Martin Scott (1)Reseñas
Autor de Thraxas [omnibus]
Para otros autores llamados Martin Scott, ver la página de desambiguación.
Martin Scott (1) se ha aliado con Martin Millar.
Reseñas
Title: Thraxas of Turai
Series: Thraxas #11
Author: Martin Scott
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 172
Words: 58.5K
Synopsis:
From the Publisher
Thraxas, perhaps the doughtiest warrior ever born within that city's walls, (as he describes himself) is almost home. The army led by Lisutaris reaches Turai, ready to retake their city. Thraxas begins the book in some trouble, having been flung in the stockade following a disreputable brawl, but will soon be back in action, investigating a politically awkward murder while making ready for battle. At his side is Makri, whose mathematical skills are called upon for some complicated sorcerous calculations designed to bring down the walls. There are dragons in the sky, hostile forces ahead, and, worst of all as far as Thraxas is concerned, a general beer shortage. When this is all over, Thraxas intends to spend the rest of his days sitting comfortably in his favourite tavern. But first, he has a city to retake.
My Thoughts:
I just re-read my review for the 10th Thraxas book (Thraxas and the Oracle) and most of the same issues apply here. This book ends with Thraxas being the first soldier back into Turai and then just ends. Scott is obviously leaving himself openings for more books but really, who is going to read any more of this series? I won't be.
Thraxas as drunken, bumbling Private Investigator just isn't funny any more. Even though it has been 3 years since I read book 10, it felt like it was just yesterday and that I hadn't had any break from the infantile behavior of Thraxas. He's moved from grouchy and curmudgeonly yet still amusing to just plain old annoying. I won't be reading any more Thraxas books.
At 175'ish pages, Scott could have written another 50 and wrapped the series up. At some point an author needs to accept that his creation has run its course and it's time to finish the story. Do yourself a favor Martin Scott/Milar, end the series and stop embarrassing yourself.
★★✬☆☆
Touted as something rather original and a winner of the World Fantasy Award, I kinda expected this to be rather heavier on humor-meets-Noir-meets-D&D vibe than, say, a pleasant knock-off of Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar series.
In actuality, I see a lot more in common with Lankhmar and a bit of the old Private Investigator than with, say, Discworld.
Some tropes are tweaked mildly but none are taken in extreme directions. The chainmail bikini is more like the outfits at Hooters and the woman is working her way to a better life... versus stupid male fantasies. Okies. Nice. But brilliant? I tend to think not, but this series might need continued reading to build up a compendium of awesomeness. Discworld definitely needed it before it became super-well-beloved.
But this? I come at this from 20 years down the line from when it was originally published. Independent and self-publishing are full of works like this and they are all of comparable quality and humor. I can't say it will have stood the test of time unless we say that these kinds of genre-mashers ARE the legacy we should be looking at.
And if that's the case, then I think it succeeded quite nicely. Thank you! :)
(Note: 5 stars = rare and amazing, 4 = quite good book, 3 = a decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. There are a lot of 4s and 3s in the world!)
Title: Thraxas and the Oracle
Series: Thraxas #10
Author: Martin Scott
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 184
Format: Digital Edition
Synopsis:
The armies have come together and they all, under the leadership of Lisutaris, begin the march to Turai to take the fight to the orcs. Thraxas has been made head of Security and his number one job is to find Deeziz the Unseen before she wreaks havoc on the barely holding together armies. Add to that that Lisutaris must consult with an Oracle who has been banned and whose followers have been wiped out by the true church.
Thraxas is going to have a very hard time. Worst of all, there are no taverns and Lisutaris has told him to stop drinking.
The oracle proves right in all her accounts that do come to pass, Thraxas does find Deeziz (who escapes yet again) and the allied armies surprise an orcish one and completely route it. Now they can begin to head to Turai.
My Thoughts:
This was probably the weakest Thraxas story to date. In the middle of an army is not the place to have Thraxas being a gluttonous drunk. It just didn't work for me this time. Thraxas is just hit or miss for me and I can't figure out the why's and wherefore's of the formula regulating that. I guess it's just a mystery! In terms of enjoyment, this was a bunt. I still connected with the ball, but it didn't knock it out of the park for me.
If I were to recommend these books to anyone, I'd say to stop at book 8. Yes, there isn't any resolution at the end of that book, but 2 books later there still isn't any resolution. Also, considering that it has been 3 years since this book was published and there hasn't been another, I'd say Scott has dropped the creative ball and is done as an author. These are not long books. If you are on fire, it doesn't take 3 years to write a sub-200page book. It is only when struggling that that is the case.
