The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

My Rating: 1.0 / 5.0

Amazon Rating: 4.50 / 5.00

Goodreads Rating: 4.10 / 5.00

Morgaine, half-sister to the legendary King, is the central character in this epic retelling of the Arthurian legend.

I have to admit that I approached this title with huge expectations. It is repeatedly given rave reviews for its feminist take on the Arthurian legend and is often held aloft as a classic of the Fantasy genre. It was also highly recommended during the Women in SF&F month at Fantasy Cafe. Add into the mix the fact that I am quite fond of the Arthurian legend and its retellings in literature, and I find it very difficult to truly express how massively disappointed I was by this title.

I once heard someone talking about watching Wagner’s operas, saying that you feel as if you have been listening for three hours and then look at your watch to find that only ten minutes have passed. I felt something very similar when I began to read the somewhat daunting brick that I borrowed from the library. I read and read and read and looked up to find that I was still on page eleven. After several more hours of self-imposed torture I had staggered to approximately page sixty, at which point the remaining eight hundred pages looked like a cruel and unnecessary punishment to inflict upon myself and I gave up. Sometimes life is just too short to spend so much time being miserable!

So, what was my problem: why could I not force myself to read this much beloved tome? It certainly was not the length of the book. I am currently half way through the fourteen volume monstrosity that is Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series and am happily hurting my wrists wrestling with the one thousand page door stop that is The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. No, I am quite happy reading long books: in fact many of my favorites are mammoth tomes that almost knock me out if I let them fall onto my face whilst reading in bed.

I have to admit that I was severely disturbed by a plot point early on, where there is reference to Christianity arriving in England before the Romans. Even if one discounts the invasions led by Julius Caesar in 55-54 BCE, there is little chance that Christianity could have arrived before the Emperor Claudius began his conquest in 43 CE. There was also mention of the raiding Scots, even though that term was not applied to any of the tribes living in what is now Scotland: the Scotti tribe were actually from modern day Ireland. These are points of historical knowledge that would probably not bother other readers, but they made me lose a great deal of confidence in the author and her research.

However, my biggest problems with this title was the writing and the horribly weak female characters that I encountered. I have read plenty of dense historical texts and convoluted biochemical pathways laid out as a wall of text, and I am afraid to say that this book was on a similar level for its ease of reading and absorption. I am a slow reader, and yet even I am not familiar with taking over five minutes to read a single page. This slowness was not because I had to reread sections to understand them, but because the language was so dense and detail-laden that it simply took me that long to physically move my brain through the information that it was trying to absorb. If you think Tolkien that is dry to read, then I heartily recommend that you avoid this title all together. The prose is so convoluted and over-worked that reading it is almost like wading through treacle. Not only is the writing difficult to work through, but it is also stuffed full of pointless, boring details. I do not really care what exactly Igraine is wearing every time we see her, or what everyone else is wearing or what they eat, etc., etc. We all know that life was harsh and the women spent most of their time raising children or running their household, so I really do not need to know what shade of brown she is wearing each day.

Considering that this is supposed to be a feminist tract, I had rather hoped to see a great deal less of the boring day to day tedium and explore a little more of how these women were exerting their power over their own worlds. Only we do not get a sense of that at all. Igraine is thoroughly down trodden and really rather wet. She was married off to her husband because that was what the Goddess wanted. I know that she was only sixteen or so when she married him, but that was not all that young at that time. The Empress Livia was already pregnant with her second child when she met and wooed the man who would become the Emperor Augustus. She divorced her existing husband and married Augustus soon afterwards at the grand old age of twenty. We forget that, in this period of history, a woman of fourteen was just that: a woman.

I got no sense that Igraine was anything other than a teenager: petulant and yet ineffective. She openly states that she refuses to obey the next demand from the goddess but is swept along by fate, agreeing to go to Londinium and strangely attracted to the man that she is supposed to seduce in order to conceive Arthur. No doubt she falls under his spell and gives in, otherwise the story would have been much shorter, but I did not feel as if she truly felt compelled by the wises of the Goddess or that she was actively trying to avoid the fate laid out for her. This seemed like a real misstep, because Igraine commits adultery to conceive Arthur and I would have liked to see some purposeful decision-making from her one way or the other.

