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Title: Knight of the Black Rose
Series: Ravenloft #2
Author: James Lowder
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 324
Format: Digital Edition
| Synopsis: |
Lord Soth was the highest in the Order of the White Rose. He was brave, virtuous, courageous and was a paragon. Until he committed adultery with an elf maid, had his first wife killed and then in a paroxysm of jealous rage burned his castle down killing his elven wife and new born son. For hundreds of years Soth wandered the land of Krynn as the Black Knight, a cursed, powerful, undead being in the service of the dark goddess. Soth met a beautiful general and even though she died, Soth plotted to bring her back. His plans went awry when he and his seneschal were sucked into the alternate realm of Ravenloft.
Told of a portal that will let him escape, Soth attacks Count Strahd’s enemy, a vampire duke of another portion of Ravenloft. Surviving all attacks, Soth survives only to find the portal is a fake. It leads nowhere. He heads off into the mists to force his way out. The dark gods of Ravenloft present him with a choice, renounce his pride and return to Krynn once again as a warrior of Light, or hold on to his damnable pride and be the owner of the Red Rose, a new portion of Ravenloft. Soth damns himself and vows vengeance against one and all.
| My Thoughts: |
I had read a Forgotten Realms book by Lowder a while ago, the Ring of Winter and it did not impress me. Therefore I lowered my expectations, already pretty low from the first book, and I made the right choice.
The first book was about a noble sun-elf turned vampire but he was still a good guy fighting against Strahd’s machinations. In this book we have someone even worse than Strahd and I was hoping to see some anti-hero action from Strahd. Vampire versus Undead Power Knight. A clash of Dark Titans, powerful destructive magic unleashed across the land. Nope. Strahd is a manipulator and he doesn’t change. He gets Soth to do some dirty work for him instead of clashing with him.
Soth wasn’t bad for a villain. He’s powerful, motivated by pride, hate and lust and yet has never forgotten his origins as a Knight of the White Rose. Unfortunately, he’s also as flat as a pancake. He had a few instances to shine darkly but his power was wasted. I don’t know if I hope he returns as a nemesis to Strahd or not.
Considering that Ravenloft seems to grow at the whim of the unnamed dark gods’ whims, I have this feeling Ravenloft will soon be full up of ultra-powerful badguys, who do nothing. Somebody powerful needs to die and they need to die spectacularly. Killing off gypsies just doesn’t cut it.
★★★☆☆
Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road 
That cover is gold!
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It is, isn’t it? At least it is on point. Ring of Winter had a dinosaur and a guy in a loincloth I believe. Loincloths and Rings of Winter don’t jive in my mind 😀
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We can only hope for cover artists to actually read the book, let alone the title!
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I don’t do author interviews on my site (I’m too antagonistic against them as people to even consider it an option) but I would definitely consider doing a cover artist interview. That subject is of a lot of interest to me 🙂
I wonder how one goes about attracting the attention of a cover artist anyway?
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Should be quite easy via the publisher.
Antagonistic against authors as people? Isn’t that ironic for such a voracious reader like you?
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Nah, not ironic, just old fashioned. Authors just used to be names on the cover. Now w social media they get to show their readers what jerks they are as people.
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Yeah… no 😛 That cover is a good example of the merit of judging books by them – and your review only confirms this impression 😛
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So you don’t share Bormgan’s view of it being “pure gold”? 😀
This series is showing it’s Forgotten Realms roots in every jot and tittle, so at some point I’ll be dropping this. But not yet!
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Oh, I do 😛
When I read Krynn I have only the Dragonlance chronicles in mind – and that was an experience I’m loath to repeat… 😉 Even if the world in question has nothing to do with Dragolance – I guess I was scarred for life 😀
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I had no idea Ravenloft was shared with Dragonlance! I thought it was FR only. I’ve never read any Dragonlance, so I have no idea if I’m missing out or not. Doesn’t sound like it though 🙂
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It has some die-hard fans. It’s a D&D campaign,
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*accidentally hit send
… fabularized and for a large part quite nonsensical 😉 Better not to inquire too deeply, and I was quickly bored out of my mind due to overabundance of overused tropes, but at times it can be… moderately fun, with the right characters 😉 But since you’re already reading Ravenloft, you may risk a peek at Dragonlance – would definitely love to read your thoughts on it 😉
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Unless it is strictly worse than Forgotten Realms, chances are strong that at some point I’ll read a couple of books from it 🙂
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You may want to start at the Dragons (of different seasons) books then 😉 The first few weren’t that bad even if very (And I mean VERY) cliched 😉
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Gotcha.
Robert and his brother from readingovertheshoulder were going to do a dragonlance/chronicle read and I was looking forward to it. Sadly, they seem to have stopped posting and this time I suspect they’re gone from the blogosphere for good.
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Life happens. The longer we stick around the more we see the ephemeral side of blogosphere 😉 Maybe we could do a readalong of the first book of Chronicles together – two grumpy old men and Pollyanna 😂😂😂
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Not ruling a readalong out, but probably not until September or so…
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We’ll figure something out, in due time 😉 No rush definitely 😀
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I wish i grew up with the knowledge of more forgotten realms stuff. I knew d&d but we just never knew there were books like this out there😔
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I didn’t start in on forgotten realms until my mid-20’s but still, that IS over 15 years worth of me reading it 😀
Can’t say I recommend them as quality books at this time in life though.
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Im still going to do a read of the four waterdeep books i own some time
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Why’d you bother continuing with this series after the first one though? Sounds like something you could’ve passed on. 😮
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Honestly, because I’m a masochist AND I like having a lowbar book that I can whale away on. It also helps me enjoy the other books I read more.
I can tell I won’t make it through the whole series, I’ll give up in disgust before book 16, but until then, I’ll just wallow in the franchise fiction’ness of it all 😀
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Good that it helped to lower your expectations. Shame the villain was a little flat
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Par for the course I guess. Gotta keep everything mediocre 😉
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