Turns out, I still love this book. The danger of revisiting something from half a lifetime ago, not to mention something so formative on my opinions on space opera and science fiction, is the potential for enormous disappointment. Fortunately, for me at least, this book lived up to my memories of it. (Please note, I have not yet reread books 2, 3, or 4; this review is only on book one, The Lost King.)Other commenters/reviewers, I've noticed, have pointed out that Margaret Weis admitted the influence that Star Wars had on this series, and yes, if you look, you can see analogues for a lot of characters and (overall) situations in this book. (To be fair, I hadn't seen Star Wars the first time I read these books. But recently, I described the series to a friend as "Star Wars meets Ancient Rome"). Fortunately, it grows into its own thing very quickly, and its own thing is really good. The world building is well done, but it's the characters that kept me (re)reading. I don't think I understood just how complex the characters were the first time I read these books. (Maybe not Dion so much- he's a petulant teenager, mostly, in this first book. I like him less now as an adult than I did as a teen.) Technically, this book fails the Bechdel test, but both Lady Maigrey and Nola Rian are excellent portraits of strong women. Derek Sagan is an enigma- not just power hungry, not even just a villain. Nothing he does is out of character, but everything he does adds an element to his personality and character that the reader doesn't immediately expect. He's a character that will not stay in a box. I really want to like him, and then he does something I cannot countenance. I really want to be able to write him off as evil, and then he does something brilliant, or something difficult for very good reasons. And the relationship between him and Lady Maigrey is equally complex. Overall, the book is fairly dark, with great world building, just enough tenderness and humor to keep you going, and it holds up very well over the years between its writing and now. I've read other reviewers suggest that the book was written for a young adult audience in mind, and while I was certainly a teenager when I first read it (and appreciated it then) I think adults will get much more out of the complexity of the characters.As soon as I finished The Lost King, I bought and downloaded the next book. I hope they keep living up to my memories of them. (Note: I own a mass-market paperback from the 1990s, but between my still-healing wrist and the fact that the first 50 or so pages in my hardcopy are coming loose, this review is based on a copy I bought from BN.com for my Nook.)
I read this off and on when I found time at work. It has strong elements of Star Wars as a foundation, with the Hero's Journey leading the way for most of the book. It felt like a shallow imitation rather than its own thing for probably the first 200 pages. Some of the historical and literary references had me rolling my eyes. I remember adoring Weis and Hickman during my teenage years, and I am now trying to figure out if they changed, or I did. I enjoyed some of the concepts (the blood sword), but others bored me (the Roman motif).I got this and the second book at a Half Price Books purge, so I'll eventually check the second book out. So far I am not convinced I need to track down the rest of the series.
What do You think about The Lost King (1990)?
I'm not sure which characters this cover is showing. Literally, every new character that was introduced with a description of what they looked like, I flipped back to the front cover and they didn't match up, which is kind of...I don't know. A cop-out. Which is a shame, this book has a lot of exciting moments they could have illustrated on the cover. Oh well. After coming off the last sci-fi book I was reading, this is more pulpy and action-y than the last one, though there are some touches to the content that scream "Star Wars" (and it was written after the first one came out, so maybe)
—Amanda Hamilton
I read the Star of the Guardians trilogy for the first time when I was 17 years old - I had NO idea how much it subtly introduced new ideas into my life.The book list that one of the main characters, Maigrey, works through in part of the book, is one of the reasons I went on to become a book reader myself - Weiss used Sci Fi to open my mind to the world of books out there!To this day, Charles Dickens is one of my favourite authors... not because he was one of Maigrey's favourites, I've grown to appreciate him apart from that fact.It's a sad story, all in all, with some strange theology and a world view that I no longer subscribe to. In fact, I'm not sure I'm going to recommend the series to my own kids some day, and I'm not even sure if it's worth a 4 star rating, to be honest, but the series is certainly one of those that shaped me as a kid, and those are always memorable, aren't they?!
—Graham
This whole series reads like a guilty pleasure. As soon as you begin, you're like, "Oh, look, it's Star Wars." And there are some similarities, but there is also unique world-building and some interesting innovations and plotting. Also, I kind of had a thing for the bad guy. (I usually do.) I started reading the last book first when I was about 17 and I adored Derek Sagan so much that I named a teddy bear after him. I haven't reread it in years, so who knows if I would still find the writing as compelling, but what I remember of the story- and Mr. Sagan- still makes me nod in approval.
—Amanda Kespohl