In short, this was a very disappointing experience for me and has led me to remove this title from my list of books for the Worlds Without End 2014 Women of Genre Fiction Reading Challenge. I have replaced it with The Shore of Women by Pamela Sargent, in the hope that will I have more fun with that title.

For those of you looking for alternative versions of the Arthurian legend that are well worth a read, I can suggest the excellent Arthur Books by Bernard Cornwell as well as The Arthurian Saga by Mary Stewart.

  

Once Upon A Time VII Challenge

I can hardly believe that it is that time of year again so soon, but it is and Once Upon A Time VII officially began on March 21. You can head over to Carl’s post at Stainless Steel Droppings to check out the details and sign up to take part. Last year I completed Quest the Second, and I am determined to succeed again by reading four titles that fit into each of the sub-genres of Fairy Tale, Fantasy, Folklore and Mythology. Wish me luck!

Here are the titles that I plan to read:

The Tormay Trilogy by Christopher Bunn

I do not normally review more than one book in a series at the same time. However, I feel that this trilogy reads much more like one book in three volumes and that each of the titles cannot really be treated as a stand-alone book.

Disclaimer: I was given this trilogy free by the author via a Librarything Member Giveaway, in return for an honest review.

The Hawk and His Boy

My Rating: 3.5 / 5.0

Amazon Rating: 3.90 / 5.00

Goodreads Rating: 3.75 / 5.00

The Shadow at the Gate

My Rating: 4.0 / 5.0

Amazon Rating: 4.20 / 5.00

Goodreads Rating: 4.02 / 5.00

The Wicked Day

My Rating: 4.0 / 5.0

Amazon Rating: 4.40 / 5.00

Goodreads Rating: 3.98 / 5.00

Jute is a young thief in the city of Hearne, seat if the Regent and the center of Tormay. As an orphan he was taken in by the Juggler and put to work as a pick-pocket and burglar and it quickly became obvious that he had a special talent for avoiding the magical wards that are used to protect property. On night this talent is needed to gain entrance to a wizards’ house so that a certain box can be stolen. Jute is warned not to open the box, but to return it to his partner in crime, the Knife. However, after wriggling down the chimney and finding the box, Jute feels compelled to open it and accidentally cuts his finger on the knife inside. When he returns to the top of the chimney he hands over the box to the Knife, but is then betrayed.

Ronan of Aum is also known as the Knife, assassin and executioner of the Thieves Guild, answerable only to the Silentman who runs the Guild. He did not want to kill the boy, but that was the job he was paid to carry out. It seemed like a terrible betrayal to pull him up to the top of the chimney only to inject the poison and then push him back into the dark, but someone had paid very handsomely to retrieve that box and they wanted the job kept as secret as possible. Even so, he felt bad for the boy and his death. If only he could save up enough money to leave Hearne and live peacefully on an island in the far northwest, far away from the Guild and its casual violence.

Levoreth is the niece of the Duke of Dolan, but she is also something much older. She has an affinity with the earth, able to awaken flowers and plants and bend them to her will. She can also communicate with animals, which revere her. Her uncle is determined to attend the Autumn Fair in Hearne so that he can view the Regent’s horses, and Levoreth is to travel with him in order to possibly find a husband. However, she feels a change in the land and fears that she has been asleep and complacent for too long.

The miller’s daughter, Fen, wakes with a gasp in her home in the Rennet Valley. There is a strange smell of death in the air and an unnatural silence. She sees the barn door open and rushes down to secure it against foxes. However, inside she finds the family’s old dog with his throat ripped out and then she catches sight of a tall, thin man with a long knife and a pair of monstrous dogs coming out of her house. She seeks shelter in the hayloft, but somehow the hounds know where she is and jump up to attack. As she scrambles away from their jaws she falls down through a trapdoor into the spikes of the harrow. She is impaled but protected by the spikes as she loses consciousness.

