The Aldabreshin Compass
The Daish Domain is headed by the warlord Daish Kheda. He is a well versed warlord in the rites of augury and the foretelling of future events through the portents in the sky and throughout life.
But Daish Kheda gets no warning, he cannot be ready for the devastation. He can only do what he thinks is best for his Domain and that may mean certain death. The southern territories, the Chazen Domain have been attacked by aggressors, terrible savages that care not for anything, even their own deaths.
They do not speak any known language. They come, they burn and they lay waste to the islands and their inhabitants. The Daish Domain holds borders with this ravaged Southern area and at once goes to their rescue. How do you fight fire from nowhere?
How do you kill magicians that appear infallible to weapons any man can make or wield? The answer lies in the North. The answer lies in the fire. I don't want to give anything about this story away, to do so would be undeserved of the book and its writer, Juliet E. McKenna, but I can honestly say I was blown away by this book.
'Southern Fire' is quite possibly one of the best fantasy epics that I have read and I'll tell you why! The book starts by laying foundations. McKenna shows us life at the Daish residence and the way that things are done in the Aldabreshin Archipelago. The overall manner of description is thorough and involving.
This is quite an involved method of writing to get used to and I must say that thirty page chapters are a heavy slog. Don't give up on them though. I didn't and I was wildly impressed with how McKenna grabs you by the seat of your pants and runs away with your imagination. The characters are so well developed that you know them by the end that you feel what they are going through. Kheda is not so much a hero of the piece, more a voice to what is going on. A reflection of the events unfolding around him and his Domain.
Eventually that voice becomes more human as he faces decisions that could tear the life he has apart. The warlords and their family follow doctrines of protocol. While to start with these seem to be overkill, eventually your understanding dawns and you realise where all the detail fits in. Subtly weaving a thread that you can see, you just don't fathom how far it will be taken.
Basically, the warlords make sure they protect the land and the governance of their Domain. They use the stars and any signs in nature to help to make these decisions. Their wives deal with trade decisions, major ones. The children of the wives of the warlord are used tactically. Sons, heirs to the domain, are treated terribly. If they are not the first born then they are made Zamorin. All the men reading cross your legs! Some Domains only do this.
Others send them into exile so that they cannot threaten the leadership of their fathers' domain. Daughters are bargained off to other Domains to marry into a kind of treaty with the two Domains. Another method of trade. All these people have body-slaves to not only tend to them in menial tasks but to defend them if they should be threatened. All-in-all the politics is rife.
Conversations have double meanings or worse are so closed to truth and swathed in veiled threats or digs that they are in their own right contentious. The end of this book is perhaps the reason I really liked the overall story.
It has an ending like the first line of great books that hook you just within an instant. Your brain tells you that the end is possible but you almost kid yourself into thinking 'no way will Juliet E. McKenna do that to the story', when it unfolds like that you're pulled in.
It makes you want to read the next one so much you'll be willing the release date forward! This is a great fantasy epic read. Probably the only thing I can say I didn't like was the very tiny print and that's only because I wear glasses!
This is truly a fabulous story that I am sure all readers of fantasy will enjoy thoroughly.
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Southern Fire introduces us to the people of the Aldabreshin Archipelago, whose society depends on constant reading of signs and portents and who are scared of magic and its users to the point of phobia. In particular to Kheda, warlord of many skills, who is willing to sacrifice everything to save his domain from invasion.
Kheda fakes his death and sets off in search of a means to combat magic. After a long, hard voyage, involving the de rigeur stint as an oarsman, he joins up with amoral wizard Dev and resourceful poetess/spy Risala. Can the three defeat the barbarian wizards threatening the southern tip of the Archipelago? And what will be the consequences of Kheda’s absence and his association with the much abhorred magic?
As always, McKenna peoples her world with well-rounded, not always likeable characters – except for the rather one-dimensional barbarians, whose motives may become clearer in time. She also goes into Archipelago culture and the rules of warlord inheritance (they have multiple wives) in some depth, which risks slowing the pace, but it eventually pays off as it actively shapes the plot, especially the wonderfully tricky ending.
Southern Fire is a well-written, absorbing read. But those who like their Fantasy fast and furious should probably look elsewhere.
