Commentaires client les plus utiles
|
|
4.0étoiles sur 5
Promising beginning for a new series..., Oct. 26 2004
I had never read anything by Patricia Briggs before, but the cover and the summary looked interesting enough to give it a shot. I wasn't disappointed. It was an interesting, inventive novel with intriguing characters, and I went through it quite quickly. Not because it lacked substance, but because I didn't want to put it down. The magical aspect was covered very creatively. There are essentially six "orders" of magicians, and each type is linked to a different bird. The Raven of the title is the classic Mage, the order represented by Seraph, the protagonist, a strong woman whose Traveler blood ensures that she's hated by the general populace. At the very beginning of the story, her brother is killed because he's a Traveler, and she's rescued from joining him on the funeral pyre by Tier, who is not a traveler, but is revealed to be a Bard, linked to the Owl, and so is blessed with charisma and musical talent unmatched. They are married, largely to save each other from unwelcome fates, and not out of love. They're mostly strangers when they wed. Twenty years pass (which was a little disappointing; I would have liked to see more of Seraph and Tier's marriage), and the two of them have three children. Each of the children is given to an Order, which is extremely unusual. Jes, the oldest, is a Guardian, an Eagle, and sworn to protect anyone he loves at virtually any cost. He is, however, given shape-shifting abilities to help him with this. Lehr, the middle child, is a Hunter, a Falcon, and his powers are exactly what you would expect from a hunter. Rinnie has the gifts of the Weather-Witch, the Cormorant, and has power over the weather. While trapping one winter, Tier mysteriously disappears. He doesn't come back with the spring as expected, and there are signs of foul play. The entire village believes him to be dead, but Seraph uses her long-unused powers to discover that he is still alive. With the help of Hennae, a slightly mysterious Raven that approaches with a timely warning, and her children, Seraph sets out to rescue her husband from an evil fate. In the meantime, Tier discovers himself in a prison cell, while his powers have been taken away from him. Bound by magic in a way that renders him unable to get help or to tell anyone about his situation, he is eventually allowed to wander freely... uncovering a sinister plot against the realm and even the Emperor himself. There was a lot of exposition involved in this story, but it was done in such a way that it remained interesting anyway. The amount of world-building that was required, combined with an open ending promises a sequel that I can only hope comes soon. I'll definitely be picking it up when it comes out.
|
|
|
|