An interesting tale. Not at all the one I was thinking of - that's pretty much a pure fairy tale with the Firebird and the stolen apples (though I'm pretty sure the hero was named Ivan). This one is a continuation of Ivan and Mar'ya, with a new threat (the Teutonic Knights), the Firebird itself (of course), and some new and rather chancy allies, of several different flavors (magically and politically chancy!). Nothing of the brothers-in-law in this one, quite a bit of Sivka and his brother. And Ivan and Mar'ya get into some interesting discussions, and both they and we learn a good bit more about the way both of them think. A final, real, battle (Ivan gets to experience the full thing, not just the aftermath) and a reasonable solution to all the current problems And then the afterword, that describes the next problem...but that's in the next book. Which I finally have! Yay! BTW, the Firebird I was thinking of was Mercedes Lackey's - much closer to the standard fairy tale, but with real characters. That's fun too - read that soon. ( )

i'm trying to clean out my slush pile, which is maybe why the stuff i'm reading mostly tends to feel... desultory. this one was competent, but uninspired. in contrast to its colorful material. which makes it worse, somehow. pity the writer didn't aim at more, because he might even have met that mark. ( )