Scott needs to write one more book where the armies take back the city of Turai, Thraxas marries Makri, becomes the proconsul of the newly renovated Turai and the whole gang (Lisutaris, Gurd, Tamrose, etc) all hang out at a brand new bar and shirk their duties. The End. Seriously.
★★★☆☆
1 
BookstoogeLT | 2 reseñas más. | Mar 15, 2018 |
BookstoogeLT | 2 reseñas más. | Mar 15, 2018 | 
Title: Thraxas and the Ice Dragon
Series: Thraxas #9
Author: Martin Scott
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 198
Format: Digital Edition
Synopsis:
Thraxis, Makri and Lisutarus all survive and end up in the small kingdom of Samsarina, which is quite strict about such things as public drunkeness, thazis use and dwa. Not the best place for our three Heroes to end up!
But Samsarina is a staging ground for the surrounding kingdoms to gather, create a warhost and march on Thraxas' beloved city of Turai and free it from the orcish horde that has conquered it.Of course, by the time they all actually agree, there might not be much of Turai left.
Lisutaris, as head of the Magic Guild, must contend with other jealous sorcerers who want her removed and themselves installed as head of the Guild and then most likely as head of the Warhost.
Makri enters a fighting contest because they are broke and Thraxas has a sure fire gambling plan, ie, Makri will win every fight and make them rich.
Thraxas runs across an old flame, now a duchess and her daughter is convinced someone is out to kill her. Thraxas is hired as Number One Investigator to find out what's going on.
It all ends with Makri winning the fight because she was kind to a baby dragon. Mama dragon eats Lisutaris's Number One Foe and Thraxas solves the crime AND wins over 10,000 gurans. Everybody, except the dead sorcerer, is happy!
My Thoughts:
Man, I'd forgotten just how much light hearted fun these Thraxas books are. Filled with witty banter, huge amounts of alcohol, drugs and a Fat Private Investigator, you simply can't go wrong. Throw in the whole realm of fantasy and you've got a sure fire winner.
Everything that I have written about previous Thraxas books still applies to this one as well. Shallow, whiny, tiresome one liners, this has them all in spades.
BUT THAT IS WHAT A THRAXAS BOOK IS ABOUT!!!!
So I just sat back, let the shenanigans roll along and had a jolly old time. I would say that Thraxas is like a circus peanut. A small amount goes a long way and you definitely don't want to overdose. But my goodness, when you haven't had circus peanuts for over a year, and you open that bag and pop that first delectable sugar delight into your mouth and feel it melting on your tongue, it is good!
★★★☆½
1 BookstoogeLT | otra reseña | Jan 23, 2018 |
BookstoogeLT | otra reseña | Jan 23, 2018 | 
This is the 2nd book in this comic fantasy series with plenty of recurring characters and expanded world-building to continue to explore. It's not a laugh out loud type of humour but it will bring out the odd smile now and again. It's a fast paced tale with plenty of twists for the mystery element for the reader to enjoy. It's not up there with the masters of the genre but it does offer up a pleasant enough diversion from the more serious fantasy I've been reading lately and I'm more than happy to continue on with the series at some point.
Title: Thraxas Under Siege
Series: Thraxas #8
Author: Martin Scott
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: SFF
Pages: 272
Format: Kindle digital edition
Synopsis: Spoiler
Turai is besieged by the orcs. Everyone, including Thraxas, must pull duty on the walls. At the same time, it gets out that there is an artifact that can raise storms and it is missing. If it falls into the hands of the Orcs, Turai is doomed. The head mistress of the Sorcerer's guild hires Thraxas to find said artifact. He is also hired to find 14,000 gurans of hidden treasure, the finders fee which will enable Thraxas to get in on a high stakes card game. Because hey, being under siege doesn't mean life has to stop.
While this is all going on, it is deep winter and the winter malady is hitting people right and left. Sometimes a little to close to Thraxas's circle of acquaintances. The book ends with the orcs over running Turai and Thraxas dragging Makri and Lisutarius into a boat and escaping.
My Thoughts:
Thraxas is dense. There is no denying it. People literally falling ill, with no symptoms beforehand, as soon as they step into the Avenging Axe and he doesn't suspect a thing? Throw in that an orcish sorcerer named Dazeez the Unseen is known to be out and about and you have to roll your eyes.
