Setite

With such a poor beginning as was offered in books one and two of this (by and large) pedestrian series, I was shocked to find this jewel among the trash pile. Kathleen Ryan (whom, until now had only written lead-in pieces for White-wolf's Mage game) has tepped forward and claimed the lead-horse position in this race.Setite is full of facsinating and believable characters, fantastic dialogue and cunningly described scenes. The characters are VERY human and very likable... even in their villainy.A suggestion to the folks at white wolf... should you launch another new series, place Kathleen Ryan at the helm.

This series of book, obviously intended for people familar with White Wolf's World of Darkness, are wonderful reading. As an avid fan of Vampire the Masquerade I have never been widely fond of the "evil" Vampire Clan, The Followers of Set. This book, though, is one of the best in the Vampire series. As it chronicles the Setite Hesha's search for the Eye of Hazmael it deals explicitely with the relationships the Setite forms with a young woman, Elizabeth and his retainer, Thompson. It is not a book filled with heavy fighting but rather one that details the Setite's being pulled between his humanity and inhumanity. I heartedly recommend this book for all parties, particularly those who play Vampire the Masquerade roleplaying game. If nothing else it will give you a new understanding of the Followers of Set, something that is very difficult to attain in the roleplaying supplements.

I've read everything in this series so far (thru GIOVANNI) and this book is still in the running for the best in the series. Like Gherbod Fleming's GANGREL (the previous installment), it takes a break from the broad sweep of the series' plot to establish a strong main character focus. It's much more light-hearted than GANGREL, tho, and might be a welcome relief for those who found GANGREL too grim. It's still more serious than Kathleen Ryan's other book in the series (RAVNOS) and seems a little stronger for that reason. Here, the main characters are the Setite antiquarian Hesha and his mortal assistant, Liz- the first chance in the series to really see the action through a mortal's eyes.Despite the cliff-hanger ending, this book is strong enough to be read on its own. The search for the Eye of Hazimel is a good mystery and ends up in some pretty momentous developments for the CLAN NOVEL series. There is also a lot of fascinating interplay and intrigue between characters, compelling enough to hold your attention even if you don't know anything about what's happened in the other books. The story is told as a flashback and a small flaw is that to get everyone to where they need to be in the situation depicted at the start of the book, some alliances seem to shift very abruptly. It's not enough to detract from the overall story, however. The book also takes us all the way to Calcutta- pretty interesting in itself.Like GANGREL, the book also has a good focus on the title clan (something which was missing from TOREADOR which spent a lot of time using a Toreador-sponsored party to depict Camarilla Elysium politics and from TZIMISCE which was more about the Sabbat generally.) With all its intrigues, this story a good depiction of how the Setites conduct their business (the strongest lies subtly incorporate as much of the truth as possible) and use their powers. It's also a good depiction of a character following a Path of Enlightenment (who degenerates if he does something for purely selfless reasons). It's interesting that, although Hesha can't be called "good" in human terms, he doesn't seem to be exactly evil, either. I ended up both really liking him and wondering if I should.

I wasn't thrilled with the Gangrel and Tzimisce novels. It was mainly because it switched from character to character in a multiple narrative fashion. I enjoyed Setite more because it lacked this multiple narrative trend and wasn't as chopy as the others. In addition, because it was consistent within its focusing on certain characters, it had lots more character development, primarily Hesha and Elizabeth. The plot was rather interesting and due to certain conflicts, the location changes were a nice change. For those that LARP, the series is good if the knowledge of the application of abilities and disciplines is needed to be seen/learned. All in all, this was the best in the series so far.

Best of the books so far. Can't help but feel that the characters were real and that the book could even stand alone, almost.