meganbmoore | Entries tagged with a: barbara hambly

Set five years after The Darwath Trilogy, the residents of Keep Dare have settled into something resembling an amiable lifestyle and government, but new troubles have arisen. An ice age is coming even though one shouldn’t be, food is scarce, and a new fungus is choking out all the farmland. All of which, naturally, is an invitation for the nobles to try to wrest power from Minalde, the queen and regent, and discredit her and her young son, Tir, who is struggling with the genetic memories of all the past kings. (I really hope it doesn’t surprise anyone that his father went insane.)

The plot is largely divided into two parts that overlap at different points, with Rudy at Keep Dare helping Tir and Alde and trying to find a solution to the food shortage, and Gil and Ingold investigating the cold, which leads them to an entity known as the Mother of Winter. I liked Rudy’s plotline, especially as he kept having to be more and more responsible, though I wish Alde had done more. I am, sadly, less fond of Gil and Ingold’s plotline, due to a certain aspect of it.

( spoiler )

( spoilers )

This is the second book in Hambly’s Darwath trilogy, and unlike other second books of Hambly’s that I’ve read, it’s very much the second book in a series. Which is to say, revelations and setup for the last book.

( brief spoilers )

Gil Patterson is a candidate for a Ph.D. in Medieval History at UCLA who is very focused and driven. She also has frighteningly realistic dreams where the panicked citizens of a medieval land are preparing for the arrival of an ancient enemy. She learns these dreams are real when she meets Ingold, a wizard from Darwath, the land she’s had dreams of, who is protecting its infant prince, Altir. The two are soon joined by Rudy, a biker and artist who seems to be a loser, and the two young Americans return to Darwath with Ingold and Altir by accident when they try to save Ingold from an attack. Soon, they learn that the people of Darwath are preparing for an attack by the Dark, a race that attacks every 3000 years, and they get caught up in their affairs, and their exodus from their home as they move to what they hope is a safe haven.

This is, I think, Hambly’s first novel, and it shows, though not in a bad way. There are many elements here that Hambly does well, but that she later does much better in Windrose Chronicles and the Sun Wolf and Starhawk books. (And other books, too, but I’ve only read those two series and Dragonsbane before this.) As is usual for Hambly, a lot of the strength is in the charming characters, most of which do not fit safely within the typical fantasy norms. Here, the cold scholar becomes a warrior engrossed in the camaraderie of a guard’s life, but without undermining her previous life, and the free thinking artist becomes a magician, only to learn that it may not be quite as amazing as he thought, and that his “free thinking” can also lead to unfounded prejudice. Hambly also seems to like playing around with the more “minor” characters of fantasy fiction, especially the women. Here, the noble regent is a jerk, and the inexperienced young queen who is initially dismissed is actually smart and well grounded, and has loved and been hurt very deeply.

The complete list of books I read it 2008 is in poll form here.

( top books of the year )

Still being hunted after the end of The Witches of Wenshar, Sun Wolf and his lover, Starhawk appear to be done for when they’re rescued by members of their old mercenary troop. It seems that their current siege is stalled thanks to a hex placed on it by a wizard, and the troop’s new leader wants to hire Sun Wolf to find out who’s behind it. He agrees, at least partly because he’s still looking for a mage powerful enough to train him.

The plot was fun, and it was interesting to see Starhawk and Sun Wolf return to the mercenary life after a year without it, and see how their viewpoints had change. But while Starhawk was as wonderful and pragmatic as always, Sun Wolf irritated me with his wishywashyness over some things. A little too much “save Starhawk or save an entire town” going on. Not to mention that, while it may be realistic to not cheat on your girlfriend primarily because you know she’ll dump you if you do, it’s not overly attractive when it almost comes across as the only reason. Though at least he and the text both realized he wasn’t showing his best side.

Both sequels to Ladies of Mandrigyn are good, but I think they get by more on the strength of the first book than on their own merits.

Kyra is a young journeyman wizard about to take her final tests before her Council. However, something is affecting her magic in unusual ways, culminating in a vision of her younger sister, Alix, dying on her wedding night. Not about to let such a thing happen, Kyra leaves the Citadel and returns home in the midst of the wedding preparations, despite having been exiled by her father six years before.

The book is set in the same world as The Silicon Mage, The Silent Tower and The Dog Wizard, but has little connection to them. I think Kyra was mentioned as Random Young Wizard #3 or something in The Dog Wizard, but the storylines of the first three have virtually no impact on Stranger at the Wedding. Instead, the book focuses on Kyra’s attempts to both save and reconnect with her family, even as she does everything in her power to sabotage and postpone Alix’s wedding to fend off the vision, and on her background.

