142 réponses à ce sujet

[PhroXenGold]

Well, they needed some more definitive resolution because they didn't know if they would get a sequel. I think it would have been better if the Blight had already been in progress for some time in DAO, and we hit the tail end of it.

 

Meh, I don't think it needed "definite resolution" even if there wasn't a sequel. That's not to say a complete cliffhanger ending would've been the right way, but solving the immediate issue - the darkspawn attack on Ferelden - while leaving the greater one - the Blight - would've been fine even if that was where the DA series ended.

[OdanUrr]

Is there a reason why I should/n't read this book? Without getting into spoiler territory, what are your thoughts?

 

Thanks.

[themageguy]

Is there a reason why I should/n't read this book? Without getting into spoiler territory, what are your thoughts?

Thanks.

I really enjoyed the book. It gives you a much greater picture of the wardens, and the costs of war against the darkspawn.

It also gave me a new view on mages, blood magic and Templars.

Definitely give it a read. If you're a dragon age fan you will love it

[thebatmanreborn]

So far i like the book. The writing style is most certainly better than the one from previous books, done by game writers. 
This is not supposed to be an insult to the previous authors, but it just goes to show that writing a book and writing the script for a game are two very different things that require different skills.
At least in the beginning i had some problems how the story was thought out. I will try to avoid spoilers but a character in the book finds something pretty rare very early in the book. And she does it on her very first day, pretty much the first place were she looks even though she is searching for something entirely different. 
I don't have a problem with things happening by chance in stories, but this was a bit too much. It's gets worse because after that severall months go by in the book without much happening. It wouldn't have been too hard to just describe how she stumbles unto the thing after a few weeks and it would have made things a lot more believable.

This is very true about the writing skill sets. I may have to check this book out. I've heard nothing but great things.

[Amaror]

Is there a reason why I should/n't read this book? Without getting into spoiler territory, what are your thoughts?

 

Thanks.

 

It's a decent book. The writing is pretty good, but i have to say that the characters and the story are just not THAT engaging to be good. 

The book doesn't really let itself take some time. It just jumps from storypoint to storypoint, without giving us any time with the characters to get to know them.

I have read about a third of the book and i can't really think about much of a personality of the main character. 

 

But as i said it's decent. Not good, but decent. I don't regret my purchase, it was dirt cheap for the kindle. 

Make of that what you will.

[OdanUrr]

It's a decent book. The writing is pretty good, but i have to say that the characters and the story are just not THAT engaging to be good. 

The book doesn't really let itself take some time. It just jumps from storypoint to storypoint, without giving us any time with the characters to get to know them.

I have read about a third of the book and i can't really think about much of a personality of the main character. 

 

But as i said it's decent. Not good, but decent. I don't regret my purchase, it was dirt cheap for the kindle. 

Make of that what you will.

 

Hmm... If the main character isn't relatable or likeable at some level, that could be a problem for me. I'll have to check Goodreads/Amazon for some reviews.

[thedancingdruid]

The main character of The Last Flight is really the 4th Blight, and I thought the author (yeah, Philly girl, sorry shameless plug for a homie) nailed the darkness, fear, dread and sometimes hopeless feeling the wardens endure as a result.

 

Garahel's characterization brought much needed relief, in my opinion, and, as far as Isseya, I also disagree. Being in that situation after years of fighting it was very easy to feel the pain of the decisions she has to make to secure Thedas' survival.

 

it's a great read, I devoured it in about 5 hours, yum.

[Heimdall]

Hmm... If the main character isn't relatable or likeable at some level, that could be a problem for me. I'll have to check Goodreads/Amazon for some reviews.

That depends. I didn't think much of the 9:42 Dragon scenes or the main character there. Isseya was better, but while she was key to the fate of the Griffins, ultimately she was more of a narrator for the events of the Fourth Blight that she witnessed. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone not already into Dragon Age lore, but it is quite interesting on that front.

[ElvaliaRavenHart]

@ JeffZero:  cancel your pre-order with Amazon and pick it up through Barnes & Noble.  I pre-ordered Masked Empire and Amazon never did ship it, I finally cancelled the order after a month and got the book within a few days from B&N.   B&N shipped "Last Flight" right on time and I got my copy yesterday and finished it this morning.
 
@PhroXenGold:  The 5th blight ended early because all our Warden's are bad asses! 
 
For the most part the book was good, and a short read.   Those who really enjoy the lore of Thedas will enjoy this.

[TheJediSaint]

Well, I just finished.  It's a good book.  Dark verging on bleak at times.

 

Makes me glad my warden got the easy Blight. 

[Amaror]

Hmm... If the main character isn't relatable or likeable at some level, that could be a problem for me. I'll have to check Goodreads/Amazon for some reviews.

 

Well ...

There are basically 2 main characters. One of them in the present and one of them in the past.

The one in the present doesn't really seem to have a character. She does stuff but i couldn't really come up with any describing character trait. 