This was exactly like the previous books. Thraxas complain, Thraxas eats and fights, people harass Thraxas, Makri prances around in her chain mail bikini, Thraxas ignores said spectacle. Thraxas solves some of the issues and not others.
The card game was the highlight for me. In it Thraxas is playing against an orcish sorcerer and other high lords of Turai. The stakes are Makri's hand in marriage or the storm artifact. What a game.
The ending was ok. It could either be taken as the end of the story and series, or just a temporary set back. In the omnibus edition, this is the last story but i know there are 2 more, as I have them in my tbr list. So I'm wondering if Martin ended the series and then picked it back up again. I am glad to know that there are more Thraxas stories. We all need more stories about fat gluttons who are more worried about their bellies than beautiful women. Even beautiful women who fill out chainmail bikinis :-D
1 BookstoogeLT | otra reseña | Dec 29, 2016 |
BookstoogeLT | otra reseña | Dec 29, 2016 | I'm a fan of Martin Millar's books so when I found out he also wrote under the pseudonym of Martin Scott, I was excited and grabbed this book right away.
Thraxas is an over-weight investigator who owes a lot of coin because of betting on chariot races. All of a sudden, he picks up several jobs and finds himself in the middle of a mess. Who is behind stealing the red cloth that protects from magic? Who killed the dragon? Who murdered Attilan? As you can see, Thraxas has a lot to figure out with the help of his friend, Makri, the feminist barmaid at the Avenging Axe.
If you like Douglas Adams and Sir Terry Pratchett, then you will enjoy the adventures of Thraxas.
In Thraxas and the Ice Dragon, Scott used the opportunity of a new setting to shake up the cast and their interactions, reinvigorating a series that had been gently drifting towards a rut (simply because it's a genre series with a recurring cast). This time, Thraxas is marching to war, and that means another shakeup. The story shifts its focus away from investigation per se, with less gritty detective work and more intrigue. The political side of the war is a significant theme, and we have some nice worldbuilding in the form of the Oracles, and their unexpected relationship with the Sorcerers.
Once again, the change in scene affects Thraxas himself. He's always been a capable (if erratic) investigator, and his skill with a sword was never in doubt, but now we really get to see Thraxas the soldier for the first time. He casually exhibits considerable military acumen, and far greater discipline than you might ever have expected from him - he even moderates his drinking significantly. Though still confrontational and a bit of an oaf at times, he reigns it in significantly, and avoids the kind of diplomatic uproar he usually seems to relish.
Despite these changes, I found it all believable - a man who's got used to crashing around as an investigator, but instinctively sinks back into a more professional mindset when actual war is at hand. As an investigator, he often ended up with Pyrrhic victories or somehow embarrassed by events. Here, Thraxas proves his mettle time and again, and finally manages to bring about a personal triumph in the face of great difficulty.
Another shift in cast doesn't do any harm either. A couple of old minor characters turn up again, offering a mixture of light relief and character development in their interactions with the main cast. Towards the end, we also see some interesting developments between the main cast, which threatens stormy waters ahead (although it depends whether Thraxas' moral qualms win out over his desire for an easy life). I rather hope so, as I'd be very interested to see how that falls out, and Thraxas has certainly played the crusader before now.
Despite the focus on the war and some specific events, there's a strong central mystery running through the book, and its sheer stubornness helps ratchet up the tension - the fact that Scott cheerfully had Turai overrun by orcs means it's not at all clear which way events will fall out this time either. The explanation, when it comes, I found a satisfying twist; it's build on some solid foreshadowing but I hadn't put the pieces together until Thraxas explains it, even though they were there to see.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and recommend it to anyone who's enjoyed others in the series, readers of fairly light-hearted fantasy, or anyone who needs cheering up.
For form's sake, I'll note that there were a small number of minor typos I spotted. A couple were simple word substitutions (than > that and so on), most were missing line breaks. I don't know whether the latter originated in the book itself, or in the way my Kobo displays them. They didn't cause any problems for me.
Moving Thraxas to a new city shakes things up a bit, so the story can no longer hang on the familiar hooks of Thraxas' usual companions and haunts. While this could have left it feeling a bit unlike a Thraxas story, in fact it allows Thraxas himself to come to the fore, giving him more breathing room. His interactions with new sets of people bring him into relief and illuminate his character. It also allows the plot to unfold a little differently, as Thraxas, Lusitania and Makri can't rely on their usual networks and influence.
