Tag Archives: Megan Lindholm

The Windsingers by Megan Lindholm

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Synopsis:
The second in the adventures of gypsy teamster Ki, hired by a wizard to reunite his head with the rest of his body, which have been seized by the menacing Windsingers. Meanwhile, Vandien has contracted himself to a fool’s errand retrieving a treasure of the Windsingers, trapped in a sunken temple.

Review:
As I mentioned in my post on Harpy’s Flight, it doesn’t seem like Lindholm will be developing an overall mythology, though she is using some recurring characters, and might be continuing some of the Windsinger conflict in the next book, Limbreth Gate. Continue reading →

Harpy’s Flight by Megan Lindholm

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Synopsis:
After her husband and children are brutally murdered by a god-like Harpy, Ki undertakes an act of vengeance that severs her ties with her husband’s people, and sends her on a dangerous journey up an icy mountain overseen by a malevolent force.

Review:
Megan Lindholm is Robin Hobb, whom I love. Harpy’s Flight is the first in a 4-book series featuring teamster Ki and her unlikely partner Vandien, and while the storytelling isn’t as accomplished as in her later works, Harpy’s Flight is a marvelous read. Continue reading →

Forest Mage by Robin Hobb

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Synopsis:
The strange adventure of magic-possessed soldier son Nevare continue, as he finds himself expelled from military academy when his weight skyrockets after a bout of the Speck plague.

Review:
Forest Mage is the second book in Robin Hobb’s Soldier Son trilogy begun in Shaman’s Crossing. Interestingly, I found echoes of Orson Scott Card’s Speaker for the Dead in the clash between the progress-loving “human” Gernians and the forest-dwelling dappled Specks, and spent a good deal of the read worrying that Hobb’s story was going to play out in the same way and with the same moral, but this ended up being a very different story. (The parallels are extremely interesting to me–if you’ve read both, please comment!) Continue reading →

Shaman’s Crossing by Robin Hobb

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Synopsis:
A young man’s military training is threatened by his seeming possession by a creature in thrall to an evil forest goddess.

Review:
Shaman’s Crossing is the first book in Robin Hobb’s newest trilogy, Soldier Son, and I ate it up with a spoon, thanks to a very long train ride to Canada. The world of Soldier Son takes place in a frontier-like environment much like the Old West at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, with Nevare, the main character, on his way to his training in the cavalry at a West Point-type officer’s academy. Nevare’s world is highly ordered, focused on both tradition and progress, and a magic-less rationalism. His father, also a soldier, decides that before heading off to school Nevare would benefit from training with a respected leader in one of the Plains tribes that the military is fighting against. Nevare ends up in the middle of the desert in what resembles a Native American spirit quest that unlocks the doors to another world–and to a goddess who wants the destruction of Nevare’s people. Continue reading →

Robin Hobb – 3 Trilogies, One Love

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Robin Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy and the follow up trilogy called The Tawny Man are medievalist fantasy fiction are among the best books I’ve ever read in any genre. I lost myself in these six books, missing my subway stop more than once. I would actually get excited when my alarm went off in the morning because I knew that soon, very soon, I’d be waiting for the train and could dive into the Six Duchies with abandon.

The Farseer Trilogy follows the bildungsroman model, and like many fantasies, Fitz is of humble origins (he is the bastard son of a dead prince), yet finds himself at the center of an adventure that could change the course of history. A typical plot, yet Hobb’s attention to detail, evocative writing, and fearlessness far surpass her peers–I’m thinking in particular of David Eddings’s Belgariad, which was fun but didn’t change my life. Fitz’s story did change my life, with Hobb’s deft explorations of the nature of responsibility and the meaning of leadership, and her heartbreaking revelations about the lies we tell ourselves and others in the name of love. All this with dragons! And I’ll add that these are new, different dragons, nothing like old Smaug. She creates a whole new mythology for these overexposed fixtures of fantasy fiction. Continue reading →