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Title: In Conquest Born (Daw Book Collectors) by C. S. Friedman ISBN: 0-7564-0043-0 Publisher: Daw Books Pub. Date: 07 November, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.74 (31 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: You *must* buy and read this book!
Comment: This book is, without a doubt, the finest piece of literature that I've ever read.
I'm not kidding.
The plot is air tight. The characters are so well thought out and developed over the course of the novel that you will find youself cheering out loud at their triumphs and groaning in anguish at their pains. You will almost feel their heartbeats as they travel through this book.
The aspect of this book that I was struck most by, however, and the reason you should buy it, is that over the course of the telling of the story, there are no bad guys... no great evil to be overcome, no shining beacons of goodness... There are just real, 3-dimensional people, shaped by their cultures to be what they are. Their interactions fit beautifully into the world that Friedman has created even when those interactions involve planetary destruction.
The novel is written in a series of short, seemingly unconnected episodes that can easily be read as short stories. Then, around page 300, you'll be hit with this ominous feeling that absolutely every word you've just been reading is vitally important to what might happen next. And in the 50 pages following that, you'll decide to start the book over...
Then you'll be gripped by every single phrase.
Buy this book... you won't regret it.
Rating: 5
Summary: Amazing book. Read it.
Comment: I can't say this is C. S. Friedman's best--I've found all of her novels to be equally outstanding!! This book is so different from any other science fiction novel I've read... Friedman has the most interesting way of introducing her main characters through the perspective of minor characters. Her world- and culture-building is excellent; the Braxin and Azean peoples are so well-defined I could believe they existed as I read the novel. But it doesn't read like a history text, no, Friedman manages to explain the story and people through remarks and ACTIONS, rather than the "here's a chapter devoted on the most utterly boring aspects of the society I have created let's see if you can read it without falling asleep" technique that some other authors seem to favour. This novel is just so different (with a VERY unpredictable plot--many twists that while surprising actually make sense if you think back), I reccommend it heartily to anyone who is tired of modern immitation mass-production science fiction. I also reccommend it to anyone else. This book is truly amazing, as is the rest of Friedman's work
Rating: 5
Summary: A Thin Battle-Line Between Love and Hate
Comment: Sometimes the one who understands you the most, devotes most of their thought to you, is the only person worthy of you, protects you from all outside harm, drives you to be the best
you can be, raises monuments in your honor, longs to have their arms around you, is the one whom you can directly credit as the main inspiration for all your success in life, and who reciprocates everything you feel about them isn't the one who loves you . . .
I read this book when it was first published, and knew right away that I'd be reading everything this woman ever published. This is a story of the binding power of hatred, a hatred that serves to temper and refine those who share it, making them better and greater than they would have been without it. Though the protagonists long for each other's destruction, both must acknowledge that without the other in opposition, they themselves would be weaker. It is a hate story, subtly toying with the truth that love and hate are not opposites--the opposite of both is apathy (a theme Friedman would later explore a bit more in her Coldfire Trilogy). But if apathy is the antonym of both love and hate, does that make them synonyms? Certainly not in essence, but in function, in application, they can appear very similar under the right circumstances. It is from this seeming dichotomy of hatred manifesting itself in ways similar to those in which love is manifested that In Conquest Born draws a fair amount of its appeal. Friedman plays their moments of direct interaction masterfully, like a series of snapshots from a romance--the first being a meeting of eyes across a crowded room, the second a twisted courtship ending with a binding oath, and the third . . . well the third plays with the idea of a physical interaction that Friedman doesn't even need to describe at that point, for she has built things to the point that the reader only demands one thing (and it's not what you may be thinking).
Though they are only face-to face in each others' presence three times in their lives, their relationship defines, builds, and changes each character, and spreads outward into their respective spheres of influence, forever changing and redefining the societies in which they live. And the story is as much, if not more, about those societies than about the vendetta itself. Filled with richly-developed characters on both sides, with internal conflicts and interactions with allies, enemies, and . . . others, the changes these worlds undergo reflect the sweeping changes affecting billions which can be wrought by the love--excuse me, the *hatred*--shared by only two people.
The only thing--the ONLY thing--negative I could possibly say about this book refers solely to the cover of the latest edition. When originally published, Michael Whelan's cover painting of the two antagonists standing at opposite ends of a table was so powerful that the then-unprecedented action was taken of releasing two cover editions of the book simultaneously--one forward, one reversed, so that one character was on the front of some copies, while the other was on the front of others (a tactic which would be repeated on the cover of her second book, The Madness Season, to reflect the dual nature of its main character). This with powerful subtlety only underscored the eternal opposition of these characters. The recent edition, altering the original painting so that both stand together on the cover completely loses that opposition. A minor criticism, to be sure.
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Title: The Madness Season by C.S. Friedman ISBN: 0886774446 Publisher: Daw Books Pub. Date: 01 November, 1991 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: This Alien Shore by C. S. Friedman ISBN: 0886777992 Publisher: Daw Books Pub. Date: 01 May, 2004 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: When True Night Falls (Coldfire Trilogy, Book 2) by C.S. Friedman ISBN: 0886776155 Publisher: Daw Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1994 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Crown of Shadows (The Coldfire Trilogy, Book 3) by C. S. Friedman ISBN: 0886777178 Publisher: Daw Books Pub. Date: 01 August, 1996 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Black Sun Rising (The Coldfire Trilogy, Book 1) by C.S. Friedman ISBN: 0886775272 Publisher: Daw Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1994 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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