Ravnos

the book picks up where the Setite novel ended. All together an interesting look at how the Ravanos clan do things. lots of familiar faces if you've read the previous installments. might be a bit hard to follow if you have no idea what came before but well written and enjoyable to read.

This series is setup in a very interesting way. The books were written by different authors. They tell the story of the same chain of events from the perspective of different groups of vampires (a different group for each book).

The truth is, there are two basic kinds of books in the Clan Novel Series so far. 1) There are the books with a panoramic point of view that advance the larger story of the struggle between the Camarilla and the Sabbat, tie up necessary loose ends, further develop complex intrigues and so on. 2) There are the books which focus tightly on a character or small group of characters. You may not be able to move the pins on your battle map as much with Type 2 but they tend to be the better books in the series. They tend to stand alone better (because you don't have to be moving pins on a battle map to care what happens) and tend to have more of a sense of being about the title vampire clan.CLAN NOVEL RAVNOS is type two, as is Kathleen Ryan's other book in the series CLAN NOVEL SETITE. This makes them the strongest books in the series so far. (Gherbod Fleming's GANGREL and ASSAMITE are the other two.) Here, the hero is Khalil a charming jerk of a Ravnos who keeps outsmarting himself even as he is, yet again, declaring victory. His straight man in this farce is the commanding voice of the mysterious Ravnos elder which he hears in his head. (Rather sinister, too...but Khalil, of course, doesn't seem to notice that little problem.) Ramona from GANGREL and Liz from SETITE are teamed up with Khalil here. Ryan does an especially good job of adapting Fleming's Ramona. There doesn't seem to be any big advances of the series plot but there is some helpful development of the situation of the Ravnos clan as well as glimpses of the Nosferatu and the New York Sabbat. And then there's that Ravnos elder....

This book is so far possibly the best of the clan novels. With this book you get some clarification on the fate of clan Ravnos. This book also clears up a lot of the loose storylines intruduced in the other clan novels, while leaving us guessing just what is going to come of the major storylines in the next clan novel. Fans of the clan novel series will enjoy this book immensely and should eagerly anticipate the release of clan novel: malkavian.

I don't know how to describe this novel, but I never thought Ravnos were too much to handle till I read this. But seriously, this novel produces a player that was hidden in the game although was involved in the previous novels. And I have to admit I really liked the Ravnos main character Khalid. It's funny considering the arabic translation of his name means "Eternal" or someone who is living forever. The book is highly recommended.