Louise CooperAnmeldelser

So at last the eight book trilogy reaches its final volume. After enjoying vols 4 - 7 (I found 1 - 3 weak and disappointing) I was expecting another interesting read. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case and there was a distinct sense of anti-climax.

Indigo and her sentient wolf friend Grimya are returning by ship to Indigo's island homeland where the tragedy which launched her long quest occurred. There is one more demon to defeat before she can be reunited with her beloved, Fenran. But things soon go amiss when the ship is caught in a storm and wrecked. Although they survive, the two friends are separated, Grimya is physically injured and Indigo suffers from amnesia. A sailor aboard the ship, who had nutured hopes that Indigo might come to love him and which she had been too soft-hearted to quell, then tells everyone that he and Indigo are betrothed. Luckily he is not such a sleaze as to take physical advantage, and he has a few qualms of conscience, but Indigo ends up depending on him and rejecting anything that might remind her of her true nature - including Grimya.

Grimya spends a lot of time with the true hero of this book, a witch woman from the forest, called Niahrin. It is she who drives the action and I liked her character and also that of the queen dowager, a tough older woman who has to sometimes use subterfuge to get round the pigheadedness of her son the king. Strange things are happening at the castle where they live, which seems haunted by hostile presences, and these presences are tied up with Indigo.

I wasn't expecting everything to be happy ever after with Indigo becoming queen, although she has more right to the throne than the existing family, being the sole survivor of the previous royal line, the present monarchy having been created by appointment when it seemed the first had died out due to a plague. (For some reason, never explained, everyone in the islands recalls the unleashing of the demons by Indigo's arrogant meddling, and the subsequent bloodbath as a deadly plague.) I wouldn't have minded if she had overcome the final demon, and perhaps been reunited with Fenran or not - a nice twist would have been that she had matured due to her experiences and found she had outgrown him. She and Grimya could have ridden off into the sunset and I would've been content.

But instead there is a really weird twist that Fenran is the final demon which doesn't make sense because the person it revolves around existed before Anghara/Indigo ever unleashed the demons in book 1. Not only that, but Indigo reverts to the really annoying person she used to be, especially in the first three volumes, where she never believes Grimya and does stupid things because of it - so I found it hard to accept the description of her as a mature individual who had learned from her quest - and in this book she does exactly the same thing again. Not only that, but she behaves like a lovestruck teen as if none of her previous growth had ever happened. And considering Grimya's previous injuries, I found it difficult to square the fact that she had been hobbling around with her feats of endurance towards the end of the story. So I would have liked a different plotline. I also see why a happy ending was reserved for Niahrin -I liked her too - but in my book that could have involved her and Grimya teaming up. Goodness knows Grimya deserved better!

For these reasons, making a weak ending to an enjoyable series, I can only award the book 3 stars.

In this second volume, Ygorla launches her rein of terror against the land, beginning with the dwelling place of the High Margrave, Summer Isle. The bard Strann has the misfortune to have been called to the island to provide music for the High Margravine's birthday party. He and the ship's company are first beset by a freak storm that damages the ship and forces them to dock, even though they can see through the captain's spylass that the dockside is littered with corpses of soldiers and dock officials, and then they are attacked by the malicious supernatural conjurings that serve Yglora. Dragged before Yglora and forced to witness the slaughter of his fellow captives, Strann draws on his bardic powers to flatter the sorceress' monstrous ego and wins a temporary reprieve, but at the cost of the respect of others and his own self-respect.

Meanwhile, Tirand, High Initiate of the Circle of magicians in the far north is at first disbelieving of his sister Karuth's psychic intuitions that Yglora is a threat, and then when he is forced to accept it by the arrival of supernatural visitants bearing Yglora's demands for capitulation and worship, he is only too eager to believe that the gods of Chaos have broken the pact called Equilibrium, the pact they had won with so much difficulty two generations previously. Tirand enforces a repudiation of the Circle's fealty to Chaos, replacing it with the sole worship of the gods of Order, and is increasingly hostile towards his sister. Unfortunately nearly everyone follows his lead and Karuth is ostracised, and actively threatened by Order itself.

I enjoyed the focus on Strann and his precarious position, and on Karuth's almost equally difficult situation. These are both characters who are sympathetic, although flawed with believable faults. Both have to overcome their own fear to act decisively. There were also cameo appearances by Yandros, chief lord of Chaos and his brother Tarod, who was the hero of the first trilogy. I didn't enjoy it quite as much as book 1, possibly because Yglora is such an insufferable character and Tirand, Karuth's brother, is increasingly annoying but then they are both keeping to their character briefs. So a solid 3 star rating.

In this final volume, Ygorla is building her plans towards the domination of the realm of Chaos, having conquered the human dimension. Her arrogance and pride start to drive a wedge between herself and her demonic father. Meanwhile, Strann is continuing his undercover role, working for Chaos while continuing to pose as her abject slave. And for the reader it becomes clear that the gods of Order have their own agenda, which involves the manipulation of Calvi who has now become Ygorla's lover and a thoroughly unpleasant character.