The book is darker than the other books in the series, touching on themes that were mentioned as a part of Antryg’s past before, but never as directly addressed, and deals almost entirely with the non-wizard society of the world, which we haven’t seen a lot of before. Though the final reveals about Kyra’s past are difficult to read, I thought it was very interesting to see how Kyra and her father got to where he blamed her for almost destroying the family. In the end, I can’t approve of how he treated her, but I can understand how he came to be like that. But I almost always like focus on family in fiction, and I like that the plot revolved around Kyra being determined to save her sister by any means necessary. I also really liked her various adventures and intrigues as she tried to figure out what was behind the danger to Alix, and the romance was cute, despite being a trope I’m not a huge fan of.

Set several months after The Silent Tower and The Silicon Mage, Dog Wizard features Joanna and Antryg having settled down in our world, theoretically free of Antryg’s past. That, of course, doesn’t last long, as someone crosses over and kidnaps Joanna, causing Antryg to go after her.

The books is fun, and we get a better look at the Wizard’s Council and how it relates to the world than we have before, and there are some fun secondary characters, but it’s not as good as its predecessors. Partly, I think, because, while Antryg is great, Antryg as related by Antryg just isn’t as fun as Antryg as related by others, and most of the book is from Antryg’s perspective. I would have rather the main focus been on Joanna’s adventures in the vault, or various wizards trying to figure Antryg out.

Also, I can’t help but think that Daurannon, one of the new characters, is almost a second Caris. Except I’d rather just have the original back.

Anyway, not as good as the first two books, but still fun in its own right.

Set nine months after The Ladies of Mandrigyn, The Witches of Wenshar has Sun Wolf and his former second-in-command, Starhawk, arriving in Tandieras, looking for a mage to serve as a teacher. (Random aside: why is his name as two words, and hers as one?) The nearby kingdom of Wenshar, it seems, was once ruled by evil witches who summoned and controlled demons, but they had been wiped out. However, a mage of Tandieras, Kaletha, claims to have found the books of the witches, and used the to train herself, and Sun Wolf attempts to learn from her, even as the king hires him to train his weak son, Jeryn, in the arts of war.

( mild spoiler for the first book )

It isn't as good as The Ladies of Mandrigryn, but it's still pretty good. The thing is that LoM didn't really need a sequel, it wrapped up everything it needed to. It didn't make the idea of a sequel an outright bad thing (I'd be appalled to learn that there are sequels to Dragonsbane even if I hadn't been warned they were bad, simply because that was very clearly The End of the story) as it's still set up for more adventures, they just aren't needed. I have to admit, though, that while I really like Jeryn and his sister, Tazey (I wouldn't mind seeing more of them when they're older, but I doubt that will happen) and the murder mystery that's lurking in the first half, and more prominent in the second, I wasn't overly impressed with the various other adult characters aside from Sun Wolf and Starhawk. I figure the LoM characters kind of spoiled me.

Sun Wolf, the famed leader of a mercenary band, has little use for women outside of pretty young things to keep his bed warm. The only exception to this is Starhawk, his masculine second-in-command, who he regularly tells himself(and others) doesn’t really count. When Sheera, a noblewoman of Mandrigyn, tries to purchase his services to help reclaim Mandrigyn from Altiokis, the only living wizard, he gives her a resounding "Hello no!" Sheera, however, is having none of that and kidnaps him, poisoning him and telling him that she’ll only save him if he trains the women of Mandrigyn to fight so they can retake the city themselves. Starhawk, meanwhile, is having none of that kidnapping thing, and heads north to Mandrigyn despite the winter to get him back, accompanied only by his mistress, Fawn.

Obviously, this book was going to have a lot of gender role reversals from the get go. The damsel in distress is the hardened mercenary leader. The hero off to rescue him is his female sidekick. The charismatic leader is a woman, and her army is comprised of women. Female characters who would typically be dismissed, such as Fawn, are made interesting and given depth and purpose. Sun Wolf walks the fine line between "sexist and needs to be punched" and "sexist because of lifestyle, but learning," but comes out on the right side, for the most part. He does, however, manage to be likable but less interesting than most of the other characters around him. Most of his character growth, of course, revolves around his opening his eyes and realizing that Starhawk isn’t the only woman in the world who won’t crumble at the first sign of trouble. And, of course, figuring out that she’s much more his type than what he’s always thought. It’s difficult to pull off a romance where the characters in question barely interact, but Hambly does it pretty well.

I forget, is this one part of a series, and if so, are the others good?

