily have gone all Robert Jordan on us and kept the whole thing going.
As is often the case with books like this, the most interesting character is the bad guy, who in this case is the actual "Lion of Senet". The dialogue between Dirk and the Lion (who has a Russian name, which is pretty cool) is the most interesting in the book. The only fault I have is that the title character is extremely intelligent and still believes the hokey religion, even when he had been shown the truth earlier. This did not make a whole lot sense, but one must suspend some common sense when reading books like this or you'll never find you like. And while I did not enjoy this book as much as I enjoy Robin Hobb's or Scott Bakker's works, it still was a fun read and worth the money.
In the middle of all that talking, no one bothered to explain why the guy is called "The Lion of Senet", when there are clearly no lions anywhere on this planet. Oh well.
Rated by buyers 
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This whole Second Sons trilogy was like ice cream for me. Once I opened them they were done.I loved this whole series. The only bad thing about these books was that I finished them. These three books were impossible to put down. I really was sad to finish the adventure. There are so many twists and surprises that I don't want to give anything away but do yourself a favor and pickup all three books. These are a must read for all fantasy fans. My favorite authors are Terry Brooks, Terry Goodkind, George R.R. Martin, and J.R.R.Tolkien. After reading this series I have to add Jennifer Fallon to this list. I can't wait to explore some of her other books.
Rated by buyers 
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First this book , like many reviewers said , is no fantasy .
It is a story of an alternative antic world with 2 suns .
If it was not for the 2 suns , it could have been a slightly modified history of punic wars (Carthago against Rome) .
In itself it is not a sin to write a book that was for some strange reason labelled fantasy , it is only that it doesn't belong there and a reader who was looking for a high level fantasy genre litterature (aka Erikson , Martin , Donaldson , Williams etc) may feel slightly cheated .
Now that it has been clarified what this book is not , what is it ?
It is a variation on religious intolerance that misuses scientifical truths to set up and strengthen its power .
The tools are ignorance , violence , manipulation and faith .
Thus we get a rather straightforward simple plot with characters representing archetypes .
We get Belagren , the Priestess who knows the truth and is obsessed only by 2 issues - prevent anybody from knowing this truth and exert a power as absolute as possible .
We get the Lion of Senet who is a fanatical believer in the Godess and the real wielder of the absolute power .
We get Dirk who is (supposed) a genious and has his doubts both about the religious explanation of the disappearance of one sun (the Dark Age)and about the legitimity of the Lion of Senet's rule .
We get Marqel who is the firm believer of the theory that a goal justifies the use of any means and is also out after power .
And we get a number of secondary characters (Dirk's mother , Alenor , Tia ...) who are archetypes of more or less active resistants to Senet's occupation of their country .
The rest is then obvious - Belagren will try to manupulate the Lion , Marqel will try to manipulate Belagren , the Lion will kill and torture anybody who opposes him and Dirk will try to survive in this environment where dangers lurk on every side and to find the truth about the suns .
Not badly written but not exceptional either .
For me worth 2,5 stars but as this exactly average rating is not possible , I round down because I was at no moment really surprised or interested by this too easily foreseeable story .
It is also for this reason that I didn't buy the sequels that are surely only more of the same .
Rated by buyers -
Very good author. I will read all of her books. I am already through the second book and working on the 3rd of this trilogy. It started a little slow, but it is riveting how in depth the plot has become as I've moved into the second and third book. Definitely recommend this trilogy.
Rated by buyers -
Normally, when I finish a novel, it is never hard to say "Okay, 2 stars" or "Wow, 5 stars" or anything else along those lines. However, Lion of Senet was incredibly hard to place because while it rocketed off the enjoyment scale, it was lacking in some other sections of my grading criteria.
Usually my five-star books are not only keeping me up at very late hours, but also literarily great. In fact, in most books that I rate poorly, the quality of the writing keeps me from enjoying the story. Lion of Senet was not like most books though. I swear on a copy of LOTR, the story had me breathing, sleeping, eating Lion of Senet. When I finished it, I launched on here to Amazon to read up on the sequel. I stayed up to 4 reading this impossible-to-put down novel. I do not say that often.
On normal circumstances, 4 am is five-star quality (2 am is 4 stars!) Yet throughout those blissful hours, a variety of issues irked me enough to give this book only 4 stars. Some of them were simply pet peeves of mine, but Ms. Fallon has one big ugly flaw in her writing: she cannot make characters act/sound their age.
Her adult characters are fantastic. Incredible. Realistic. Sadly, most of the main characters are, well, teenagers, and Ms. Fallon I'm afraid makes all of them (so therefore not a character flaw of one) sound easily three years younger than they really are.
The worst of it is in her two youngest important characters: Eryk and Mellie. They are both 13 and act and sound as if they were 9. This kept annoying me the entire read. Until I was actually told that Eryk and Mellie were indeed 13, I believed they were 8 and 9 and couldn't get the image out of my head. There was not a signal scrap of information to back up their age, and they weren't the only ones who suffered from this. Dirk only seemed his age because he was supposed to seem older than he really was, meaning that he was supposed to appear 17 when he is really 15. Tia (the very first character you meet) is probably the only one who came across (of the teenage characters) as her given age.
That matter out of the way, here are a few pet-peevish occurrences throughout The Lion of Senet:
Modern dialogue, phrasing, and clichés: I do not know what role they play in a science fiction fantasy novel.
Let-the-reader-figure-it-out-on-their-own: At first, I really liked this part of Ms. Fallon's style. She doesn't pile you with information and doesn't leave it out. She also doesn't spell everything out, which I like. I enjoy using my brain while reading to connect information and draw my own conclusions. Sometimes she took it too far, however, and her clever style got in the way. I read half the book not knowing if Dirk was 15 or 16, minor, but annoying (read and you'll see why.)
Portrayal of evil: This is another thing authors commonly annoy me with. They simply toss the word 'evil' into the mix and give me a few things to back it up. Yes, those things are very corrupted, twisted, and wrong, but still a long way from evil. Evil is like hate. Both are words that should not be used lightly, and Ms. Fallon does add a few 'evils' in the mix in a rather preachy way.
You are probably reading this review and wondering how this novel only got 4 stars when those four things were the only bad dirt I could dig up off the top of my head. Well, if the story had not been so gripping, captivating, and downright amazing, those four things would have landed this novel at 2 or 3 stars...
Do not get me wrong, though. I'm harsh when it comes to rating novels, so a four in my book is about a 6 in the average reviewer's. This novel was one of my best purchases in who knows how long and I cannot wait to receive the sequel. (Just a few more days!)
DQ
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