The stakes become increasingly high as the story nears its culmination, and the resolution is completely satisfying. It was nice also to have Tarod, Yandros and Cyllan back from the Time Master trilogy. I really enjoyed the book, and the only reason I didn't read it more quickly is that I was also reading another book which I found a slog, but felt I should finish before this one. I would otherwise have stormed through this, and in fact finished it on the same day that I finally got through the other one. Hence I am awarding this a full 5 stars

This is book 1 of a trilogy which follows on from the original trilogy about the conflict between Chaos and Order, and which told the story of Tarod, who was one of the Chaos gods in human form. At the end of book 3 of that trilogy, a hard-won Equilibrium was achieved in which Order had to concede a place in the human world to Chaos. They now share the day/night hours between them. As part of the agreement, neither can intefere in human affairs unless a direct appeal is made.

Some years have passed when the current story starts, and life has settled down to a comfortable and prosperous one for the people of the various provinces. Yet there is a glimmer of trouble when the dying Head Initiate at the magicians' castle, who held the post at the time of the first trilogy and was a sometime friend and later enemy of Tarod, indicates that the birth of a child to a visitor is an omen of something sinister. He soon dies and the problem is forgotten, by all except Karuth, serious minded daughter of the new Head Initiate, and possessed of an uncertain psychic ability as well as being a trained mage and physician.

The baby is adopted by her great-aunt, the head of the Sisterhood Cot, one of the triumvirate of leaders (along with the High Initiate and the High Margravine, the political leader, who lives on Summer Isle), and all seems well apart from the growing girl's headstrong, willful character until at her fourteen birthday party an event occurs which triggers off eventual disaster.

The story is possibly a bit drawn out until it becomes clear just who Jglora's father was and what his plans are for her and humanity, and for the gods of Chaos. However, I did like the character building which is natural and believable. Certain characters are very sympathetic and it is therefore a jar when tragedy strikes them. The growing disagreement and distrust between Karuth and her younger brother, who becomes High Initiate too early when their father dies suddenly is also believable, with the young man following the same rigid and hidebound outlook of those who have preceded him in the post.

(Minor note - gorgeous cover but wasn't sure if that was supposed to be the anti-heroine or Karuth - Karuth does invoke a fire elemental at one point but she is seated at a table, uses a crucible not being silly enough to hold it in a cup, and she certainly isn't wearing gorgeous clothing like that - not her style!)

I rate this at 4 stars and look forward to reading the next book in the series.

This seventh volume in the series takes up where Indigo and Grimya, the sentient talking wolf who has been her faithful companion on her long quest, have travelled to somewhere on the eastern continent (not marked on the map at the begining slightly frustratingly, but we know that it is not too far from the place where they spent many years in what I think was book 3) to give Indigo some time to recover after the traumas of the previous book. At the end of that story she threw away the talisman that had hitherto led her to where each demon that she must defeat was residing: the demons that she unleashed with her foolish and arrogant behaviour in book one. She has now decided that she will try to find her lost love Fenran instead of assuming that she must defeat all the demons first.

They are in a strange country where everything is extremely ordered and hierarchical. The rigid social order is defined by the wearing of coloured sashes. Committees are in charge of each town, and an area is set aside for foreigners such as Indigo. Everyone must have a utilitarian value: luckily, she has some herbal knowledge which leads to her being co-opted as a replacement physician in the community of Joyful Travail, the previous incumbent having died. A family in the foreign enclave become her hosts: parents and son and daughter. But even before her arrival a slightly creepy note has been struck because both Indigo and Grimya have been aware of whispering children's voices that have followed them on the road and now are heard at night, along with glimpses of ghostlike child figures. And it soon becomes apparent that no one, apart from the youngest child in the family, the son, can admit that they are aware of any of these presences.

In this story Indigo finally comes to terms with a longterm adversary. But first she must plunge into conflict with the townspeople, refusing to heed the wise council of Grimya despite the wolf's past demonstration that her instincts are usually better than Indigo's rationalisations and speculations. Quite a large part of the story and its central conflict all turns on Indigo's stubborness, which has been shown several times before. She can be quite an irritating character because of her persistent refusal to learn, though it might be partly due to the fact that she has, up to now, been an incomplete personality. Although I enjoyed the interaction with new characters such as The Benefactor, a mysterious man who has a deep connection with the souless and materialistic character of his people, an elderly woman who has managed to keep alive the inner joy that the rest have crushed out of themselves, and the young son of the family, plus my favourite character, Grimya, I have to deduct a star because of Indigo's persistent pig-headedness. But I suppose if she did the sensible thing for once it would be quite a short book! So a 4-star rating from me.

In volume 6 of the series, Indigo has crossed to the Dark Isle, led by the guidance of the lodestone to seek the next demon she must destroy before her lost love Fenran can be saved. Unfortunately she is fevered and caught in a monsoon type rain in a rather unhealthy jungle. Only her friend, the faithful sentient wolf Grimya, can find help in time.

The two are taken to a temple within the jungle by a dark and forbiding lake, which is apparently the dwelling place of a Goddess, the Ancestral Lady, whom the population worship. There Indigo is caught up in local power politics and a struggle between the rigid and harsh rule of the current high priestess and her kinder, more pragmatic second in command. Meanwhile the Ancestral Lady is impinging mentally on Indigo and seems to be the demon they have come to find.