Ten years ago, John Aversin, Lord of Alyn Hold, slew a dragon with the aid of his lover, the witch Jenny Waynest, making him the only living dragonslayer. When a new dragon attacks the kingdom, a young scholar named Gareth sets off to find him, claiming to be sent by the king to summon John to the capital. What Gareth finds, though, crushes most of his dreams. Far from being a tall, handsome knight in a majestic keep, John is an average, bespactacled, affable scholar who works in the dirt, and Alyn Hold is a dumpy little village. Just as bad, John doesn't have a proper lady as a mistress or a wife, but rather a short, frank witch who lives just outside of town. His dreams, they are crushed! Shattered! This isn't right! Woe! Thankfully, a few close calls snap him out of that, and soon Gareth is learning that not stepping out of a ballad doesn't make a person any less heroic, and that it's often better to fight smart than to worship the rules of chivalry.

Instead of being all about the dragonhunting, the dragonhunting takes a backseat to the court intrigues, Gareth's growing past his youthful ideals, and Jenny's continued struggle between her love for John and their sons, and her love for magic. The book hits a lot of my kinks, but primarily the clash between practical reality and heroic ideals, without bashing the heroic ideals, or mocking the person who has them, and also with featuring an old married couple as the leads. Ok, they're neither old now married, but they've been together for over a decade and have two kids, ok? I love fiction that portrays an actual couple as interesting and as still having problems, romantic or otherwise, and getting through them, and have never understood this mass conviction that people turn boring once they've gotten together and settled down. It's no accident that Zoe and Wash are my favorite part of Firefly, or that Raven's Strike and Raven's Shadow(featuring a married couple with teens who tag along with their mother who sets off to tear the world apart when some fool abducts her husband) are my favorite Patricia Briggs books.

Anyway, I have now read and liked the three Barbara Hambly books I was specifically recced, but have been warned not to blindly get her books, as she's apparently of uneven quality. Anyone want to rec more?

( the plot, it is a spoiler for the end of the first book )

I understand there are 2 other stories set in this world. Are they worth checking out?

( the plot, it is a spoiler for the end of the first book )

I understand there are 2 other stories set in this world. Are they worth checking out?

Joanna is a geeky, near anti-social computer programmer in Las Angeles. Sometimes, she carries a hammer in her purse. Just in case. In another world, Caris, a guardsman for the mages and grandson of the archmage is looking for his missing grandfather. Caris has studied well for how to be an uptight, duty-bound, overly heroic swordsman. Antryg, the supposedly dead darkmage's pupil, has been locked in a tower for seven years, but manages to escape. Antryg is more than a little eccentric and slightly batty, but probably a good guy underneath. Or a complete nutter.

When Antryg, who Caris believes is responsible for his grandfather's disappearance, crosses the void into our world, Caris follows, and when they return, they've brought Joanna with them. Caris accuses Antryg of having kidnapped Joanna, and promises to help her return home, despite Antryg's insistence that not only is he innocent, but that there's a much bigger problem going on than what Caris is willing to admit to.

I've read a fair bit of this fantasy genre that seems to have been so popular in the 80s and 90s, and, while well written and highly enjoyable, especially the geeky heroine falling for the batty oddball mage instead of the heroic swordsman, there actually isn't a whole lot to make it stand out until the fairly major twist at the end that sets up book two. I'd want to read another book even without the twist, but now I'm glad I have it on hand to read next.

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July 2020

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Mother of Winter by Barbara Hambly
The Armies of Daylight by Barbara Hambly
The Walls of Air by Barbara Hambly
The Time of the Dark by Barbara Hambly
2008 in review: books
The Dark Hand of Magic by Barbara Hambly
Stranger at the Wedding by Barbara Hambly
Dog Wizard by Barbara Hambly
The Witches of Wenshar by Barbara Hambly
The Ladies of Mandrigyn by Barbara Hambly
The Ladies of Mandrigyn by Barbara Hambly
Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly
Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly
The Silicon Mage by Barbara Hambly
The Silicon Mage by Barbara Hambly
The Silent Tower by Barbara Hambly
The Silent Tower by Barbara Hambly

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Of Swords and Parasols

I'm a damsel. I'm in distress. I can handle it.

Entries tagged with a: barbara hambly

Mother of Winter by Barbara Hambly

The Armies of Daylight by Barbara Hambly

The Walls of Air by Barbara Hambly

The Time of the Dark by Barbara Hambly

2008 in review: books

The Dark Hand of Magic by Barbara Hambly

Stranger at the Wedding by Barbara Hambly

Dog Wizard by Barbara Hambly

The Witches of Wenshar by Barbara Hambly

The Ladies of Mandrigyn by Barbara Hambly