Severan is a scholar, not a real wizard, although he knows quite a few words of power. He spends his day searching through the remains of the ruined University for the Gerecednes, a treatise on the four Anbeorun, the stillpoints of the four elements: earth, fire, water and wind. The book is supposed to contain words of power that have not been spoken since the very creation of the world. However, at the moment he is nursing the boy Jute who fell down one of the chimneys on the night that the box with the carvings of the hawk was stolen. Severan’s fellow wizard, Nio, is very upset that the box has been taken and wants to question the boy to discover where the box is now. In fact, Severan has started to worry about Nio: the man seems obsessed with the box and there is a strange smell coming from the basement.

As you can see, this is quite a complex tale, with several storylines intertwined. At first, it seems that we will be following the boy Jute through his adventures, but it quickly becomes obvious that the book has a much greater scope than that. Unfortunately, many of these elements are introduced in the first few chapters, so it does seem like we are bouncing about a country with no real understanding of what is connecting the people that we are visiting. This sense of too many threads is compounded by the introduction of ‘Ronan’ in one of the early chapters when we do not know that Ronan is another name for the Knife. However, as the first volume progresses, these disparate strands start to make more sense as the action converges on the city of Hearne and our characters begin to interact. In the end, we end up with a satisfying collection of story threads that interweave to produce an interesting pattern.

We have a fairly large cast of characters, many of whom have a name and a title, which can be a little confusing at first. Fortunately, most of the characterization is very strong, so that each person has their own ‘voice’ and they and out from one another reasonably well. Jute is basically the central character of the story, and he does show the greatest development during his journey. However, he remains a street urchin at heart and is a very believable character. His relationships with the other characters are also believable, and some of the best dialogue comes in his interplay with the Hawk. The Hawk becomes Jute’s mentor, and is as crotchety and arrogant as any wizened old Kung Fu master that I have ever seen or read. He was probably my favorite character. Ronan is also an interesting character, although he begins the story as the villain. As we get to know him he changes quite dramatically in our eyes, and eventually becomes a very honorable and courageous hero. Levoreth shows very little development during the story, but that is due to her nature: I will not say any more about this as I do not want to throw out any spoilers. These are really the main protagonists, although it takes a while for that to become obvious.

The secondary characters are also enjoyable. Severan and several of the old scholars are surprisingly courageous and resourceful in difficult situations. However, Nio is a fine example of how good intentions can be perverted by the desire for power at all costs. He begins the story as a man teetering on the brink of falling to the ‘Dark Side’ and his journey is a tale of obsession and remorselessness. Fen plays a much smaller part in the story than I had expected, although she does draw us into the house of Owain Gawinn, the Captain of the Guard in Hearne. He is a pragmatic man and charismatic leader who tries to protect the country whilst he is constantly rebuffed by the allegedly impoverished Regent. Possibly my favorite of the secondary characters is a ghost that attaches himself to Jute part way through Volume 2 and then stays with him until the bitter end. He is very old and so has forgotten who he is and most of the useful knowledge that he once had. He constantly drones on about any given subject at great length, only stopping occasionally to bemoan his situation. The Hawk gets very frustrated with him and they make a great double act.

The world building is well done and we are rarely presented with piles of exposition. There is an interesting magic system based upon the use of words of power that can be used to take control of things. I especially liked the idea of the magical wards, which had a variety of uses varying from simple alarms when a door was opened to disguising a person’s identity. We are also provided with a creation myth and a far portion of history relating the battle between the Anbeorun and the Darkness that seeks to destroy all life. Elements of this did seem a little similar to Tolkien’s creation story, as outlined in The Silmarillion, but was sufficiently different to keep me interested. One aspect of this world that I particularly liked was the interaction with animals. Some, like the Hawk, were able to speak to all humans, but mostly we saw exchanges between Levoreth and the various animals that she encountered. There was one particularly delightful scene with her helping a squirrel by asking a tree to grow a branch towards another tree so that it could gather nuts without crossing the ground and being harassed by foxes.