I found this one quite enjoyable, but a major stumbling block was the fate that awaited a particular character who I liked. However, this loss is perhaps pivotal in Indigo's growth at the end of the story where she finds that certain abilities - and enmities - are no longer necessary as she has passed to a new stage in her existence. The cover of this edition though is ridiculous - Indigo dressed in a sort of Sheena of the Jungle outfit wielding her crossbow against what is presumably meant to be one of the mindless zombies which occur in this story - except she never uses her crossbow in the whole story and certainly does not start wearing strategically placed bits of chamois leather! Anyway, in view of the loss of the best guest starring character, this rates a 3 star from me.

Volume 3 of the Indigo series is my least favourite to date. It starts out with some promise - Indigo and her sentient wolf friend Grimya have travelled to the eastern continent in search of the second demon that they must destroy. They join a caravan to travel along the coast to the city where Indigo's now deceased mother was born, but soon learn that invaders have attacked the city. Indigo and Grimya travel on alone, going through the desert to avoid any soldiers on the road, and find an injured woman at an oasis, with her baby daughter. She tells them she is the wife of the city's ruler and that they must help her escape or her child will be murdered. Unfortunately, troops arrive, led by a nobleman who the woman denounces as a traitor: he is one of the indigenous nobility who is now working for the conqueror.

Indigo, Grimya, the woman and her baby are all conveyed to the city but there, despite Indigo's immediate assumption that the conqueror must be the demon, they are treated kindly and decently, even though there have been some deaths - the old ruler among them. The widow refuses to care for her child and Indigo is asked to take charge of the Infanta - the child's title - and her household. Initially she plans to act against the conqueror but things start to slide: she makes friends with his court astrologer and starts to take various drugs that the woman offers her to help her to sleep - for she suffers nightmares which worsen in the months before the Infanta's birthday. This becomes a repeating pattern each year with the Infanta herself also apparently affected as well as others in the palace.

Eventually, Indigo is drawn into a conspiracy to overthrow the new ruler but this doesn't go far - the chief conspirators are packed off to the Jewel Islands as ambassadors and without them, the only other member still in the capital refuses to act. He is a relic seller at the Sea goddess' temple and has a background which includes information that would be vital to Indigo if he would only divulge it. Years drag by and Indigo is completely ineffective as she lives an idyll at the palace, helping to raise the Infanta who is destined to marry the conqueror. Meanwhile, the heat and the city environment are not great for Grimya who has far less to do in this book which may be why it is the weakest in the series: Indigo is a wimp throughout this story until near the end and has the wool pulled right over her eyes. As I'd guessed the "twist" before very long into the story, it made the character seem rather stupid into the bargain. The writing itself isn't weak but the plotline and characterisation are, and there is also some very graphic violence which seems unnecessary, so all in all this can only scrape up 2 stars from me.

Volume 4 of the Indigo series had a lot to prove after the slump in book 3, but amazingly it did. In this, Indigo is part of a troop of travelling players - all one big family run by the father, their mother having died giving birth to the youngest child. She and Grimya have been happy during their travels with the group, but now the lodestone which shows her the direction to take to find the next demon she must tackle indicates that the town that they have come to for a festival is the location. Sure enough, disquieting things are happening: withering of crops, a sleeping sickness and people going missing - who turn out to have become entranced and set out from the town without others seeing them go. And rumours go round of a black forest ringed by a thorn hedge. Indigo and Grimya rightly suspect that all these things are connected and are demon-inspired.

Before long, the family of players are caught up in the encroaching disaster as the eldest daughter falls victim to the sleeping sickness. I won't say any more about the plot not wanting to give away spoilers, but this story sees Indigo bereft of her normal companion and support, and having to rely on people who turn out to be unreliable in at least one case.

Although the story did drag a little bit in places, it was a lot better than the previous books in the series, especially volume 3. The set-up did remind me of a couple of books by other writers: Diana Wynne Jones' Cart and Cwidder for its travelling player characters and Roger Zelazny's Amber series, especially the earlier volumes in the series which deal with the black road, because the black forest and the environment it leads to is rather reminiscent of some of the dimension travelling in those books. But this volume deserves a 4 star rating. I think I will pause my reading of the series for a while on this "high".

I first read this series years ago and couldn't remember anything about it, unlike her Time Master books - perhaps a bad sign. However, I had kept them so couldn't have thought they were terrible, so thought I would re-read.

The story is quite well written. Unfortunately, the protagonist Anghara, who eventually becomes the title character, Indigo, is rather grating. She starts off as a privileged princess, on the verge of marriage to a man who is, by all accounts, loving and supportive of her non-ladylike ways (she loves riding and hunting, for example, which her mother deplores). The prologue makes it clear that a terrible catastrophe occurred an unknown time before and that the tower near to the King's castle is taboo: no one must never even go near it. But in a fit of pique because she has been made to stay behind on the first day of the hunting season for a wedding dress fitting, she rides out after the fitting and ends up near the tower - and then decides that it is unfair that she is denied the knowledge of its secret which has bothered her for years - her royal family are the custodians of the tower and the duty passes from father to son so will pass to her younger brother.

This is completely ignoring the fact that no one, including her father, is allowed anywhere near it, so she is not uniquely deprived - but I suppose it is his knowledge of what is inside that she is greedy to acquire. Anyway, the inevitable happens and events are triggered off which result in Indigo having to wander the world on a difficult and challenging quest, weighed down with the guilt of what her thoughtless action has caused.

