Audiobook12 hours
Lord of Mountains
Written by S.M. Stirling
Narrated by Todd McLaren
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
()
About this audiobook
Rudi Mackenize, now Artos the First, High King of Montival, and his allies have won several key battles against the Church Universal and Triumphant. But still the war rages on, taking countless lives, ravaging the land once known as the United States of America. Artos and his Queen, Mathilda, must unite the realms into a single kingdom to ensure a lasting peace.If the leaders of the Changed world are to accept Artos as their ruler, he will need to undertake a quest to the Lake at the Heart of the Mountains and take part in a crowning ceremony-a ceremony binding him to his people, his ancestors, and his land. Then, once he has secured his place and allegiances, Artos can go forward and lead his forces to the heart of the enemy's territory . . .
Author
S.M. Stirling
A well-regarded author of alternate history science-fiction novels, S.M. Stirling has written more than twenty-five books, including acclaimed collaborations with Anne McCaffrey, Jerry Pournelle, and David Drake. His most recent novels are T2: Infiltrator, The Peshawar Lancers, and the Island in the Sea of Time trilogy.
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Titles in the series (23)
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Reviews for Lord of Mountains
Rating: 3.6875000525000003 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
80 ratings8 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is one of 2 long series I've been reading sporadically for years now, and with each I wonder why I continue as I read the next book. (The other one is Weber's "Safehaven" series.)It's not that they're bad books, although both have depths of minutia that frustrate me- in this series it's the detailed military manuvers described thoroughly but without a map of the battlefield. I find such hard to follow, even with good maps; without such, I am utterly lost and any cleverness of strategy and implementation is lost on me. This makes it a boring slog to read.And this book was mostly that.There's also somethinglacking in the characters in both series, and it seems to be the same thing in each. Personalities, maybe? apart from Known Quirks, which do not often lead to someone who reads like a real person. For example, ALL the Good Guys seem to agree on pretty much everything, and cheerfully participate in whatever the plot requires, with NO internal scheming, backbiting, ambitions, etc. I really cannot envision a bunch of powerful men and women, many of whom got their positions by scheming and dirty tricks, all of a sudden becoming all noble once they join the Good Guys; leopards tend to stay spotted!Also, Mathilda just does not work for me. The only daughter of 2 reigning psychopaths, raised mostly in a violent court full of intrigue... and she grows up a Nice Catholic Girl, and that's about the only character she has (even though she is also a fearsome warrior).This particular volume in the series did not exactly entice me to read more, either, seeing that- apart from the Big Battle that took up most of the pages- nothing much happened- and even the Big Battle did not resolve anything except to delay such resolution.I'm not quite at the point of taking this series off my Paperback Swap wish list, but I'm getting close.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cutter War has finally begun, but seems really rushed--with no great build-up. There's tension & suspence, but no surprises. What saves the book is Chap.16--I had to read it twice, it was so good: the supernatural elements take the foreground. Meanwhile, the Cutter War has not ended.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5All filler, no killer. Literally. Could have been three chapters. I only read this because I'm stubborn and I just want this to end.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I was really looking forward to reading this book, but I have to admit I was disappointed.The first weakness I found was directly a result of it being the ninth book in a series (or third or sixth or twelfth, depending on which related books you include). There's a lot of backstory to the characters, some of whom readers have been following over a 25-year story arc. But I found the exposition related to the backstory to be handled awkwardly. I didn't find the characters' conversations on these story points convincing. I kept thinking, yeah, I know that, not completely relevant, can we have some more story, please?The second problem is more one of my personal taste. Most of the book (or at least, it felt like most of the book to me) is an extremely detailed description of a very large and complex battle. I'm really not interested in battles. That may be because I don't visualize battle action very well, so I find myself skimming battle sections, which makes it make even less sense to me. Maybe the problem, for me, is that the battles felt like all description and no plot, much like the tortuous backstory exposition. I felt obliged to pay some attention just so I could keep track of which of my favorite characters were injured or killed or unscathed, but other than that, I just wanted to move on to something resembling real story or plot.I found myself, too, uncomfortable with the rehabilitation of certain characters in this and the preceding novel in the series. Stirling spent a lot of time in a lot of books setting up certain characters as not very nice people, but now they're not so bad after all and we're, I guess, supposed to be ok with them. Now, I know that GRR Martin is a prime example of playing with our expectations on that score, with bad guys doing good things and good guys doing bad things, but Martin does that consistently through a whole long series rather than inserting a presto change-o mellowing near the end. I wasn't convinced, and felt annoyed.Finally, it was the way the book ended. It didn't feel like it ended, it felt like it just stopped. It appears that this is the last book in the series (I haven't seen any announcements of future volumes) so I expected things to feel a bit more wrapped up. But it just sort of stopped, despite a lot of foreshadowing thrown in. As I got down to fewer and fewer pages, I kept thinking, what…wait…that's it?So, I was not happy. The book is on the short side compared to other books in the series, most of it was elaborate description that didn't really move the story forward, and then…it stopped.[edited to add: Apparently there are at least two more series books in the works. However, the inherent weaknesses of this volume on its own still stand.]
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Arrrrggh. That's my review in a nutshell.
This is book number 9 in this series, book 6 in the Rudi-centered series. It is entirely masturbatory on Stirling's part, gah. A minimum of four times he told me that Eric and Signe are fraternal twins in their mid-forties. Yes, yes. I know. Because I read the first 8 books in which Signe and Eric are main characters- and oddly enough, they were twins in all those books too.
Mostly what happens in this book is that each character from the earlier books walks on, recounts his or her entire backstory, and walks off. There is a battle, but most of the battle scenes involve two characters meeting, recounting their backstories, and waving a sword around.
There is no reason for this book. For all it advances the series, it could easily be a chapter or two in the previous book.
But I will continue to read these, I think. I'm too invested in the characters to stop. I just wish Stirling would wrap it up already. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Slightly better than the last one in the series, but still nothing much memorable. A big fight with not really any interesting tactics or surprises.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An excellent book in an outstanding series.The battle preparations and the battle itself are done in compelling and action filled detail.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The next Emberverse book finally gets us to the battle we have been building towards. The battle is the core of the novel and well worth waiting for. Operational detail, tactical snippets, star scenes for our favorite characters, even a pair of very well done death scenes [no spoilers, read the book]. However what makes the series so wonderful is the world the author builds. The vignette of the two squires and the farm girls gives a view of a high fantasy universe that is seldom seen. The entire Emberverse is a wonderful brew of high medieval, 19th century frontier Anglosphere and some very modern concepts of staff work and state craft. Even more fun for the reader is the Changelings-eye-view of the world we live in. This is also the book where the magical and mystical come fully into their own. Add in the usual Stirling travel description and food porn plus the layering of ground work for future books [the world goes on and the players will plot for advantage and power]. The pity is the system does not allow a sixth star.