Talyn, Holly Lisle's latest fantasy novel
Sep. 30th, 2005 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hawkwing_lbOK. So after yesterday's (actually very early this morning's, but it counts as yesterday's) insanely long rant/post on politics, we return to regularly scheduled programming...
Not that I operate on anything remotely like a schedule, but still.
OK, so. Talyn.
I enjoyed this book immensely. Its flaws (what flaws?) were so minor I didn't notice them. Because Talyn is plot-heavy and character-heavy and full of twists and subtle underpinnings and comprehensive world-building -
- and by god, Talyn (the character of the title) is one of the most human and realistic female-character-as-soldier I've run across in fantasy lately.
::beware. slight spoilers follow::
The book is told alternately from the first person viewpoint of Talyn and the limited third of Gair. Talyn is a Tonk, and Gair is an Eastil, and between their two peoples lie three hundred years of war.
Until the Feegash come and negotiate a peace that is not what it seems, and both the Tonk and the Eastils fall prey to oppression and vile magic - and the magic of the Feegash villain deserves the descriptor vile. I haven't hated a villain with quite such horrified loathing since -
Hmm. I'm not quite sure when. Because he, too, is almost sympathetic - frighteningly understandable. Human.
The relationship - the burgeoning friendship and understanding that starts to develop - between Talyn and Gair is deftly handled. It shares some of the 'my enemy-my lover' overtones of the relationship between Kait and Ry (long time, so names maybe not spelt right) in Lisle's Secret Texts trilogy, though of a more subtle kind. Talyn and Gair's motivations and beliefs frequently lead them into conflict with each other - conflict which neither of them can afford, because for most of the book they have no other real allies. It makes them real.
This isn't an easy book. Its themes seem to me to be duty and suffering - or possibly suffering for duty - in the face of adversity, and the suffering gets almost painful to read. Talyn descends into emotional depths that made me want to flinch away or flick to the back of the book in the hope of a happy ending (I didn't. Willpower.). Lisle doesn't pull her punches, and Talyn is a better book because of it.
It's a story about betrayal and devastation, I think, and the redemptive qualities of duty. For me, it defies a simple categorisation, because it's not just about self-discovery, or perseverance in the face of suffering and adversity, or the process of relearning how to trust after soul-destroying betrayal -
As I said, it's not easy. But it is good. Excellent, in my estimation.
It's a brave, lonely book, or that's how it feels to me. And as it ought, from an author with Lisle's experience, it eclipses completely in terms of scope and power both Mélusine and Elantris. Though Mélusine, because of it's different emphasis (Talyn and Elantris, I think, occupy much the same subsection of the fantasy genre. Mélusine, in a manner I can't quite articulate... doesn't.) stands up better in comparison.
I've read better. But not in a good long while.
Edited: Holly Lisle's website, I feel I should mention, is at http://www.hollylisle.com
Not that I operate on anything remotely like a schedule, but still.
OK, so. Talyn.
I enjoyed this book immensely. Its flaws (what flaws?) were so minor I didn't notice them. Because Talyn is plot-heavy and character-heavy and full of twists and subtle underpinnings and comprehensive world-building -
- and by god, Talyn (the character of the title) is one of the most human and realistic female-character-as-soldier I've run across in fantasy lately.
::beware. slight spoilers follow::
The book is told alternately from the first person viewpoint of Talyn and the limited third of Gair. Talyn is a Tonk, and Gair is an Eastil, and between their two peoples lie three hundred years of war.
Until the Feegash come and negotiate a peace that is not what it seems, and both the Tonk and the Eastils fall prey to oppression and vile magic - and the magic of the Feegash villain deserves the descriptor vile. I haven't hated a villain with quite such horrified loathing since -
Hmm. I'm not quite sure when. Because he, too, is almost sympathetic - frighteningly understandable. Human.
The relationship - the burgeoning friendship and understanding that starts to develop - between Talyn and Gair is deftly handled. It shares some of the 'my enemy-my lover' overtones of the relationship between Kait and Ry (long time, so names maybe not spelt right) in Lisle's Secret Texts trilogy, though of a more subtle kind. Talyn and Gair's motivations and beliefs frequently lead them into conflict with each other - conflict which neither of them can afford, because for most of the book they have no other real allies. It makes them real.
This isn't an easy book. Its themes seem to me to be duty and suffering - or possibly suffering for duty - in the face of adversity, and the suffering gets almost painful to read. Talyn descends into emotional depths that made me want to flinch away or flick to the back of the book in the hope of a happy ending (I didn't. Willpower.). Lisle doesn't pull her punches, and Talyn is a better book because of it.
It's a story about betrayal and devastation, I think, and the redemptive qualities of duty. For me, it defies a simple categorisation, because it's not just about self-discovery, or perseverance in the face of suffering and adversity, or the process of relearning how to trust after soul-destroying betrayal -
As I said, it's not easy. But it is good. Excellent, in my estimation.
It's a brave, lonely book, or that's how it feels to me. And as it ought, from an author with Lisle's experience, it eclipses completely in terms of scope and power both Mélusine and Elantris. Though Mélusine, because of it's different emphasis (Talyn and Elantris, I think, occupy much the same subsection of the fantasy genre. Mélusine, in a manner I can't quite articulate... doesn't.) stands up better in comparison.
I've read better. But not in a good long while.
Edited: Holly Lisle's website, I feel I should mention, is at http://www.hollylisle.com