I found her character similar in some ways to Shar, the protagonist of the author's young adult trilogy, 'Daughter of Storms' and similarly annoying. Anghara/Indigo, bearing in mind she is older than Shar, also has temper tantrums in which her own anger is the self justification for doing things which she knows are wrong. The only thing that redeemed the story for me was the introduction of a sentient wolf character - maybe I kept this series because I liked the wolf the first time around. So this balances out at 3-stars.

In this second volume of the series, Indigo and her sentient wolf companion Grimya travel north to a region where mining scars the landscape and where a sinister new cult, opposed to the goddess worship which normally prevails in this world, is gathering force. They witness an auto de fe in the town square of a place where they stop for the night and encounter one of the mine overseers who is high in the new cult. Later, they try to help a woman whose husband has been dragged off by the followers of this new 'god', and realise that a substance carried by the worshippers - or in this woman's case, force-fed to her - causes a terrible illness with symptoms that include those of radiation sickness. However, it is more than that, for some of the people are in the process of metamorphosing into inhuman creatures. It becomes clear that the force behind the cult is the first of the demons that Indigo must destroy to complete her quest.

In order to infiltrate the mining area, Indigo and Grimya need the help of a half-crazed priest of the fire manifestation of the goddess, who is also a sorceror and has an affinity with salamanders (fire elementals). Indigo's anger and hatred of the mine overseer whom she met earlier boils over into outright sadism when she has him at her mercy, and it becomes clear that she is not herself but is being influenced by her enemy, Nemesis. This later sorely tests the bond between herself and Grimya.

The book is interesting and the last third or so is a real action tour de force with vivid descriptions leading up to an all out volcanic catastrophe. Grimya is the driving force of quite a lot of the action, which is no bad thing when it keeps the focus away from Indigo. For me, the central character is downright irritating: I like Grimya and didn't mind the fire priest, but Indigo continues to be annoyingly irrational and angry. Even though it is not all her fault this time, she does rather grate on the nerves. So this holds the book back from a higher than 3-star rating for me.

I read this some years ago before joining Goodreads and am only adding this review from what I can recall, since I have just read book 2 of the trilogy and am reading book 3 at present.

This is a young adult novel set in the same universe as the author's Time Master and other books, where the universe is controlled by the Lords of Chaos and the Lords of Order, reminiscient of Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion books. Shar is born with unique powers including the ability to call up elementals at will and should be undergoing training at the home of wizards on the Star Peninsular, but instead is being raised by her unpleasant uncle who has his own agenda. Eventually, with the help of two boys, Hestor who is a young adept at the wizards' Castle, and Kitto, an ordinary boy brought up as a brigand, Shar wins through to her birthright.

I didn't keep this book even though I hadn't read the next two volumes which is not my usual practice, but I do recall that I found it disappointing after the author's stories set in the same universe but for older readers. Shar is a bit of a 'Mary Sue' to borrow the term from Classic Star Trek fan fiction - she is unusually gifted etc. I suppose to counter that she isn't a sweet loveable character as Mary Sues usually are - instead she is headstrong, selfish and conceited about her special abilities. I didn't find her a likeable character and am not finding her such in the later volumes, which I think must be why I passed volume 1 to a charity shop as soon as I finished it. So I can't give it more than a 2-star rating, especially as the later volumes so far are scraping a 3 rating.

This final volume in the Daughter of Storms trilogy differs from the other two in that the action is not triggered off by Shar's enemies, as they are now all dead or, in the case of the Sixth Plane, forced to retreat back to their place of origin. Instead, Shar becomes embroiled in a project at the wizards' castle to revive a disused method of instant travel involving a patch of grass outside the castle gate - the Maze - by means of an amulet.

As a junior initiate, Shar isn't officially involved but her sense of entitlement means that she soon starts secretly trying to master it herself, by getting the minor elementals she can control to "borrow" the amulet each night. Her powers mean that her experiments are far more successful than the official experiments, and she is able to teleport to distant places, but she soon realises that the amulet doesn't just take her through space, but also time. She then starts to try and control the times and places she can go back to, with the aim of killing her uncle before he can murder her parents. Unfortunately, this has repercussions with time being messed up and phantoms of the past being brought into the present, and ultimately her meddling might wreck all time and space.

As usual, Shar never thinks of others, not even her friends, but her self absorption and arrogance tip over into megalomania in this volume. When her experiment to travel without the amulet's aid fails, her reaction is telling: "It wasn't fair. She was a Daughter of Storms, she was a Dark Caller, she was special. The Maze should have worked for her, and the fact that it had not felt like a personal insult." She is an overgrown toddler - a spoilt brat as the musician Reyni called her in volume 2 - and it is baffling why her friends put up with her and like her. In this volume, she became so completely without redeeming features that, for me, she switched to being the villain that other people were trying to stop, and I was amazed by the ending when she is let off lightly and the High Initiate says she might in future be the best High Initiate ever. In my opinion, she didn't learn anything from her salutary lesson at the end, as she didn't show remorse for the destruction she was inflicting on everyone else; only when she herself was affected did she suddenly become sorry. So for that reason, I have to rate this at 1-star as I found her character so unlikeable.

