{"id":388,"date":"2009-04-30T12:53:21","date_gmt":"2009-04-30T03:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fugutabetai.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/30\/esther-m-friesners-the-sword-of-mary-a-sequel\/"},"modified":"2009-04-30T12:53:21","modified_gmt":"2009-04-30T03:53:21","slug":"esther-m-friesners-the-sword-of-mary-a-sequel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fugutabetai.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/30\/esther-m-friesners-the-sword-of-mary-a-sequel\/","title":{"rendered":"Esther M. Friesner&#8217;s The Sword of Mary: A Sequel"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"floatleft\">\n<iframe src=\"http:\/\/rcm.amazon.com\/e\/cm?t=daveva-20&#038;o=1&#038;p=8&#038;l=as1&#038;asins=1565049365&#038;md=10FE9736YVPPT7A0FBG2&#038;fc1=000000&#038;IS2=1&#038;lt1=_blank&#038;m=amazon&#038;lc1=0000FF&#038;bc1=000000&#038;bg1=FFFFFF&#038;f=ifr\" style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" scrolling=\"no\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/fugutabetai.com\/?postid=384\">I posted earlier about the book Psalms of Herod<\/a>, and generally didn&#8217;t come away from it with a good impression.  The main detraction is that it is not a self-contained book.  It just ends, abruptly.  It was just by chance that I picked up the sequel, The Sword of Mary: A Sequel (at least the title makes that clear.)  I had heard good things about the two books on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tor.com\/\">tor.com<\/a> in the comments of some thread, and so I picked them up.  If you only have the first book though, I think you would be very disappointed.  It just ends, halfway through.  It would be like you started reading <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/061826051X?ie=UTF8&#038;tag=daveva-20&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=390957&#038;creativeASIN=061826051X\">The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, Part 1)<\/a><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=daveva-20&#038;l=as2&#038;o=1&#038;a=061826051X\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>and then that was it.  Over.  Frodo and Sam break off from the party and head to Mordor on their own with clearly nothing resolved and a lot left to happen.  But that is where it ends.  So be sure you pick up the second book if you do start this two book series.<\/p>\n<p><P\/><\/p>\n<p>That might be easier said than done though: it looks like it is a hard book to get your hands on.  I&#8217;m conflicted on these two books because they deal very seriously with sexuality, power, sexism, politics and the judiciary (more in the second book than the first) and religion as a foundation for social order.  These aren&#8217;t fluffy summer-reading topics, and a lot of the world described in the books is grim and downright depressing.  I think they are interesting in that it highlights some issues with blindly following through with tradition without thinking and analyzing it, but the two books seem a bit on the salacious side.  I have to admit though that I did enjoy the story and by the end was rooting for the (initially quite annoying) protagonist.  Friesner has also done a very nice job of world-building; she obviously put a lot of thought into the economics, politics, and control structures of her world.  She doesn&#8217;t go in depth into the history of her world, but it is hinted at, and I like how you get the feeling that there is the thought and complexity behind the world in the books. <\/p>\n<p><P\/><\/p>\n<p>The ending of Mary&#8217;s Sword is also a bit abrupt, but is satisfying.  I did enjoy the story though, and while I had a tough time getting into Psalms of Herod, The Sword of Mary picked up a lot quicker.  It should though, because it already had an <b>entire book<\/b> to set it up! <\/p>\n<p><P\/><\/p>\n<p>So, a mixed review.  If you invested time in Psalms of Herod though, you really should finish it out with The Sword of Mary.<\/p>\n<p><br clear=\"all\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I posted earlier about the book Psalms of Herod, and generally didn&#8217;t come away from it with a good impression. The main detraction is that it is not a self-contained book. It just ends, abruptly. It was just by chance that I picked up the sequel, The Sword of Mary: A Sequel (at least the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fugutabetai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fugutabetai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fugutabetai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fugutabetai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fugutabetai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fugutabetai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fugutabetai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fugutabetai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fugutabetai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}