Terah Edun's Blog - Posts Tagged "fantasy"

The book cover for Red Madrassa, the first Algardis series book, is officially out.

What do you think?

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Read the prologue below.


PROLOGUE

Allorna:
The sun was bright and the wind brisk as she walked along the beach, kicking up tufts of sand in her wake. She felt guilty – but not enough to turn back and apologize.

The man who stormed toward her was not happy to see her. In the past, when she was younger, he had often tossed her high in the air, her shrieks of delight ringing out like silver bells as he caught her safely in his arms.

Today was not such a day.

"Father…" she began, as he reached her.

He held up a hand to forestall any excuses. "Allorna," he said tightly, "It breaks my soul, but the prince is quite clear. You are not to guard him or his companion."

She was only 14, but already the responsibilities of the gardis hung heavily on her. She simply nodded.

"I have a good idea of what you did," her father continued through gritted teeth, as they walked side by side in the morning sun.

"But Father," she protested, with the fire of youth inspiring her words, "The prince is not worthy of our protection! He's an insolent, self-important whale with no care for his people or the guardians."

"He is our prince, son of the Emperor and your future ruler!" her father shouted. "You have maligned the name of gardis, which our family holds dear!"

He paused long enough to take a cleansing breath. Then he stopped being her father, at least for the moment.

"From here on out," the Commander of the Imperial Guard continued icily, "you will serve as a true conscript should. You will be assigned city cases in the morning."

He spun on his heel to walk away, then turned back to glare at her. "Do well, Allorna. I will not be able to protect you from here on."

As her father walked off, Allorna slumped in the sand with her face on her knees. She wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry or shout her anger to the skies.

For a thousand years the royal family had ruled, through times both peaceful and turbulent. Yet she had been assigned to the one future ruler who was absent in care or fidelity for his position...in other words, a complete idiot.

She sat there for a few minutes, then rose, dusted off her breeches, and gathered in her dignity. If she was to be a common watchwoman, fine. At least she no longer had to deal with the insolence of the Prince and his amlah. Heaven protect whoever did.


Vedaris:
He tossed and turned, wringing his sheets and soaking the bed with familiar night terrors.

The laughter and warmth of the day lingered in his dreams. He ran through fields of green vines that twined around sticks in the ground. It was late spring, pruning season for his mother's gardens. Heat exaggerated the vegetable scents that hung heavy in the air. Sunrays shone down with unrelenting force, scattered in an almost grid-like pattern.

He ran through the bursts of sun that danced like spotlights through the twining irrigation canopy overheard. As any true sahalian knew, basking in the splashes of sun was the best part of spring and summer.

If felt like heaven to have these rays of heat and warmth on his skin. He'd been told that upon gaining his wings, a long day in the desert sun would be more enticing than any opiate—whatever that was.

As he continued his play, he stumbled closer to his mother. He could see her through the vines, although she was turned away from him. Clad in gardening gloves and an apron, from behind she looked like any human scullery maid.

He saw that his father, strong and lean with ivory skin, was sneaking up on her. With her exceptional hearing, she turned to him first, of course.

Normally, now would be the time for Vedaris to leave. Usually it got super-gross super-fast, what with the kisses and touches and all.

As he turned to do just that, the tension in his mother's and father's stances halted him. He saw that they faced each other silently in the garden clearing. They stood just a few feet apart, but with the unhappiness radiating from his father's stiff shoulders, it might as well have been miles.

"Did you petition the healers for an annulment of our union?" his father asked.

She raised her chin and said, "I did."

"Why…is our family not enough? Was our love not strong?" He kept his voice low, speaking through clenched teeth, mindful of his children sleeping in the house.

"Our love was strong," his mother replied, "but our union was not."

As he surged up out of the tangled sheets in the dark night, the last thing Vedaris remembered was the stricken look on his father's face.

He shook as the fading glimpses of his past slipped slowly away.


Sidimo:
Healing was his passion, cultivated as an art for centuries among his clan. Now his talents were considered a weakness at best, but more often were reviled as a curse.

As he knelt beside the injured man, he stared at the festering wound. A haze of grayish-green fog hovered over the infection. From the sickly hue, he could tell that the illness would only worsen. He pursed his lips and glanced at the woman kneeling by the man's head. "I'm sorry," he said, "But the infection will spread…his organs will sicken, and he will die a slow, painful death."

The man's wife had held out against despair, knowing that the illness looked bad, but also knowing that her man was the only reason their farm prospered. That, in turn, was the only reason she had pleaded for Sidimo's help. Even a youth was better than nothing in such a situation.

Her sister, hovering behind her, tossed a couple of coins in his general direction. With a sneer she spat, "Aye, there was no doubt of his death; and now we spend the last of our coin to hear it from a Deathkeeper's lips."

The fear and hatred in her eyes was palpable. Sidimo scrambled up and left through the door of the one-room cottage, the sobs of the man's wife ringing in his ears.

Before his clan had been turned away from their healing arts, they had been known as Deathkeepers. In times past, the term had been a thing of honor, bestowed because they halted death at the doorsteps of the living, and pushed it back from the beds of the ill. A hundred years ago, that had changed. Plague had swept through the lands, sparing none, leaving human, octupani, and sahalian alike dead in its wake. The Deathkeepers above all had sicken and died.

The old healing knowledge had been lost. The ability to diagnose illness and the stage of its peril had remained; and so those who had once stopped death in its tracks had instead become little more than heralds of its advance.

Sitara:
She wandered through the Weaver's Hall, eyeing the threads of brightly colored yarn extending from the weavers' balls high in the ceiling to the giant looms below. This was the factory that would make the handsome tapestries of lore for the prince's ball. Begun a year before, the preparation was arduous work. She was careful not to distract the hardworking weavers as she wove from loom to loom in search of her sister.