With this and the previous volume the series seems to have hit its stride after the initial three disappointing volumes. This time around, Indigo and her sentient wolf friend Grimya have reached The Redoubt, the land at the top of the world, just as winter is starting to set in. After a helpful man points her to a good trader, she is able to equip herself with a tough dependable gelding and the other equipment she needs to set off, following the path that her lodestone indicates, to find the next demon she must destroy on her quest. But Grimya and she are caught in the early onset of a blizzard and only just reach a steading in time, which turns out to be the original home of her lost love Fenran. Difficulties emerge when the eldest son of the present family resembles Fenran physically and she finds herself drawn to him, an attraction that is reciprocated. But Indigo and Grimya are drawn into the dangerous family dynamics involving, among other things, a cursed axe and shield. Only a white snow tiger can help them work out how to combat the multiple threats that beset them.

I enjoyed this story which kept me guessing as to who might be trying to bring about disaster to the family. There was a good balance of action and character development, with a romantic interest at last for Indigo who has been carrying a torch for Fenran, her betrothed who died forty years earlier when she defied a taboo and unleased the demons into the world. The only thing that mars this series a bit for me is that, given that Indigo and Grimya are both unageing until the quest is done, it seems to have made progress rather leisurely: for example, we find out at the start of this story that, after the adventure in the previous book, they decided to stay with the Brabazon player family for ten more years, and only moved on when it started to become obvious that everyone was ageing except them. Given that Fenran is subjected to everlasting torment until Indigo frees him by killing all the demons, her leisurely progress from one place to another is somewhat odd, especially when in book 3 it resulted in her living in a place for 12 years and really doing nothing other than to worry ineffectually. At least she has toughened up considerably in these last couple of books. Anyway, I hope this better standard continues for the remaining three books of the series and am rating this one 4 stars.

Having recently read another book by the late author, written late in her career, The King's Demon, I was prepared to be disappointed with the present novel, so was pleasantly surprised. Set in the kingdom of Vyskir where the populace worship both a god - known as the God - and a female deity, subservient to him and acting as an intermediary between humans and the God, rather in the mode of the Virgin Mary, although she is not known to have a child, this is a tale of court politics, hidden agendas, betrayal and murder.

As the story opens, a seemingly simple young woman, Nanta, is about to be chosen for a role which is necessary due to the hidebound rules which dominate court life. Kodor, the younger son of the Imperator, the monarch, cannot marry until Osiv, his older brother and heir to the throne, does so - and yet, unbeknown to the populace at large, Osiv is mentally handicapped. His childlike nature means he cannot take on the role of Imperator - and the Imperator always has to publicly approve the choice of his children's spouses. The current holder of the title is aging and unwell, and the senior religionists are desperate to get both his sons married off before he dies, as their country is menaced by a warlike neighbour. Duke Arec, ruler of that country, has a daughter whom he is prepared to use as a bargaining chip - by marrying her to the younger brother who will become regent. The two senior religionists - Urss, head of the male priesthood which controls worship of the God, and Beck, who leads the subservient female order which worships the Lady - would rather their land be peacefully subsumed into the joint rule of the eventual children of that union than be conquered by force.

Urss and Beck are both cynics and pragmatists, prepared even to employ murder to achieve their aims. The need to marry the firstborn to a pliant young woman of good but not powerful family who will not baulk when she discovers what she has been manipulated into means that they settle on Nanta - yet Nanta has a secret which has haunted her for years. And so, it turns out, does Kodor ... in fact, there are momentous secrets hugged close by Urss and Beck also. But events are about to tear away the veil of secrecy.

I enjoyed reading the various viewpoints from Nante, Kodor, his bride, Pola, the two manipulative religionists, and a priestess of the Lady who tries to befriend Nante but struggles against her own issues. As with other books by this author, there are point of view shifts within a scene: they did not confuse me, but I occasionally found them irritating. I forgave that in this book for the interest of the storyline. However, the one 'off' note again, as in The King's Demon, is that the supposed hero violently assaults a woman, although in this book there is at least an explanation later on which indicates the overpowering force which was ultimately responsible. I can see this was meant to drive a wedge between certain characters and prevent them becoming friends, and deprive Nanta of some otherwise useful support, but did think it could have been managed without needing that scene, so have deducted one star for that and the headhopping, hence a 4-star rating from me.

Volume 2 of a young adult trilogy set in the author's world as per her Time Master and other series. The young initiate Shar is now undergoing her studies at the wizards' Castle at Star Peninsular, and seems to have left behind the problems she had to overcome in the first book where her uncle used sorcery to try to gain control of her powers, helped by a woman from the Sisterhood, a healing scholarly sect. Then a letter comes, purporting to be from her mother who was supposedly murdered years ago by her uncle. Despite being suspicious, Shar schemes to leave the castle secretly and travel to the proposed meeting site. Her friends Hestor and Kitto eventually get wind of her plans and try to follow, earning censure by the wizard leaders. Meanwhile, Shar is getting in over her head despite her confidence in her powers which are stronger than most young people of her age.

