With songs like "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" and "Shout," how could you not want to get up and dance to this radical 80s band? It's hard to mention the 80s without saying something about Tears For Fears.
BEWARE OF TALL HANDSOME STRANGERS--
Who sleep by day . . .
and play at night.
DON'T BE TAKEN IN BY COOL VIOLET EYES--
Even if they're wild and exciting . . .
and speak of romance in the moonlight.
LISTEN TO THE WARNING OF THE FORTUNE TELLER--
Who foretells a terrible danger . . .
that lurks in the shadows of darkness.
RUN FOR YOUR LIFE--
Unless you're ready to face the evil . . .
and destroy it - or die.
First published in 2000.Tal has bound himself to Milla, and vise versa, in order to get himself back to the castle. In exchange for his safe return, he must get Milla a Sunstone in order for her to take it back to the Icecarls. Getting back into the castle, since Tal hasn’t heard of anyone actually doing it, proves much more difficult than climbing up a mountain. He’s pushed to the physical and mental limits that even he didn’t know he had, not to mention he starts to question his own standing in life. When Tal and Milla are captured by henchmen of Sushin, Tal’s mortal enemy for unknown reasons, he has to figure a way out of the mess he’s in and help Milla because it is his fault, after all, that she ended up trapped in his world and incarcerated in the Hall of Nightmares.
I have to say, this one is much better than the first, not only in writing style but in exposition as well. I think it had a lot to do with it shifting back and forth between Tal being someplace foreign and Milla being someplace foreign so there’s a lot more explanation going on which helps to develop the story in my head a little better. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its moments of ‘what is that?’ because it just gives you a name without a basis for comparison, but it’s quelled a lot.
By the end Tal gets over his “Milla’s barely a step above Underfolk” superiority that he carried for a large enough chunk of this book that it was still annoying. The girl saved his ass time and time again yet he saw her as beneath him, in some fashion or another. Product of his upbringing, I know, but usually, when someone stops death from taking your life, you’re grateful, not expectant that that’s how it should be regardless. Granted Milla isn’t exactly a daisy to be around but at least she doesn’t have the caste mind that Tal has.
I was getting pretty annoyed with all of the conveniences that seemed to surround Tal to help him out of otherwise futile situations. The more I see and understand these Spiritshadows and shadowguards, the more I see them as deus ex machina pieces that serve to make the journey easier for the MC, to help him out of situations he’d otherwise get stuck in. A security blankie. The things just proved too useful.
As did Uncle Ebbitt. Aside from the fact that his “wacky” demeanor felt contrived, at best, he always seemed to appear at the most opportune moments to help Tal along. When he was in the Pit, that was supposed to be an illegal holding cell. You’d think it’d be under better guard and an Underfolk with a hacksaw in a cake wouldn’t be able to get by and give it to Tal. Or how Ebbitt comes in to save the day just at the moment Tal’s able to get out of the Pit.
I did like Milla’s ability to thwart Fashnek and his crystal globe of nightmares. That, to me, made sense because she’s not of that world. She holds powers that they don’t know of so to see her exhibit something that was otherwise unfamiliar was almost expected. The execution of relaying why she had that power seemed a little forced, but the power itself was pretty cool.
With Tal leveling out and doing things for the greater good instead to protect his image, not to mention the stilts of the story getting shorter, the books are getting more tolerable. It’s decent but I’m still leaning towards this kind of high type of fantasy to not really be my thing. It’s a little much, especially when the emphasis is on the world instead of the characters, the situation or the plot.
First published in 2000.But Tal cannot stay safe forever. When danger strikes, he must desperately climb the Red Tower to steal a Sunstone. He reaches the top…
…and then he falls into a strange and unknown world of warriors, iceships, and hidden magic. There Tal makes an enemy who will save his life—and holds the key to his future. (bn.com)
I. Am. So. Lost. I’ve never read a book and come out this disoriented before. Holy crap. Right from the beginning you’re shoved into this world with weird names being thrown at you, many without any kind of explanation so you’re left to try and figure out just what this something’s supposed to look like but you have no idea because it could rightly be anything. That . . . was a huge turn off for me. Immediately I’m supposed to know what all of this stuff is, what’s going on, why it’s so important to get into Aenir. And I don’t. I’m just told that’s how it is. Therein lies the major flaw.
It doesn’t say why it’s so important to get a Sunstone and be able to get into Aenir. The book just says you have to and it becomes Tal’s life journey from the moment he finds out his father’s missing. He has relatives and this Sushin guy that treat him like a steaming pile of crap without any real reason. Apparently there was some shenanigans between Sushin and someone in Tal’s family and he’s taking it out on him. Mature. As for the female relatives, I have no idea why they’re bitches, but they are. I did feel a little pang of anger at how they were treating him but that was pretty fleeting.
It also seems that young Tal has a bit of a superiority complex, not to mention a huge amount of selfishness. The complex could rightly be a product of his surroundings. It seems that’s just how this world lives. But damn is this kid selfish. He considers leaving behind his guide, a warrior girl that’s really no older than he is (about 13) to die in the cold but decided not to not because he thinks it’d be wrong and she should be saved, but because of what other people would think of him. Commendable, I tell you. O_o The thing is, he seems like a really bright kid who should know better. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to get her a Sunstone so he considers leaving her behind all the while attempting to convince himself that she’s part of the Underfolk, despite the evidence to the contrary, and she should be treated as such. And he’s the head of the family? I just don’t find this likable in a character. I’m hoping for some sort of redemption in the next two.
I’m still trying to figure out how, after the fall, Tal ended up so far away. I understand his shadowguard (which acted like a deus ex machina) glided him down to safety but from what it reads like, it’s like he was hundreds of miles away. And what the *^%^*& is a stretch? Saying it’s almost the length of Tal’s arm doesn’t do me any good because I have no idea how big the kid is. Some 13 year-olds are enormous. So when the tower was 100 stretches away . . . no idea. I could guess but is that really where my energy should be focused when reading a book? Or trying to decipher their units of measure because it’s constantly brought up but never really explained?
If this weren’t one of those three books in one deals, I wouldn’t be reading on. The end of the book ends on what is rightly a chapter mid-book, not the end of the first story which I find kind of annoying. Like how Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3 were filmed together and the end of the second looked like someone in the editing room with a pair of scissors picked a place and snipped on the reel. That’s how this one ended. Ick. And the thing is, if the book has to come out and force the idea that Tal has grown, he really hasn’t. I didn’t see it although I was told he did.
Sure, it was a really fast read. Really fast. But it’s empty. There’s a fair amount going on but like I said, I’m expected to understand the context of this world without any kind of basis for comparison and that really has me thrown. I understand you can’t take the time to go into great detail about your world in order for readers to get it but for the love of god, just give me something. Anything! It’s a 14 point font with 2 inch margins and 196 pages. I’m sure there’s some wiggle room there. Sure, I get it. I get what a Sunstone is. I get those testing things Tal has to take but it’s like walking into a tribe in Africa and just expecting to know and understand what’s going on. Sure, you’ll get it eventually but on your first day, it’s not going to mean much. And that’s what happened here. It’s consistently my first day in the tribe.
The writing was kind of eh as well. It was kind of high falutin and it reminded me of my own work, the beginning of it anyway, when I was aiming for something that the story shouldn’t have been. Are the stilts really necessary? I’ll read the next two but only because they’re attached to the first. I don’t see any other reason to keep going.
