Okay, let's start with the blurb. Huge, devastating war three hundred years ago, following which the leaders of the losing evil side were, um, banished rather than executed, because obviously they'd learned their lesson and were very, very sorry...? Ah, no. (As we find out quite early on, apparently that would be murder, and therefore a Bad Thing. And they couldn't be imprisoned, because to restrain them you'd have to reduce their powers by starving them and they might die, which would, again, be murder. So you cast them adrift -together - two weeks from shore in dangerous waters in a dinky open boat with five days' food, but that's not murder, because they might survive. So that tells us pretty quickly that the 'good' side are spineless hypocrites. Or just not very bright.)

Sorry, where were we? Oh yes, council of wizards more or less in charge. New king shortly, prince with Special Magic Powers due to be crowned. Cue return of 'ancient and unspeakable evil'. But it's all right, apparently there's a prophecy that says the Prince With Special Magic Powers will handle it...

I am now left wondering why, with a back cover so loaded with tired old tripe, I am even in possession of this thing. There's a 3 for 2 sticker on it, so maybe it was the third book that day. I still feel robbed, frankly.

There seems to be a (not very deeply buried) subtext here of 'man with power = Good, woman with power = Evil', which would be annoying enough, but the unspeakable evil of these powerful women seems mainly to involve non-consensual sex, and it's not even particularly imaginative at that. Hell, the Gor books did that better, and that's saying something.

Poorly thought out, poorly plotted, poorly proofed (see Page 18, where the four banishees are described as a blond, a redhead and two brunettes, and then by pages 19 & 20 the leader has grey-streaked black hair and the one standing next to her has jet black hair), overall just... poor.

In case you were wondering, I would not recommend this book. ( )

Blood. People with special blood. Endowed blood. Plot point. Endowed blood. Endowed blood. Endowed blood. Endowed blood. Endowed blood. Similar plot point. Endowed blood. Endowed blood. You get the idea.

It was promising at first, but any author's first novel runs into problems and unfortunately, this novel doesn't overcome them. The ideas and setting are interesting, the characters have potential. But it gets all too repetitive, and the author manages to beat the phrase "endowed blood" well into the dead horse stage and beyond. It gets literally painful to read when the same phrase pops up for the 75th time in *one* *single* *chapter*. In the end, I just stopped reading because of this. I wanted to go on, but... Simplistic plot and narrative structure plus "Endowed blood" repeated to nausea - I just couldn't keep reading. ( )

This may be the single worst book I have ever read: it's so howlingly poor that it's almost funny (almost). I'd give it negative stars if I could.

I don't know who is doing the editing at Del Rey, but they could use a trip back to Creative Writing 101. It starts out harmlessly enough: just another Terry Goodkind-ish droning epic (though it's plain from the outset that even Goodkind has it all over this guy in the area of writing mechanics): but after the first chapter, the reader is subjected to a horrible mush of poor grammar and misused words (kids, when writing, always remember to keep a dictionary handy). His logic is hopelessly flawed (how 'simple and symmetrical' could a 3-winged bird be?) and his time lines inconsistent ('Let's see: the fleet needs to reach its goal exactly 30 days from now. The goal is exactly 30 days travel away: so why don't we leave a week from now?') His characters are pathetically weak and constantly wallow in self-pity: yet they also maintain such relentless arrogance that you begin to hope that the whole kingdom sinks under the sea just to make it stop. And don't get me started on the plot. I'm no prude, nor am I easily offended. This book offends my intellegence, though. Newcomb is not the first low-talent writer to simply indulge in an adolescent rape fantasy to generate sales, but this guy doesn't even manage to create prurient interest. Rob, a little advice: read Neil Gaiman's stuff. Read Bradbury, Ursula Leguin, and Zelazny. That's how it's done. And kindly put the $8 I wasted on this trash toward hiring a decent proofreader. ( )

In many ways, The Fifth Sorceress by Robert Newcomb is a very typical fantasy novel, centering on a well-favored prince who would be king. Disaster strikes on the day his father steps down from the throne. The prince swears revenge (naturally) and the lead court wizard takes the prince under his wing.

The magic set-up in this novel is a bit different from the norm, though. I like some of the imaginitive things magic can do in this world. Apparently, it's highly mutable and mutative. A person's magic ability is dependent upon qualities of the blood. Magic as a tool can be used for good (practiced mostly by men) or evil (practised mostly by women) but the prince is prophesied as the one who can unite both aspects of magic in neutrality. Well, he has a lot to do. It's obvious to me that the prince's woes and the woes of his kingdom cannot be solved in one book.

The writing is good. The author gets a bit carried away trying to describe human suffering and his ideas of "evil" aren't really the same as my own, but the story is quite enjoyable. ( )

Poor and fomulaic. Supposedly the start of a series this was enough to put me off wanting to read any more. ( )