The one in the past has some character but not much and seems to have some rather weird opinions.

The side characters are also not well written. There's one character that is described as being very charismatic and funny, yet i still haven't read about him doing anything charismatic or funny.

 

I will describe another scene to you, which irked me especially. Little Spoilers ahead. The character of the past lives during the 4th blight. There she encounters another character, who writes all sort of letters to use the connections of that person to assemble troops and supplies for the fight against the darkspawn. The past main character then gets upset about that being "politics". This irks me, because people generally don't decry something as "politics" just because it is political, but because something bad is being done and politics get used as a excuse to do it.

This isn't the case here. The other person isn't conscripting peasents or something, she just writes letters to assemble allready existing military. 

Not much later the main past character yells at an old grandmother, that she better be ready to pick up a weapon and fight the darkspawn.

[KC_Prototype]

So far I think it's a good book and does a good job of hinting a DAI as well as DAO and DA2. There's only one inconsistency so far. My biggest gripe about it is that we don't really spend much time in the present to engage with the main characters.

[KC_Prototype]

That depends. I didn't think much of the 9:42 Dragon scenes or the main character there. Isseya was better, but while she was key to the fate of the Griffins, ultimately she was more of a narrator for the events of the Fourth Blight that she witnessed. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone not already into Dragon Age lore, but it is quite interesting on that front.

*9:41

[Browneye_Vamp84]

I love animals.  I do volunteer work at a shelter.  Seeing what was happening with the griffins really made it hard for me to read.  I cried.  I was so angry I had to put the book down for a couple hours.  Seeing how it ended really tugged at my heart. 

 

I didn't feel like I connected with the characters real well, just enough to finish the books.  Having the  creatures in made it easier.  

 

A lot of mages in this, but the mage templar war is happening, so yea.  

 

I'd love to have a griffin as a personal companion, but I'm sure it won't happen.  I'd like to see this being mentioned in the upcoming game, but I'll keep my hopes to a minimum. 

[Kantr]

So far I think it's a good book and does a good job of hinting a DAI as well as DAO and DA2. There's only one inconsistency so far. My biggest gripe about it is that we don't really spend much time in the present to engage with the main characters.

what was the inconsistency?

I think it worked well as it was, gave an interesting insight into the joining

[KC_Prototype]

Well ...
There are basically 2 main characters. One of them in the present and one of them in the past.
The one in the present doesn't really seem to have a character. She does stuff but i couldn't really come up with any describing character trait. 
The one in the past has some character but not much and seems to have some rather weird opinions.
The side characters are also not well written. There's one character that is described as being very charismatic and funny, yet i still haven't read about him doing anything charismatic or funny.
 
I will describe another scene to you, which irked me especially. Little Spoilers ahead. The character of the past lives during the 4th blight. There she encounters another character, who writes all sort of letters to use the connections of that person to assemble troops and supplies for the fight against the darkspawn. The past main character then gets upset about that being "politics". This irks me, because people generally don't decry something as "politics" just because it is political, but because something bad is being done and politics get used as a excuse to do it.
This isn't the case here. The other person isn't conscripting peasents or something, she just writes letters to assemble allready existing military. 
Not much later the main past character yells at an old grandmother, that she better be ready to pick up a weapon and fight the darkspawn.

Isseya had character, but it felt like Valya's character mimicked Isseya's.

[KC_Prototype]

what was the inconsistency?
I think it worked well as it was, gave an interesting insight into the joining

when Garahvel said he once bedded a Qunari, The year was 5:12 Exalted, the Qunari didn't arrive on Thedas until 6:30 Steele.

[Kantr]

I dont think that her charcater mimicked Isseya's I do agree that she wasnt much

[Kantr]

when Garahvel said he once bedded a Qunari, The year was 5:12 Exalted, the Qunari didn't arrive on Thedas until 6:30 Steele.

The author did talk about it.

Thanks for the kind words, all.

I'm glad (and, to be perfectly honest, more than a little relieved) that you liked the book. I know the Bioware team was really concerned about bringing in another outside author after certain past events, and I think we were all holding our breath a little to see what the fan reception would be.
 
There are a couple of little things that might be perceived as iffy canon-wise, such as
 

Spoiler

at one point Qunari get name-dropped before they're supposed to have made contact with other civilizations

 
but in most cases those were intentional decisions, such as because
 

Spoiler

I wanted to use ogres (ogres are cool!), which meant that the Qunari could not be totally removed from the rest of the world, since you need to have Qunari to get ogres. When I started writing this book, I had not yet read the World of Thedas, so I didn't know about the darkspawn-slaughtered colony in the Korcari Wilds. That would have been a shortcut to the entire thing.