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Whilst it is not wholly necessary to have read Juliet E McKenna's The Swordsman's Oath in order to understand or enjoy Southern Fire and Northern Storm, there is no doubt that there is an added layer of interest to both of these later books for the reader who is familiar with the 'Tales of Einarinn'.
The novels Southern Fire and Northern Storm take the brief background of The Swordsman's Oath and add colour, depth, life and history in greater measure. They also show the reader the Archipelago from a native's point of view, instead of from an outsider's viewpoint, and this naturally gives the reader a different perspective on many aspects of life in the Archipelago, particularly the hatred of elemental magic that is felt by the Aldabreshin. Indeed one only has to consider the chaos caused by the wizard Azazir (who is regarded as a madman even by his fellow mages) in The Thief's Gamble, to understand that the disrupting influence of elemental magic on the patterns of nature would be abhorrent to the Warlords who read portents in earth, air, fire and water in order to guide the lives of themselves and their people.
The chief protagonist of Southern Fire and Northern Storm is an Aldabreshin Warlord, and Northern Storm opens with Chazen Kheda (formerly Daish Kheda) still struggling to come to terms with his forced assumption of the role of Warlord of the Chazen domain after the abrupt death from food poisoning suffered by Chazen Saril half a year ago.
Kheda is initially engaged in an attempt to round up the last of the barbarian savages who, the year before, had come from somewhere in the southern ocean to wreak havoc with a different sort of elemental magic to that used on the mainland to the north of the Archipelago. Kheda had been forced into an uneasy alliance with the unscrupulous northern mage, Dev (who had briefly appeared in The Swordsman's Oath as an agent of the Archmage). Dev is now acting (with the emphasis on 'acting') as Kheda's personal slave/bodyguard in order to ensure he gets paid for his assistance in getting rid of the savage wizards who had accompanied the southern invaders, and he and Kheda are visiting the pearl beds of the Chazen domain in order to assess what they will have to barter for the materials and goods that they need to continue the rebuilding of the Chazen domain.
Their plans to round up the last of the surviving savages and get back to normal life are abruptly interrupted by the arrival of a dragon created from elemental magic, a beast that has never before been seen in the Archipelago. Kheda thus finds himself and his domain under threat for a second time, and once again he is forced into an uneasy, but necessary, alliance with a northern mage in order to defeat and destroy the dragon. This time, however, the mage is a woman named Velindre (a character who briefly appeared in The Warrior's Bond) whom Dev suggests may know how to deal with the dragon.
Velindre knows that her mentor Otrick knew how to summon an elemental dragon, but he is dead, so she is forced to seek out Azazir (who also has this ability) in order to acquire the necessary magical knowledge to create a dragon of her own. Lest anyone think this mere altruism on the part of Velindre, who knows that if her nature is revealed she will killed to save the Archipelago from her corrupting influence, it should be pointed out that Velindre is still smarting from being passed over for the post of Cloud Mistress (Otrick's position before his death), and she hopes that mastering this magic will force Planir and the wizards on the ruling Council in Hadrumal to acknowledge that they picked the wrong mage for the job.
Northern Storm is an intriguing, even at times exciting, tale that grips the reader from start to finish, and possesses a twist to the tale that has surprised more than one reader. The only qualm I have about the Aldabreshin Compass quartet (and it is a very small one), is that the pattern of the tales seems to be closely following the pattern of the 'Tales of Einarinn': magic-wielding invaders from a previously forgotten/unknown land across the ocean arrive to cause death and destruction. There is a hint at the end of Northern Storm that, as in The Assassin's Edge (the final Tale of Einarinn), the fight will be taken to the invaders in an attempt to curtail their activities. However, the characters and their development, and the way of life that is under threat are sufficiently different and interesting in themselves, and the writing is more than sufficiently good enough, for this similarity to be of small importance in the development of the series.
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My copy of the penultimate book in the 'Aldabreshin Compass' series finally arrived this week, and as soon as I had finished the Echorium Sequence, I grabbed Western Shore and started to read. I finished it at 5 pm today - having spent the entire afternoon reading it, no longer able to resist reading it until I was done. As usual McKenna's writing possesses a magic of its own, and I was gripped from page one. It was with a feeling of returning to friends that I discovered Kheda sitting with his wife, Itrac, who was about to give birth. For once it was the opening chapter of one of McKenna's books that had me in tears, rather than a closing one. However, I overcame my emotions and carried on... It was with delight that I saw Velindre arrive back in the Chazen domain bringing news to Kheda. When I first met Velindre in The Warrior's Bond, I confess to find her so abrasive I disliked her almost instantly, and I only slowly warmed to her during the course of that book. I've grown to like her over the course of re-reading both the 'Tales of Einarinn' series and the 'Aldabreshin Compass' series as it's become ever clearer that Velindre is very much a square peg in a round hole, and it's not surprising that she prefers life away from the fabled wizards' isle of Hadrumal.
