Loom Saga

The Complete Series

De: Elise Kova

Narrado por: Tim Campbell, Erin Moon

Perfect for fans of Mistborn and A Game of Thrones, this dark fantasy about a magical engineer turned thief has listeners raving.

The Dragon King rules with an iron fist and one woman has vowed to be his demise.

After a bloody conquest, the world of Loom is now ruled by Dragons. They oversee those beneath them from their sky cities with magic and cruelty.

Arianna is known as the White Wraith; an unscrupulous thief who will do anything as long as it defies her Dragon oppressors. She's spent her life working in the shadows, harboring a secret that would have her killed. A secret that will bring the Dragon King to his knees.

Joined by a trigger-happy gun mage and a Dragon prince who seeks to assassinate his king, Arianna sets out on an epic journey. The unlikely trio is Loom's last hope for freedom. But, for Arianna, this mission is personal. This is her last shot at redemption . . . and vengeance.

©2016 Elise Kova (P)2022 Tantor

magic and machine

the clash between cultures made this listen interesting. the growth of characters and the maturity of underdogs also.

That ending tho…

This book was great! But I have to say that the ending left me wanting.

What a great story!!!!!

I loved the world. The characters. The development. I loved everything about this story! From the very beginning you get sucked into this world and it kept me interested til the very end !!!

perfect ending

the narrators did an amazing job for this audio! I loved the story and multiple perspectives

So I do like Steampunk after all!

I will review each book in this trilogy separately.

The Alchemists of Loom:
I quite enjoyed this. The world is interesting, complex and mysterious, magic system is unique, or more like, how the magic system is used felt quite unique to me and the characters are lovely. Best of all, while at the start I had some annoyances with Arianna, which made this story only an ok experience, the author actually addressed those annoyances and in the best possible way - by having other characters call Arianna out on it. Even better, the characters doing the calling out didn't scream or shout or be mean in return, but instead acted like mature adults, expressing passionately their grievances, all the while being very polite and respectful. This increased my enjoyment tenfold because it meant that author is aware of Arianna's hypocrisies, has made her have those hypocrisies on purpose and uses them for the sake of character development while properly addressing the issues. Love to see it. Chef's kiss ✨
Major bonus points for this being a proper slow burn romance.

Now, there were some plot inconsistencies (Cvareh being called older and younger brother by the same person being one of the non-spoilery ones) and I think there were some things that felt a little clumsily done, imo, but that didn't really spoil my enjoyment of this story. I have immediately continued on with the next book.

I have listened to this on audio, but I am not sure that this was the best decision on my part. The narrators - Erin Moon and Tim Campbell - were solid (Erin Moon had especially hit different emotional tones that Arianna used for Flor, Cvareh and other people really well imo), but they were not my favorite. For some reason, both of them gave Dragons British accent, Cvareh sounded quite uppity to me and there were a numbers of instances where I didn't understand the word being said and had to look at my ebook to check what was actually being said. This didn't happen all the time, but it happened often enough that I noticed it.
I think I would have liked the story even better if I wasn't listening to it, but once I started it was too late because the voices stuck in my head at that point and I would hear the characters talking in the same voices in my own head.

The Dragons of Nova:
Fantastic sequel! We got character development, romance development, widening of the world and, in particular, I loved that we got POVs from different sides of this world, that showcase that no one in this world of Nova and Loom is a good or a bad guy, but that everyone is very much somewhere in the grey area.

We got introduced to Colleta, who is a very intriguing character and a part of my mind kinda wants her to end up being on throne at the end of the series. We got better acquainted with Petra, who I felt was equally bad and in some regards, even worse than Yveun. Her abusive ways and arrogance rubbed me the wrong way throughout the whole book and if I ever reread the story, I am very much going to skip her chapters. We got to meet Finnyr, who I wonder what the author has in store for.

I, however, have to admit that there were 2 pretty major plot holes in this book. And while I can imagine some ways these plot holes can be explained away, I do think that any explanation would be weak and at least so far, these plot holes have not been addressed yet. Fingers crossed that I am wrong and that the author addresses them in some really cool way in the last book.
But even these plot holes didn't take away from my enjoyment, which is great! I have immediately continued onto the third book and look forward to seeing how this trilogy ends.

I did had the same problems with the audiobook as I had in the first one, but I have excepted them at this point.

The Rebels of Gold:
Due to the ending I don't particularly like and have some problems with, I thought I would rate this read 3 stars. However, then I remembered that this book has a POV of one and only Coletta Rok'Ryu, one of the most competent villains that I have ever seen. Also, such a fascinating character. She truly knows how to properly play Game of Thrones.
I also loved how the victory over the house Rok was won by our cast. But Coletta herself brings this book from 3 to a 4 stars rating for me.

That being said, I think Coletta's fascinating last move was rendered useless by the author not being able to commit to a bittersweet ending. It cheapens the emotional impact so much imo.
And to add insult to the injury, the trope in question ended up being pointless.

I also quite dislike that one lover ended up having to uproot their whole life just to be with the other one and that other one didn't even want to consider any other options as viable, even though there was such a simple solution for both parties to be happy. I really dislike that.

I also dislike how some of our main characters got away scot free from bearing any burden or responsibility for the aftermath of the rebellion. It felt irresponsible and emotionally unrealistic to me. You guys are the ones that made the bed of rebellion, you shouldn't get away from now lying in it.

All in all, this was a great series with great characters and while the ending did leave an unsatisfying taste in my mouth and I did have some problems with it (plot holes and treatment of Finnyr being some additional ones), I still enjoyed most of it. And after all, I rarely tend to like series endings anyway.
I'm looking forward to trying out other stories by Elise Kova.

Story line

First book male voice is hard to listen to but improves midway through so just power through!
Otherwise- excellent story from the always talented Elise Kova

Loved the world of Loom

I enjoyed the original world building and the deep layered charades. They were interesting, complex and each character stayed true to the storyline. at no time did I struggle to believe the world existed. the voices brought each to life and stayed true.

Awesome 👌

"Absolutely captivating! Engaging narrative, superb narration, and immersive world-building. A must-listen for any book lover!"

I loved the performance and the characters

Both performers made this an Emerson’s experience. The characters were well developed and the imagery and content flowed. Lots of twists. I will miss the adventure of this story now that I am moving on to another book.

Thoroughly Enjoyable, Refreshingly Different

Wow. This was my first experience with Elizabeth Kova's writing, and read very little of the steampunk genre. I really enjoyed this story, from the world building to the characters, their customs and their strife, it was unique. I think the narrators both did a great job. I usually don't like when the pov changes narrators, especially because most males make female characters sound silly or unbelievable to me. I've listened to Tim Campbell in another series and I think he does a great job with the female characters as well as the males. Elizabeth Moon does a great job as well.

I don't understand the negative reviews. I don't think I'm easily entertained, I need a good plot, complex characters, and strong world-building to really enjoy a story, and this delivered for me. Is Arianna a ruthless bitch? Of course she is, what she's been through and the world she lives in have made her that way. I was drawn in by her, Cvareh, and Florence, and became emotionally invested in each one of them. The changing POV's were necessary to see the full picture. I didn't enjoy the villains POV's as much as the others, but I think they still added to the storytelling. There were plenty of plot twists and turns that kept me on my toes. I wish there was more story to enjoy, but I'm satified with how it ended. I highly recommend Loom Saga. I know I'll return to it for another listen.