Fantasy/SF Book Reviews
The Battle of Evernight by Cecilia Dart-Thornton
Warner Aspect, 448 pagesHardcover, April, 2003
ISBN: 0446528072
Ordering information:
Amazon.com
Cecilia Dart-Thornton brings events of the Bitterbynde
trilogy (The Ill-Made Mute, The Lady of the Sorrows)
to a satisfying conclusion in this final volume.
The heroine Rohain, now known as Tahquil-Ashalind, has been
healed of her muteness and her scarred visage, and is an
astounding beauty. As a child, she managed to find the doorway
to Faerie, but was caught in the doorway of the Gate of the Oblivion's
Kiss. When she emerged, a thousand years had passed, and
she had lost her memory. After all her adventures in the first two
books, she knows only that she and her companions, Caitri and
Viviana must find the Gate of Oblivion's Kiss, and set right a terrible
wrong which threatens both the mortal and the Faerie worlds.
Only Tahquil can open the Gate and allow the two royal Faerie
brothers (now caught in the mortal world, eternally battling)
to return to Faerie, and spare Erith the bloodshed of immortals
locked in an epic and vicious battle.
Australian author Cecilia Dart-Thornton has created a richly layered and imaginative world, based on Celtic folklore and legend. The denizens of Faerie are divided into two categories: the seelie (good) and the unseelie (evil and vindictive). Yet to the Faeran, they are neither good nor evil, and the horrifying unseelie wights are accepted as part of nature. The heroine Tahquil, the girl who walked with immortals and is paying a heavy price for it, is an interesting character, who knows what it's like to be reviled for physical deformity. Thornton addresses issues such as beauty and ugliness, good and evil, and the sacrifices that must be made for friendship and love. With a moving love story at its heart, The Bitterbynde trilogy is a magical fantasy which will appeal to folklore aficionados and high fantasy lovers alike.
Grail Prince by Nancy McKenzie
Del Ray, January, 2003Trade Paperback, 510 pages
ISBN: 0345456483
Ordering information:
Amazon.com
One might think that the Arthurian legends had been
told in every way possible by now and that this story
was time for retirement. Nancy McKenzie, author of
Queen of Camelot, proves otherwise in her
brilliantly imagined novel, Grail Prince. McKenzie
sets her novel in two timelines: during the golden
moments of King Arthur's reign, and during the
years just after his reign came to an end after his death
in a bloody battle. The young Galahad, son of
Sir Lancelot, has been raised by his bitter, vengeful mother,
the beautiful, Elaine, cousin to Queen Guinivere. Jealous of
her cousin, Elaine raises Galahad to despise his father as
an adulterer and man of no honor -- which is far from the truth.
As his dying wish, King Arthur (whom Galahad admires greatly)
asked Galahad to quest to find
the Holy Grail, a magical spear and the sword Excalibur. When these
magical items are together, England will never fall. Galahad sets out
on the quest with his friend Prince Percival. Along the way,
they will encounter love, loss, tragedy, battle and of course
prophecy and magic.
Galahad is a young man with some very strange ideas. Because of his poisonous upbringing, he has a real hatred for his estranged father and is obsessed with the idea of staying chaste in order to be worthy of completing the quest. He's also developed quite a dislike for women, which is challenged by Percival's beautiful and spirited sister, Dane. But his adventures shake up all of Galahad's preconceived notions, and require him to question all of his beliefs. As much a well-written coming of age story as an adventure into Camelot, Grail Prince is a unique and compelling novel.
The Lake House by James Patterson
Little, Brown, June, 2003Hardcover, 376 pages
ISBN: 0316603287
Ordering information:
Amazon.com
It might surprise some of his readers that James
Patterson's bestselling book to date is a science fiction
novel, When the Wind Blows, which told the story of
a group of genetically engineered children who can fly.
When that novel ended, the five children had been rescued
from the gruesome place where they were being held
captive and experimented upon. Frannie, a veterinarian,
and Kit, an FBI agent, who are also in a relationship,
feel responsible for the children that they rescued, and
the children have imprinted upon Kit and Frannie
as their parents (an avian trait). The Lake House opens
with a moving custody trial, wherein the children's biological parents
succeed in regaining custody. Devastated, Frannie and
Kit try to go back to their lives. But a normal life is
not in the future for them, or for the six
children: the beautiful and brilliant Max,
the outspoken eldest boy Ozymandias,
the blind boy Icarus and the tiny twins, Peter and Wendy.
Unfortunately, there is another ongoing medical project
which is of great danger to the children. And the head of that
project , Dr. Ethan Kane, will stop at nothing to regain the children
in order to advance his agenda. For it seems that Max
has knowledge that could stop the project. Soon, Kit, Frannie
and the children are on the run again, desperate not
to become lab experiments in a cage.
The Lake House is written in Patterson's unique, telegraphic style. The chapters are short, and so are the sentences. As Patterson remarked in a recent interview, he believes that plot is key and that every sentence, every chapter must advance that plot. And so it does in this tautly written and exciting story. Dr. Ethan Kane's life is a chilling commentary of what happens when science is allowed to proceed without ethical considerations of any kind. But the main appeal here is the fast-paced and imaginative narrative, with a story that will move any parent -- whether or not she believes that children can have wings.
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