I was also delighted to see Naldeth return. The last I saw of him, he was suffering badly from a very painful run-in with pirates during The Assassin's Edge (I won't say more, in case I spoil it for you), so it was good to see him recovered, to a certain extent, and joining Velindre, Kheda and Risala on their journey south into uncharted (for Aldabreshins) waters. Naldeth is certainly a more likeable mage than Dev, and far more conscientious; after his experiences with the pirates, he's even less interested in having power over others, than many a mage. He and Velindre work well together, and their final battle at the end of the book was intense. Mind you, I was completely surprised by the decision Naldeth made at the end of the book; although it was totally in keeping with his character, it was unexpected and I can see he's going to need all his courage and strength of mind to carry it out.
I have only two complaints about this book - the first is the cliff-hanger ending - in the first two books of the series, Kheda makes it back home to his domain before the book ends, but in this one he and the others are still trapped on the western shore of the island out in the Southern ocean. I shall be mentally chewing my fingernails until I get my hands on the final book of this series. The second complaint is that McKenna introduces us to one of the "savages" who live on the aforementioned island, and although we share her hopes and fears, she's never named. Since we get to share so much of her headspace, I felt we should have got to know her name as well. Still, these are both very minor niggles, and all in all, I totally enjoyed this book and look forward to re-reading it again in a month or two.
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Eastern Tide is the final book and satisfying conclusion to Juliet E McKenna's Aldabreshin Compass quartet (the preceding three are reviewed over on the Scholar's Blog: Southern Fire, Northern Storm and Western Shore.) It's now ten years since McKenna wrote her first book, The Thief's Gamble , and in those ten years her writing style has matured considerably, until the reader is presented with Eastern Tide.
The Aldabreshin Archipelago continues to be plagued by dragons and its people live in terror of the coming of the dragons to their island homes. Chazen Kheda, along with the poet Risala and the Northern mage Velindre, are chasing rumours of a water dragon, since they are the only ones who know the secrets of how to repel these fearsome beasts. In spite of the fact that they have saved hundreds of lives since the first dragon invaded the Chazen domain, they are forced to travel incognito, putting their lives at risk with their masquerade of the poet (Risala) and the zamorin scholar (Velindre disguised as a eunuch), and their slave (Kheda, who is really a warlord).
The ever-changing political balance between the island Warlords is teetering as various rival factions seek to gain advantage over their neighbours and warfare is threatened. Kheda finds himself reluctantly drawn into the rivalries as his fame as a dragon-fighter become more widely known. His apparent skill in defeating dragons is a powerful political tool and various Warlords seek to bribe, seduce (via their wives) or threaten Kheda into sharing his knowledge; but the one thing Kheda cannot do is reveal the source of his apparent power over dragons because then the lives of he and his companions will be at risk for they are tainted by forbidden magic from the Northern lands. If anyone was to uncover Velindre's true identity as a powerful mage from the feared island of Hadrumal, they would all be killed outright.
Unfortunately for Kheda, his contact with Northern magic has caused him to have doubts about the very foundations of his people's ancient beliefs in the reading of omens, which places his future as the Chazen Warlord in doubt and threatens the future health and happiness of his wife Itrac Chazen and their twin baby daughters.
To add to Kheda's woes, Velindre is forced to enlist the aid of another mage, Sirince; they discover there are more dragons in the Archipelago than they had guessed or believed; two of Kheda's former Daish wives have married out of the domain, leaving his unmarried son Daish Sirket in charge of the domain with only the support of Kheda's timid third ex-wife; Orhan, the son of Kheda's hated rival, Ulla Safar, is leading an uprising against his father - and he's proposing to marry Kheda's eldest daughter of the Daish domain !
This is a tense, thrilling, moving and thought-provoking finale to a fascinating series. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
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