Steal the Dragon and When Demons Walk by Patricia Briggs

While I like Briggs’s Mercy Thompson books (and they’re how I “met” her) so far I prefer her high fantasy books to her urban fantasy ones.  These two books are loosely connected…they’re set in the same world, but in different countries and some time apart (I’d guess a few hundred years, myself…there’s one character in Demon that shares the same name and position as one in Dragon, but it’s possible that it’s a name several in the position have adopted over the years.)

Steal the Dragon is about an escaped slave, Rialla, who escaped to a mercenary country and is given an opportunity to help eliminate slavery in her homeland by protecting a noble promoting a marriage between the royal houses of that country and another where slavery is outlawed, where the elimination of slavery is a stipulation for the alliance.  There’s a subplot where her former master’s son has become the prophet of another religion, Altis, determined to conquer the world and convert it to Altis.  When Demons Walk is set some time later in another part of the world (though the mercenary country, Sianim, is mentioned as if it were a relatively close country…the current Prophet of Altis has the same name as the one in Dragon, but it isn’t made clear whether or not it’s the same man) in a country where Altis’s followers took over 10 years earlier.  The heroine, Shamera, is the daughter of a nobleman who was killed during the takeover and has been living as a thief ever since, and is hired by the ruling representative of Altis (who isn’t fully aware of her real identity) to pose as his mistress to help investigate the mysterious deaths of several noblemen in recent months.

While both books sound like they’d be fairly heavy on politics(and there are some) the really aren’t.  Both are pretty straightforward fantasy adventures with a side of romance with (unlike so many fantasy novels) no illusions of being anything else, and, for fantasy novels, both had pretty decent mysteries.  Even though they’re connected, the books can be read wholly independent of each other (I understand there’s a third book, Masques, set in the same world, but it’s out of print as far as I know.)  I liked both quite a bit, though not quite as much as the two Raven books.  As a point of amusement, neither heroine would be caught dead doing what they’re doing in the outfits they are on the covers…they have too much common sense.

Steal the Dragon and When Demons Walk by Patricia Briggs

While I like Briggs’s Mercy Thompson books (and they’re how I “met” her) so far I prefer her high fantasy books to her urban fantasy ones.  These two books are loosely connected…they’re set in the same world, but in different countries and some time apart (I’d guess a few hundred years, myself…there’s one character in Demon that shares the same name and position as one in Dragon, but it’s possible that it’s a name several in the position have adopted over the years.)

Steal the Dragon is about an escaped slave, Rialla, who escaped to a mercenary country and is given an opportunity to help eliminate slavery in her homeland by protecting a noble promoting a marriage between the royal houses of that country and another where slavery is outlawed, where the elimination of slavery is a stipulation for the alliance.  There’s a subplot where her former master’s son has become the prophet of another religion, Altis, determined to conquer the world and convert it to Altis.  When Demons Walk is set some time later in another part of the world (though the mercenary country, Sianim, is mentioned as if it were a relatively close country…the current Prophet of Altis has the same name as the one in Dragon, but it isn’t made clear whether or not it’s the same man) in a country where Altis’s followers took over 10 years earlier.  The heroine, Shamera, is the daughter of a nobleman who was killed during the takeover and has been living as a thief ever since, and is hired by the ruling representative of Altis (who isn’t fully aware of her real identity) to pose as his mistress to help investigate the mysterious deaths of several noblemen in recent months.

While both books sound like they’d be fairly heavy on politics(and there are some) the really aren’t.  Both are pretty straightforward fantasy adventures with a side of romance with (unlike so many fantasy novels) no illusions of being anything else, and, for fantasy novels, both had pretty decent mysteries.  Even though they’re connected, the books can be read wholly independent of each other (I understand there’s a third book, Masques, set in the same world, but it’s out of print as far as I know.)  I liked both quite a bit, though not quite as much as the two Raven books.  As a point of amusement, neither heroine would be caught dead doing what they’re doing in the outfits they are on the covers…they have too much common sense.

more Face to Fate vids

So, in my other post, 

dangermousie commented that she didn't think Derek Kwok was hot enough, so I bring vids of the show of Raymond Lam, who, while I haven't seen him in anything yet(this will be my first) I am assured that he's gods of hot for TVB.

 

( vids )

more Face to Fate vids

So, in my other post, 

dangermousie commented that she didn't think Derek Kwok was hot enough, so I bring vids of the show of Raymond Lam, who, while I haven't seen him in anything yet(this will be my first) I am assured that he's gods of hot for TVB.

 

( vids )