Swordman's Legacy Review

Originally written April 28, 2009

It took me a while to finish this one, which was surprising for me. Normally I can finish one in a day or two (a single night if I'm not working and stay up crazy late). Besides normal outside distractions, the story progressed a little slower with this volume than others which led to long stretches between readings. But overall, the story was good. Annja is on another hunt for a hidden treasure and a great lost artifact that may lend truth to the Alexandre Dumas story The Three Musketeers, that D'Artangan's sword was lost to the annals of time and history, and the rumored treasure tied to the sword and soldier were both very real. Naturally there are those who try to keep her from the treasure, or steal it from her, but that's a given with this series/genre. The baddies in this book are biopirates---a DNA/genetics company that searches for historic figures' DNA with the hopes to clone them in infertile mothers who were brought to the company under the false pretenses of it being a legit fertility clinic. A new angle, for sure. The mystery behind what the Musketeer's sword and treasure was spiced up with flashbacks to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, little vingettes about the king and queen of France and the scheme to hide a small fortune led one to believe that there was a treasure and helped the story out a little. Vallois, Annja's companion for this volume, was an interesting character because you never really knew if he was really an innocent party or was more involved with the bad guys. In this story, Roux, Annja's mentor, brought chainmail from that belonged to Joan of Arc to the DNA pirates to see if Annja was more linked to the French martyr than just being bonded to Joan's mystical sword. I did like the hinting towards more of a connection between Annja and Joan of Arc than just the sword. Maybe they are related? Annja is Joan reincarnated? Something I hope they bring up in later volumes.

One thing that irked me was another inconsistency with the 5 house writers of the Rogue Angel series. Alex Archer is the house name while five people write the books; which is how a new volume comes out every 3-4 months. Annja's friend Bart was mentioned in one of the earlier volumes as being engaged, which hurt Annja a little because there had been a mutual crush thing going on between them before, but it never worked out so he found someone else. Here in #15 it is almost implied that Annja still pines for him on some level and that he is still available but she wasn't the right woman for him. Of course she's not---he's engaged! This is the second inconsistency I've found in the series, which is good considering the 5 or so people writing the stories. But maybe if they got together and compared notes, we could avoid little flubs like this one.