Friday, February 20, 2015

New review of The Valley of Thorns (v.3, The Labors of Ki'shto'ba Huge-Head)

Current cover
Alternate cover, not used
Adam Walker, one of my best supporters, favored me with another great 5-star review, this time of The Valley of Thorns.  Here it is!














This third installment in the Labors of Ki'shto'ba Huge Head series continues with the Herculean epic motif, but like the previous volume, which added in elements of the Beowulf, this volume adds elements of the Medieval French poem, the Song of Roland. Ms. Taylor, once again pulls off a wonderfully entertaining tale, blending elements of two Human stories which have endured for centuries while transposing and transmuting them into a form completely suited to her extraterrestrial termite heroes. Though much shorter than some of the other volumes in this series, this one manages to pack in all the elements I have loved in previous volumes--humorous asides, the snarky interplay between the narrator and his scribe, the machinations of the little worker Za'dut, and the interplay of the various friendships among the Companions--but this volume manages to add a few more elements--an epic list naming the warriors and their deeds before the great battle, betrayal, madness and vengeance, and regret and loss. Ms. Taylor managed to make me cry over a fictional termite, a termite for heaven's sake! I have enjoyed all the volumes of the Labors thus far, but I believe this is the best one yet!

See all the Goodreads reviews for the book here.

And of course you can buy all my books at Amazon
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