But, since I wasn't aware of that then, my reasoning went: a world that has high-speed aerial travel is a "smaller" world than one that doesn't, and a Grey Warden who just happens to fly overhead and spot one of those guys is probably going to be all "whoa, what is THAT?" and drop down to investigate. Therefore it would not be completely unreasonable to think that isolated contact might have been made once or twice, by that or other means, and that at least some Grey Warden scouts might be at least broadly aware of what Qunari are (if only to the limited extent of "hey, these guys are not darkspawn, we don't need to freak out about them even though they look kinda weird"). But, of course, that's not their primary focus, and it's also not hard to imagine that the few Wardens who maybe hypothetically did know about Qunari got wiped during the Fourth Blight, and then there are no more griffons so the possibility of accidental re-contact goes way down, and we get back to a world-state where nobody remembers what Qunari are until they invade.
 
However, at the same time, I didn't want to portray Qunari as being so common or widely known that one would actually make an on-screen appearance in Last Flight, because then there would clearly be a canon conflict. To split the difference, they only got a one-off mention in a throwaway line. I figured that would cover all my bases as to who knew what when and how there could be ogres in the Fourth Blight, as the readers who cared enough to worry about that kind of stuff would be able to make the connection, and everybody else would just skip past it.
 
But obviously I'm not actually all that confident that it worked, which is why I wrote this whole long spoiler explanation about it.

 
Also there are probably lots of mistakes that actually are mistakes. It's a complicated world, there's a lot of stuff to keep straight.
 
 
 
Thanks for the review! It's very fair and even-handed, and I'm grateful that you took the time to write it.
 
I figured that if anything people would think the end was too unrelentingly grim and miserable, so that part surprised me a bit. Usually I get comments going the other way, so that was an interesting change of pace!
 
As to your two questions:

Spoiler

1. I think that what is actually a primary danger very much depends on who you are and where your weaknesses lie. Blood magic has a whole host of potential risks and traps built into it, and not everybody is going to be equally susceptible to the same snares.
 
But yes, if you ask me, I think that there is probably a danger in assuming that because you've been given a lot of knowledge about something, you must have all the knowledge about that thing. It's sort of another hubris trap, which in my opinion is pretty appropriate for a gift that sometimes comes from pride demons.
 
2. I honestly don't know. Maybe it's a little weird to be reluctant about speculating on the choices and actions of characters that you made up, but... I don't know. It probably depends which Warden is making the call. Certainly Isseya would never have started that snowball rolling down the mountainside if she'd had any inkling what it was going to turn into. But another Grey Warden, who wasn't a griffon rider and didn't have the same emotional attachment to them, might have been more willing to make that sacrifice.

 

Plus Qunari (or Kossith) did go to thedas before. Thats why there are Ogres (although you have to wonder how long broodmothers live for

[ElvaliaRavenHart]

I love animals.  I do volunteer work at a shelter.  Seeing what was happening with the griffins really made it hard for me to read.  I cried.  I was so angry I had to put the book down for a couple hours.  Seeing how it ended really tugged at my heart. 

 

I didn't feel like I connected with the characters real well, just enough to finish the books.  Having the  creatures in made it easier.  

 

A lot of mages in this, but the mage templar war is happening, so yea.  

 

I'd love to have a griffin as a personal companion, but I'm sure it won't happen.  I'd like to see this being mentioned in the upcoming game, but I'll keep my hopes to a minimum. 

 

Yeah I agree, that was hard to read what happened to them.  

 

I didn't really care for the description of Weisshaupt and the entrance, I found that sort of lame in the beginning.  I was also under the impression the Anderfels was cold and icy and forest covered in some places. This book doesn't say this. I think Riordan did in DA:O and I might be wrong.  I haven't read those sections in my player walk through books in awhile. 

[KC_Prototype]

The author did talk about it.

Plus Qunari (or Kossith) did go to thedas before. Thats why there are Ogres (although you have to wonder how long broodmothers live for

Yeah but Kossith weren't Qunari so why would Garahvel even say the name? The first "Kossith" under the Qun landed on Thedas in 6:30 Steele. For Garahvel to make comment about a Qunari makes no sense.

[Kantr]

dont know. Perhaps he flew to Qun land.

 

ask the author about it?

[KC_Prototype]

Yeah I agree, that was hard to read what happened to them.  
 
I didn't really care for the description of Weisshaupt and the entrance, I found that sort of lame in the beginning.  I was also under the impression the Anderfels was cold and icy and forest covered in some places. This book doesn't say this. I think Riordan did in DA:O and I might be wrong.  I haven't read those sections in my player walk through books in awhile.

The book does when in the past.

[ElvaliaRavenHart]

So far I think it's a good book and does a good job of hinting a DAI as well as DAO and DA2. There's only one inconsistency so far. My biggest gripe about it is that we don't really spend much time in the present to engage with the main characters.

 

I agree, just a few drops on what is happening currently.  The characters in the present time weren't fleshed out enough.  The book did make me ask the ? how long does it take for a Griffon to mature?  This will be interesting in finding out. 

[ElvaliaRavenHart]

The book does when in the past.

 

I'll double check this then.  Thanks.