There were quite a few twists with various characters coming into the story, seemingly to help Shar to meet her mother, but who might or might not have a different agenda. Also, despite being stripped of his powers and imprisoned on an island, her uncle has not finished with her yet. The Lords of Chaos and Order also make a few appearances, both constrained by the pact made two centuries ago not to interfere with human affairs - only something is also interfering which it is in their own interests to combat.

My main problem with the book is what I think I found with volume 1, read some years ago, that the central character is not very likeable. Although we're told that she is acting in a way not herself, until the end there is no overt control over her, and it comes across as just self will, big headedness about having greater powers than most people, and a pigheaded stubborness. Especially as she is acting the same way in volume 3, supposedly without the same villains being responsible. So the most I can rate this at is 3-stars, mainly because I liked the cameo appearances of the mysterious white cat.

I picked up this novel hoping for an enjoyable read, having loved some of the late author's early work years ago. However, although the writing is more accomplished, the story did not gell for me, partly because the main female character, Safira, is very passive throughout. This is partly due to her possession by the demon of the title, but it did mean that the real agency in the novel is through the main male character, who is not that likeable although we do get to see why. But unlike her earlier male protagonist Tarod, who is 'mean, moody and magnificent', Grendon is a pragmatist although working towards a hoped-for vengeance against the king who is responsible for the deaths of his parents and father-figure and mentor, plus the ongoing executions of other people who have the same sort of powers with which Grendon was born.

There are some quite nicely realised minor characters such as the woman who is the mentor's widow, and Safira's real father, and some good twists in the motivation of the various characters and their agendas. However, the passivity of Safira, combined with a tendency to headhop between characters within a scene - which did not confuse me, but irritated instead - plus the extremely dodgy method Grendon uses to exorcise the demon - means I can't rate this higher than 2 stars.

I continued to enjoy the story in Book 2 of the Time Master trilogy, though didn't think it was quite as good as the first volume. In this, following Tarod's desperate halting of the Pendulum of Time, to prevent the Circle from ritually murdering him, he is stranded in the Castle which has been cut off from the rest of the land. His soul-jewel is trapped within the Marble Hall so he faces a Catch-22 where he needs the jewel to regain his humanity, yet as a souless creature is unable to enter the hall to get it.

Into his predicament intrudes two people - Cyllan, the drover woman whom he met before and unbeknown to him has been nursing romantic notions about him ever since - and a spoiled upper class twit, Drachea. They have been swept up in a Warp storm from the other end of the country, and carried into the sea beyond the Castle where, despite Cyllan's courageous efforts, they nearly drown until Cyllan manages to attract the telepathic sea-cats the fananni using her small psychic abilities. But once she and Drachea enter the Castle, they discover that they, too, are trapped there.

Cyllan is torn between her feelings for Tarod as he was before and dismay at the apparently heartless person he now appears to be. Drachea, who regards her as beneath him and is arrogant and rude towards her, forms an instant antipathy for Tarod and wastes no time in ransacking the desk of the vanished High Initiate for clues as to what has happened to the Circle. He finds the report on Tarod and execution order, and takes great delight in reading them out to Cyllan who has never had any education. But when he is caught trying to return them and Tarod inflicts a terrifying vision on him out of the vindictiveness which occasionally overcomes him since the loss of his soul, Drachea collapses and is found by Cyllan who goes to Tarod for help. I won't say any more about the plot, but the situation escalates into conflict that puts the lives and even the souls of Tarod and Cyllan in the greatest jeopardy.

Once again, the book is a big development of the middle section of the earlier shorter novel, Lord of No Time. The situation with Drachea is developed much better here: in the earlier book, he was a sorceror in his own right from another dimension who had just happened to find his way to the Castle and ended up in a duel with Tarod. Here, he is the spoiled son and heir of one of the hereditary rulers of the Provinces, and has delusions of becoming a member of the Circle. He isn't able to restart the Pendulum of Time as he did in the earlier version: instead, he forces the others to do so by threatening Cyllan. Logical enough, as where in this envisaged world would a rival sorceror come from - only members of the Circle can be sorcerors. The newly-played out scenario also means he comes to a much more satisfying end from the point of view of dramatic irony as earlier he had stabbed Cyllan and tried to kill her - now his second murderous assault ends in his own demise.

Sashka also continues to develop. A consumate manipulator and social climber, she betrayed Tarod in book 1 of the trilogy and switched her allegiance to Keridill, the High Initiate. Now, she entrenches herself in his bed and his life, succeeding in becoming his betrothed, and vindictively arranges the downfall of the old herbalist who had seen through her from the start and was drawn instinctively into helping Tarod and Cyllan. Again, we see the total lack of compassion, humanity or finer feelings among the run of the mill worshipper of the gods of Order. Despite the protestations that Chaos is 'evil', most of the evil behaviour is exhibited by Drachea, the High Initiate or his girlfriend.

Erminent is a great character and her fate is sad, but her scheme could never have worked given the flaw inherent in it - if she declared she had locked the door to Cyllan's room, then, given that she still had the key and Cyllan had escaped, she had to be lying. It would've made more sense for her to have given Cyllan the key to lock the door herself and delay discovery, but again there would be no convincing way to pretend Cyllan must have picked her pocket as she would have discovered its loss as soon as she was leaving the room. . There was no way for her to avoid a charge of being a Chaos worshipper in such a hardhearted and suspicious, bordering on paranoid, society.

