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A classic tale of knights, damsels and eh... knights and damsels :P . I was going to compare this to a soap until i realised it is, but a very particular kind of soap opera, namely WWE :). You see god decides all combats in this universe so the good guy is always guaranteed to win, only magic or traps capable of overruling god. At least on the page, between the pages good knights get beaten all the time, constantly having to be rescued from dungeons or avenged but if it happens on the page you always know who the winner is, apparently god only works with an audience :P .
Also the combats themselves arn't all that well told, i miss the rhyming. The poetic epics have surprisingly better action sequences, [b:Song of Roland|103390|The Song of Roland|Unknown|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1325254997s/103390.jpg|2906638], [b:Idylls of the King|393636|Idylls of the King|Alfred Tennyson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1380979896s/393636.jpg|937372], [b:The Faerie Queene|765427|The Faerie Queene|Edmund Spenser|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328308492s/765427.jpg|19904] and [b:Orlando Furioso|38154|Orlando Furioso|Ludovico Ariosto|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1385193032s/38154.jpg|1161788] i would all rate higher than this both in action and story. However its still entertaining and with enough variety to keep me interested.

There arn't any kick ass females like in some of the other works i've mentioned but there are a couple i liked, a good female sorceror which makes a change and my favourite the 'Damsel of Denmark' who's almost like an intelligence officer, constantly moving about delivering messages, sorting out problems and gathering intel.

The main characters Amadis and his lady seem a lot like the film version of Aragorn and Arwen. Except Aragorn doesn't burst into tears as much as Amadis ;) (Note, i say film version its not quite the same in the book with Aragorn mostly based on [b:Sigurd the Volsung|593109|The Saga of the Volsungs|Anonymous|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1425248275s/593109.jpg|180373], aka Siegfried from Wagner's ring cycle).
I preferred his brother Galour who is sneaky when he needs to be and is definitely not a one woman guy unlike weepy Amadis. There are a lot of characters and i couldn't always remember who was related to whom, like other soaps it gets very complicated. Amadis for example has a brother, a foster brother, a half-brother and a female cousin he sometimes calls his sister.

Finally the entire 4th volume, is one long battle and an almost as long ending, its very 'Return of the King' film version, just keeps going :lol .
Still, i really expected to deduct a star from this for length versus entertainment but it actually managed to hold my interest better than expected. Not as good as the poetic epics but decent as long as you don't mind WWE style fight rules :) .

There's a fairly good Librivox version, it uses multiple readers and while most are fine to good occasionally a difficult to parse accent will turn up, but i still found it useful to supplement my reading. ( )

Cuando llegamos a la página 700 nos invade la satisfacción de los tres cuartos de obra leídos, pero las últimas 300 páginas son muy difíciles de escalar. Esto coincide con el cuarto libro, escrito por Rodríguez de Montalvo, en vez de recopilado por él. Gracias por el esfuerzo, Garci.

Me sorprendió lo bien que se lee en esta época un libro de caballerías, aunque la edición tiene algunos fallos en transcripción (en mi humilde opinión), como temía por "ternía", que era la forma de la época del "tendría" actual. Me temo que, como esto se repite, debe ser cosa de error mecánico al escanear un texto. 'nr' se suele confundir con 'm'.

Invención, despreocupación por los asuntos menudos de la vida, porque la comida y la diversión están aseguradas, suele haber un castillo por los alrededores, o un gigante o enano o enemigo malo... Muy entretenida novela, aunque, naturalmente, se repite en muchas ocasiones. Un combate no se puede describir de muchas maneras diferentes.

Una frase que me gustó: "aquella interrupción de la alegría". ( )

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