ISBN: 0-312-86822-7 Order from: Amazon.com
A repetetive, plodding installment full of magical fights, solid-seeming but boring details of pretechnological life, and dense enemies.
Reviewed by David on January 30, 2000
Genre: Fantasy (Sword and Sorcery, Multiple Worlds, Music)
Synopsis: The modern-day singer who was magically transported into a world where music is (literally) power, continues to unify, rebuild and strengthen the country of Defalk using her magic, determination and education. The struggles with invaders, rebels and the forces of ignorance and male chauvinism take up most of the book.
Full Review: This is the third novel in the Spellsong Cycle. In the first book, The Soprano Sorceress, Anna Marshall, a vocal teacher, was transported magically into a world where singing is a method for invoking magic. After getting involved in a war against invaders, Anna ended up as a ruler of Defalk, a small feudal country surrounded by more powerful neighbors.
Anna is busy rebuilding and strengthening Defalk, including instituting coed schools, taxation, civil projects; putting down rebellions and building alliances.
This novel, as its predecessor, is full of battles, uncomfortable travel, too much information about food and weather and not enough character development.
Regrettably, except for a new list of enemies, the novel is almost exactly the same as its prequels. There is more exposure of the rarely used Darksong, a form of sorcery effective on living tissue.
The enemies are still quite foolish, and mostly male, and much of the dialogue is taken up with railing against their denseness. The cycle appears open-ended, and one would hesitate to recommend this novel without any significant developments and hope of conclusion of this series.
Overall: 5.5; Plot: 5.5; Characters: 5; Style: 4; World-building: 5; Originality: 4;
Tor, October 1999, Cloth, 507 pages
ISBN: 0-312-86822-7 Order from: Amazon.com