This third volume of the trilogy which forms an expanded version of the earlier novel, Lord of No Time, begins directly where the second left off, with Cyllan snatched up by the Warp storm and deposited far to the south, and Tarod escaping the wrath of the Circle to go in search of her, both of them proclaimed outlaws and minions of Chaos. Ironically, only Cyllan has sworn herself to Chaos, which she did to save Tarod earlier, whereas Tarod still nurses hopes of making his way to the sacred White Isle and surrenduring the stone which contains his soul to the supreme god of Order, Aeoris. Despite the belief that Tarod is an evil and dangerous minion of Chaos, he tries to resist the pull of that part of his nature and to maintain his devotion to Aeoris, while desperate to be reunited with Cyllan whom he hopes is alive and heading for the same destination.

Ironically, the news which the High Initiate, Keridil, Tarod's former friend, spreads about the two outlaws triggers off a panic and a reign of terror with hundreds of innocent people accused of worshipping Chaos and then summarily executed. Keridil starts to have doubts about the rightness of his cause when he witnesses this on his journey to the White Isle, where he and the other two supreme rulers, the head of the priestesses of Aeoris and the chief temporal ruler, the High Margrave, have agreed to meet in order to summon Aeoris for the first time since Aeoris and the other gods of Order banished the lords of Chaos. However, the hard-nosed old priestess has no compassion, spouting the age-old mantra of the ends justifying the means and it being no tragedy if a few innocents are falsely accused as long as none of the 'evil ones' escape. And Keridil slowly begins to realise that his betrothed, Sashka, Tarod's ex and now his deadliest enemy, is driven not by zeal for Order, but by a twisted passion for revenge against a man who might have jeopardised her chances of advancement and has now had the temerity to transfer his affections to a humble drover woman of no great beauty, Cyllan.

The confrontation with Aeoris provides an interesting twist, and the trilogy has a very different ending from the original novel on which it is based. Enjoyable, but not quite achieving the level of the earlier two books, perhaps because it is quite obvious even for someone who hasn't read LoNT what the structure of the storyline must be - there are surprises, but those are around character development rather than the plot itself.

A re-read of the late Louise Cooper's first novel, first read many years ago. In a lot of ways it is an obvious first novel. The characters are not that well developed; they are seen from an omniscient viewpoint and we don't really get inside their heads. The protagonist, Tarod, is not a likeable character and his behaviour towards women is outrageous, though he manages to gain the devotion of one in particular. The abrupt reversal of Tarod's closest friend who switches to becoming his deadliest enemy is a bit abrupt also. But the basic set-up of the gods of Chaos, who are viewed by the worshippers of the gods of Order as demons, but are a force required to balance Order, is already there, a theme that the writer returned to in later books with great success. And she also succeeds in creating a brooding atmosphere in the dark castle, suspended in time.

A re-read after many years of volume 1 in the Time Master series, which was a rewrite and expansion/development of the author's earlier novel, Lord of No Time, which I re-read as a preliminary. Despite therefore knowing the general plot outline, I still greatly enjoyed this, second time around. It was interesting also to contrast the different ways the author developed certain characters and how she re-wove the story and built up the religious conflict.

The story is set in a world with two moons where once the Lords of Chaos ruled, worshipped by a race now known as the Old Ones, whose mastery of sorcery far exceeded that of the humans who overthrew them. The humans called upon Aeoris, chief of the gods of Order and his six brothers, and Aeoris became incarnate and drove the Lords of Chaos into exile. Their worshippers were slaughtered and their mysterious castle on the northern coast became the dwelling place of the Initiates, the magicians who worship Order. Together with the Sisterhood and the hereditary ruler of the land, the Initiates lead the worship of Order and ensure that Chaos is never allowed to return.

Centuries later, a twelve-year- old boy feels an outsider. His illegitimate birth has led to his mother's disgrace and her regret that she kept him and brought him up, which she takes out on him. He has only one friend, his cousin, Coran, who is discouraged from playing with him. To console himself, the boy fantasises that he has a secret name, Tarod: later, it transpires this is his true name. He also has a ring which his father left with his mother after their brief liaison - a ring which he wears on his left hand and which mysteriously appears to grow as he grows.

Tarod and Coran play a game on festival day, when the gods of Order are celebrated: they pretend to be Initiates. But when Tarod 'curses' his cousin in exchange for Coran's own pretend curses, a bolt of energy shoots from his hand, seemingly powered by his ring, and kills Coran. The event is witnessed by the whole community who are about to lynch Tarod as a demon of Chaos when one of the unexplained and feared Warps, the storms which appear to rip through the dimensions, strikes and Tarod uses the distraction to escape. He is carried off by the Warp to the mountains, and after dangers which reveal his powers once more, he is taken in by the Initiates and trained to become one of them.

The story picks up ten years later. Tarod has risen to become a seventh grade Adept, the most powerful among the community, earning the envy of some of the other Initiates although he is friends with the son of the High Initiate and has a firm supporter in one of the female Initiates who has been more of a mother to him than his real one. But a sense of disatisfaction and an insight that their order has stagnated and is not helping the outside world, which now suffers the increased frequency of Warp storms, and a general outbreak of brigandy, threatens to bring him into conflict with his colleagues. And then he begins to suffer terrible nightmares ....

