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Of Avonar (The Bridge Of D'Arnath book 1) by Carol Berg check out website: www.penguin.com
Ten years of exile hasn't exactly improved the situation and all seems lost until she runs across a naked, amnesiac mute young man outside her cottage who starts off trying to kill her. Establishing his name is Aeron, she also works out that he is almost certainly on the run from the same people who wrecked her life all those years ago. All she has to do now is decide whether to help him and how much more of a sacrifice it will demand from her.
Berg starts her second trilogy off with a narrative bang and proceeds to follow it up with a brave narrative structure that makes past events in flashback as significant as the main plot occurring a decade later. It means that there's a lot to like, at first, as the hooks of two separate stories are woven in: both resting on equally interesting versions of the emotionally scarred Seriana with a decade between them. What grabs the reader initially is also to blame for the boredom that sets in soon after, unfortunately. The hooks cannot last, especially when the reader is intentionally made aware of the outcome from the start and any more attempts at dramatic tension are subsequently undermined. In short, we already know what's going to happen and as the characters (with one notable exception in the amnesiac Aeron) seem static and unchangeable, it adds to a growing sense of frustration in reading this book. Unavoidable tragedy is one thing, but in this case it backs the characters into a corner of limited action and reaction, leaches at any sympathy they have built up. Berg seems to be veering toward perfect dramatic concepts, but this makes our flashbacked view of Seri's growing relationship with her pacifist healer husband Karon far too sickly sweet and boring. Even the much-mentioned torture is lessened somehow and has lost much-needed impact by the time it finally reaches the narrative. Any tension presented between them is of the wrong kind and the characters just lose credibility as they run down to their doom. It isn't deep enough for the kind of immortal classical tragedy she seems to be implying and, while there are nice moments to be had along the way, the narrative swiftly becomes unbalanced and irritating. For all that, it's not a bad story and the first half is
more than enough reason to read it: when it's good, it's very, very good. The
final twist is lacking and only the nicely judged final scene entices you to read
on to the next book. Perhaps it's not best to judge it apart from the rest of
the series in terms of dramatic structure, because the sequel looks set to shake
things up a little more. Jennifer Howell
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OTHER REVIEWS - November 2004
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Our
Heroine Seri already seems to have lived enough for several fantasy trilogies
when we come across her, camped out in a rustic cottage in the middle of nowhere
and scraping a living from the land. Having watched her husband tortured and executed
for being an illegal sorcerer and their new-born son taken at birth to have his
throat slit by her own brother, the former Duchess has had it bad.
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