At the same time, I felt like Scott has got a fresh grip on Thraxas. The difficulty with this kind of protagonist - drunken, boorish, self-absorbed - is that there's a risk of him becoming unsympathetic. In particular, as the sole viewpoint character, the character's voice and narrator's voice can merge and leave a rather grating tone. Towards the end of the last few books, Thraxas' voice was starting to feel a little tired, repeating things consistently disproven by the narrative, which is very plausible, but not attractive. Here, he feels a little more approachable after the fall of Turai - still a drunken boor, but a little less cocksure, a little more comradely in his dealings with Makri and Lisutaris. He's even emotional a couple of times. That being said, he makes a lot of poor decisions here, mostly involving huge amounts of alcohol. Same old Thraxas.
The mystery here unfolds a little late, because the main emphasis is really on character interactions. Moving to a new city means new dynamics between the three, and Scott offers a combination of plotlines: the three finding their feet again in a new city (including the urgent need for funds), preparations for war with the orcs and its attendant power-politics, and Thraxas' actual mystery. This is the book with the least emphasis on that last element, and very little investigation seems to take place, but I don't think it suffers for it.
This series continues to be a comfortable old friend I can relax into after a hard day.
Thraxas is who you go to if you need a sorcerer or investigator but can't afford the good ones. He describes himself as forty-three, overweight, without ambition and prone to prolonged bouts of drinking. He used to work for Palace Security until drinking himself out of employment and now tries to make ends meet by taking on jobs that others won't touch. He's also in desperate need of some money to avoid being thrown out on the street and an inconvenient gambling debt that's looming in the near future. So it's somewhat of a relief when Princess Du-Akai requests his services in retrieving a box containing personal letters from an ambassador that she'd been having an affair with. They could prove an embarrassment if they fall into the wrong hands and now the relationship is over that could become a possibility. A fairly simple task that is made more complicated when the current owner is found dead and Thraxas is accused of his murder and the contents of the box differ from what was described. Why would the princess want a spell to put a dragon to sleep? Thraxas also gets involved into a case of some magical cloth that's disappeared and also a politician's son who's involved in drug-dealing for him to also look into.
While this isn't a laugh out loud type of humorous fantasy there are enough smiles to be had to fit the category. There are some fun characters to be found here, from the Sardonic and self-deprecating lead with his sometimes-assistant Makri (with her unique Orc, Elf and Human parentage) who wants to study at the university but can't because of its gender bias. I'm sure we'll get to revisit with some of the other side characters as the series progresses (currently there are 9 books). The story is more private detective than outright fantasy and is somewhat akin to [[Glen Cook]]'s Garrett P.I. books rather than say a Terry Pratchett or Robert Asprin novel. It's a fast moving tale that still manages to look at some serious subject matter along the way that will also probably be revisited in future episodes. I'd be willing to seek out the next in the series even if it wasn't already sat on my tbr shelves along with a couple more that were bought in a job lot.
1 AHS-Wolfy | 3 reseñas más. | Sep 23, 2014 |
AHS-Wolfy | 3 reseñas más. | Sep 23, 2014 | Now that the world, it's rules and characters have been established, it feels like the author is having a lot more fun with them this time around and it tells.
I found the mystery much more compelling this time, and loved all the twists and additional story lines and really enjoyed the way he tied them all together and up in the end.
I'm definitely looking forward to reading more from this series.
I enjoyed this book but didn't particularly feel compelled to read it.
Part of the problem is that it can be very hard to set up a whole new world without exposition and information overload at times. That said the characters are likable, believable and interesting and I did want to find out more about them. I've already read the second story and plan to read the rest
A fun read if not overly compelling with a world worth exploring.
The ex-boss ends up dead, and a couple of Thraxas' highly placed enemies would be happy to see him go down for murder.
http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2006/12/thraxas-at-races-martin-scott.html
A lot like a detective novel set in Diskworld. A good afternoon's light read on a summer day in a hammock.
A fine book
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It's not surprising that the atmosphere of the novels has shifted with Thraxas' (and Turai's) changing fortunes. Compared with getting a payout for a job in Turai, iesolving a murder while marching to a cataclysmic battle isn't going to leave the same closure and time-to-make-merry feeling in his or the reader's mind. The narrative ends with them heading into battle, leaving the tension of their fates unresolved, as well as the unanswered questions surrounding the case.
Despite the changing scenery and Thraxas' slow evolution, this is still the same old characters in the same old relationship - and I mean that in a positive way. While I could believe in war transforming Thraxas into a disciplined and professional warrior, this depiction of him unable to shake off lifelong habits seems more believable.