I won't say more about the plot but will add a few observations about the differences in some of the characters between this and the earlier version of the story. In Lord of No Time Tarod was a rather unpleasant, almost pychopathic, man who treated women abominably, whereas in the present volume, he is probably somewhat of a naive romantic, falling hopelessly in love. The object of his affections, Sashka, is now a gold-digging social climber rather than the lovelorn doormat of the earlier book whom Tarod discarded when he tired of her. Similarly, the transformation of his best friend to his worst enemy is handled much more believably. And the introduction of the working class woman Cyllan and Tarod's relationship with her is more convincing. Plus I like the no-nonsense old herbalist Sister of Aeoris, Erminent, whose own early heartbreak convinces her to emphasise with Tarod's.

There is a depth to the author's work which wasn't there in the earlier story, which came across as sketchy and didn't get into the character's heads. This time we do see into the rationales, albeit specious, of characters such as Tarod's supposed friend. The underlying theme of Chaos versus Order is developed much more, with the stagnating religion of Aeoris being responsible for vast complacency, consisting of rituals carried out by rote, and empty platitudes which are used to paste over a lack of compassion, loyalty or honour. With few exceptions, the Initiates excuse their cowardice and envy, easily dismissing any slight pangs of conscience. The one feature that still hangs over from the earlier book is a tendency to head-hop within scenes, normally something I find irritating, but I forgave it here because I enjoyed the book so much.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-outcast-by-louise-cooper/

Second in Cooper’s Time Master trilogy, almost entirely set in and around the castle where her protagonist is being held captive and from which he is trying to escape. The really subversive bit is that the protagonist is very clearly the Bad Guy, and his freedom could lead to disaster for the rest of the fantasy world; Cooper shows this pretty clearly, but also engages our sympathy very successfully on behalf of the villain. A very strong story.

Tarod ha ganado su libertad, pero el anillo que contiene su alma ha desaparecido junto con la muchacha que ama.
Del mismo modo que un siniestro Warp había arrojado a Cyllan al interior del Castillo, otra de esas sobrenaturales tormentas, legado del Caos, proyectando sus caóticos relámpagos, anunciando la oscuridad y haciendo avanzar sus grandes y pulsátiles franjas de color macilento, la había arrebatado de aquel lugar y de Tarod.
Aun en peligro de caer en manos de sus enemigos, él debía encontrar a Cyllan antes de que lo hiciera el Círculo. Sólo entonces podría cumplir el compromiso que se había impuesto de enfrentarse con los dioses, pues únicamente éstos eran capaces de destruir la piedra y el mal que había en ella.
Pero si el mal le alcanzaba, Tarod se vería obligado a aceptar la verdad de su propia herencia. Una herencia que podía provocar un conflicto titánico de fuerzas ocultas y lanzarle a una búsqueda definitiva de venganza, desestabilizando el equilibrio entre el Orden y el Caos, imprescindible para subsistir.

Para huir del terrible destino al que el Círculo lo había condenado. Tarod logra detener el Péndulo que rige el ineludible fluir del Tiempo. Y el tiempo deja de existir. Tarod prisionero en un limbo sin ayer ni mañana, vive resignándose a su inmortalidad... cuan un Warp, la terrible tempestad desencadenada por las fuerzas del Caos, arrastra a dos seres Humanos. Un hombre y una mujer, hasta el Castillo dela Península de la Estrella.
Ella es Cyllan, una humilde boyera dotada de poderes parapsicológicos, y por la que Tarod sentirá un amor intenso y puro.
Él, Drachea, el presuntuosos heredero del Margrave de la provincia de Shu.
Encerrados los tres en el Castillo, provocarán nuevos y terribles acontecimientos hasta lograr que el tiempo reemprenda su lento e inexorable camino.

Una voz desconocida pronuncia este nombre martilleando sin cesar el cerebro del joven que no sabe cómo se llama ni por quién ha sido engendrado. El muchacho lo adopta como su nombre. Tarod reside en un fastuoso castillo, situado en la Península de la Estrella, donde habitan los Sumos Sacerdotes de Aeoris, dios del Bien, dios del Orden, y es instruido en las artes arcanas, convirtiéndose en uno de los hechiceros de mayor rango. Es el iniciado. Pero un día la voz se materializa en una forma humana de espíritu demoníaco. Es Yandros, personificación del mal. Por él sabe el iniciado que ha sido designado para volver a introducir el Caos en el mundo.

Calthar, la malvada señora de los Habitantes del Mar, prepara la ofensiva definitiva, una pleamar bajo las dos lunas como jamás se haya visto, que borrará y sumergirá en las profundidades a los desdichados habitantes de Haven.
Sin opciones, la reina Simorh, poderosa hechicera, ante la incapacidad del rey de liderar a su propio pueblo, conjura un campeón de tiempos remotos, la sombra de uno de los mayores héroes de Haven ...
Kyre no resulta ser el salvador que ella había esperado. Es alguién sin identidad, sin poder, sin recuerdos, un verdadero cero a la izquierda, que se ve atrapado en medio de las intrigas palaciegas y el misterioso reclamo de una doncella del mar.
Mientras, la conjunción lunar se aproxima y el tiempo se agota para Haven...