On the whole this was a fantasy with some elements of epic scale, such as battles and whole nations plunged into conflict. However, in the great tradition of Tolkien, it kept a firm grounding in the actions of individuals and their connection to the homes and families.

Reviews I Recommend:

The Hawk and His Boy by Fantasy Book Critic

The Shadow at the Gate by Fantasy Book Critic

The Wood Wife by Terri Windling

My Rating: 4.5 / 5.0

Amazon Rating: 4.60 / 5.00

Goodreads Rating: 4.19 / 5.00

When Maggie Black was a student she fell in love with the writings of reclusive, but acclaimed, poet Davis Cooper. The pair exchanged letters for many years but never met in person. As Copper fell further and further in to alcoholism after the death of his young lover, artist Anna Naverra, Maggie gave up writing poetry so that she could support her husband as he built his music career. Unwilling to accept his infidelity she divorced him several years ago, although he still tries to control her life. She is about to sell their house and move away when fate intervenes: Cooper dies in mysterious circumstances and leaves his house and all its contents to her.

Maggie moves to Cooper’s home in a canyon Tucson, Arizona, where she meets his friends, reads his papers and experiences the desert that was such an inspiration to him. However, she is surprised to discover that the land and its inhabitants are not as simple as they seem and she gradually uncovers the wild spirits that live there. As she becomes more at home in the desert she begins to see what really lives there and comes to understand how Cooper could have drowned in the middle of a dry creek bed.

I chose this book as the Folklore title for the Once Upon A Time VI Challenge because I had seen some reviews of it that suggested that it was an interesting choice for the category.

This is one of those books where are I need to be purposefully careful about the magical elements that inhabit its pages because I do not want to spoil the surprises that it contains. Some books are so much better if you can explore them without too much knowledge of what to expect, and this is definitely one where that sense of wonder needs to unfold naturally.

The beginning of the book was somewhat disorientating as we are presented with a Prologue with several vignettes from the night of Cooper’s death. After this, the story is mostly laid out from Maggie’s point of view, although we do follow several other characters’ viewpoints as well. We follow Maggie as she encounters the various humans and spirits in the area, with the other perspectives adding information or offering tantalizing hints of what is really happening. Maggie is a well-drawn, likeable character with a great deal of sense and empathy that make her an intriguing protagonist. The other characters are interesting and fit well into the roles that they fulfill, although few of them are explored in very much detail as we concentrate on Maggie and her story.

The story unwinds elegantly and slowly, with suggestions and hints carefully placed so that there are few true surprises as the truth is revealed. However, this adds to the feeling of revelation and growing understanding that we share with Maggie and it works very well. We usually ‘see’ things before Maggie, as if our eyes are being opened to the magic around her slightly before hers, or she is seeing the same things as us but her mind is discounting them as impossible. This makes the magic seem real and solid as if the curtain that normally hides it is gradually fading until we see the total truth.

The world that we discover is built upon the ancient mythologies of the Mexicans, Celts and Native Americans, so it is very grounded in nature. Grace at Books Without Any Pictures feels that American culture does not have this type of mythology and so appreciates that this book creates one. This is not the magic of Harry Potter, but the inherent power of the land itself, with aspects of nature personified and able to act to influence the environment. There is a timeless quality to these ‘spirits’ that results in them being totally different to us, with concerns and morals that we cannot comprehend. This ‘otherness’ is captured beautifully and resonates well with the indifferent majesty of the natural world. The desert is inspiring and breath-taking, but it is also dangerous and can lead to insanity and even death. I like how the desert acts as a muse, inspiring so many people to creative and artistic expression, although they all react in different ways.

Once Upon A Time VI Challenge

After a busy weekend trying to contain my husband's desire to own vast numbers of tortoises, turtles and now crested geckoes (it's his version of a mid-life crisis), I have finally had a chance to select my titles for the challenge. It was difficult to narrow down my choices, but I finally found some good recommendations from my blogging friends, which made life a little easier. Here are my choices, feel free to give me some feedback! :D