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5.0 out of 5 stars
My favorite out of the eight Cheysuli books, Dec 15 1999
Jennifer Roberson has written a fantastic, sweeping series that spans generations. It is so much more than cliche sword and sorcery fantasy. It's about moral struggles, genocide, and prejudice. This installment is my favorite of the series because the main character, Aidan, is such an interesting person with an unusual lir (animal familiar). His inner struggle to find his place in the destiny of his people is so important that he is gently prodded along by several of the Cheysuli deities. The history of what has happened in the series so far is revisited in Aidan's encounters with the spirits of his long-dead royal kin. One thing - don't even bother trying to read this book unless you have read the first six. Briefly: Book One, Shapechangers, is an enchanting introduction to the world of the Cheysuli; Book Two, The Song of Homana, was kind of slow and hard to get through for me, but thank goodness I did because the rest of the series is so fantastic; Book Three, The Legacy of the Sword, covers the struggle of Donal, the first Cheysuli Mujhar, to be accepted by the people he must rule; Book Four, Track of the White Wolf (which is my second favorite of the series), is about Niall, who hovers between the world of the Cheysuli and the Homanans without really being a true part of either one; Book Five, A Pride of Princes, is about the terrible experiences at the hands of the malevolent Ihlini that cause Niall's three sons to come of age; Book Six, Daughter of the Lion, switches gears and focuses on Keely, Niall's daughter, and her fight to accept the womanhood she's tried to ignore; Book Eight, A Tapestry of Lions, is the magnificent conclusion of the series with the fulfillment of the prophecy coming in an unexpected fashion and one of the best endings I've ever read in a fantasy series.
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