A once-beautiful girl whose eyes were shadowed by the horrors of the past, Saras worked the looms to make ends meet. It was almost unheard of for an octupani to take work outside the home, especially manual labor, but she saw no other choice.

Saras had been married once already, and that time haunted her still. Though only a few years older than Sitara, she acted as if youth and motherhood had passed her by fifty years ago.

Having found her at last, Sitara said in a low voice, "Saras, it will be soon. Soon we will rectify what they have done."

Saras, consumed with work, only looked to the loom of purple. She did not acknowledge Sitara's words; but then, she never did. She never spoke to anyone, minding only her workplace tasks. Knowing that this was so, Sitara continued to speak. She spoke of the past and the future, the weather and politics. What she never spoke of was home and marriage, because she had none.

She had only Saras, and her dreams of what was to come.

For the first but hopefully not the last diversiverse I have agreed to review L.A. Bank's book SHADOW WALKER of the Neteru Academy series.

Pre-Book Reaction: It had two things going for it: A) Cover looks great & B) I love contemporary fantasy with a magic academy. But it had one serious thing holding me back – I was not a fan of L.A. Bank’s use of Ebonics in her Vampire Huntress series.

Post-Book Reaction: Refreshingly diverse with non-stop action!

This book starts out fast and doesn’t let up! We enter the scene as Sarah is waking from a nightmare. It's the middle of the night but L.A. Bank's manages to introduce the main characters, Sarah's best friend and brother, while also getting her parents mixed into the dialogue.

It’s so rare and refreshing to see a main character who is fighting to harness her gifts but doesn’t do it ALONE. Her family… her true family...not a super-hot, vampire boyfriend that she met yesterday…is there by her side. Right off we learn that Sarah’s family – her brother, her mother and her father – all have unique talents inherent to their creature background.

Remember when I said I didn’t like the author’s use of Ebonics in the Vampire Huntress series? Turns out the father and mother are the main characters from that series, Carlos (who’s Hispanic) and Damali (who’s African American). When they’re around it’s a good bet the dialogue will switch into ‘street slang’. Not my favorite but since the book is from the viewpoint of their children, who are soon packed off to an academy for intensive training, it’s not too bothersome. I also noticed the diction tended towards Southern American charm among the older adults rather than straight slang.

I haven’t read the Vampire Huntress series and I had no problem immersing myself in this new world. That said, this book reads like the start of a sequel series and drops a lot of spoilers/background information if you haven’t read the Vampire Huntress series. In addition because the world was pre-developed the author doesn’t bother setting the scene and developing the world as she had previously done so in the Vampire Huntress series. Some scenes were flat-out confusing because I hadn’t read the prequel series. Like what’s so special about the Neteru compound brood and what’s the prophecy?

It was also difficult to get a handle on the center of evil. Multiple characters mentioned fit the bill – the Unnamed One, the Vampire Council, the Morrigan, the AntiChrist. From what I gather 16 years ago, in the Vampire Huntress series, Damali and Carlos defeated the forces of evil and drove them back where they came from. At the same time they conceived twins. The evil people are supposed to return right when the twins turn 21 but apparently have decided to come early. Enter the prophecy, the twins and the need for more training for the twins to combat this growing threat.

The author’s descriptions of incidents are vividly detailed and intricate. For instance when Sarah and her brother telepathically hear an argument it’s described as ‘like glass shattering inside my chest.’ I also love the infusion of natural talent into the mix, like mind reading and fire calling, but the magical hierarchy is very confusing.

Again, this is because I hadn’t read the Vampire Huntress series. For instance one of the girls is a kinetic clairvoyant, which I think is an AWESOME talent. Moving things with your mind, thought-speaking and being a fire-starter is pretty cool. But according to the main character, it’s one of the lamest things ever.

There’s also a clear divide between the quintessential Light and Dark. There are some light references to Christianity – the source of evil is the ‘AntiChrist’; the world ended during ‘Armageddon’; and there's a strong influence from the history of Ancient Egyptian gods and African cultural traditions. It’s quite a powerful combination.

What did I most enjoy about this book, besides the fantastic butt-kicking action and fast-paced dialogues? The appreciation for attractive people of color:

“He was as tall as Al, but with exotically dark brown skin and a deep, mellow voice. His eyes reminded her of rich milk chocolate, and his smile was…wow. A little hint of fang added a pearl-white gleam. One dimple always peeked out on the left side of his cheek when he gave her one of his heart-stopping half-smiles.”

A serious issue I had with the books is the god-complex of 90% of the characters. They all think they’re amazing, with more powers than the next person and indestructible. It was bearable when the main character was powerless and magically inept but it reached the level of incredulity when she became even more powerful than the rest of them at around the 76% mark – just in time to save the day.

By the end of this book I was starting to wish I’d read the Vampire Huntress series – there was so much going on that I didn’t understand, some many characters whose back stories I didn’t know but everyone else did, and terms thrown around that were clearly concepts that had been hashed out in the previous series. Nevertheless the intense action and multitude of fantasy characters (Valkyries, Demons, Angels, White-Lighters, Reapers, Vampires) kept me coming back for more.

Genre(s): Contemporary Fantasy, Post-Apocalyptic Fiction, Multicultural

Similar Book (s): Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy series

Favorite Quotes:

“Al ran a hand through his hair. “When I heard Mom’s voice, it was like glass shattering inside my chest. I need to get closer so I can hear what’s going on.”

“Carlos,” her mother said, her voice soothing, and Sarah wondered how her mom managed to sound so calm. “I know you wanted to smoke the beast’s heir before he claimed power over the world, but you just might have to accept the fact that maybe it’s our children’s destiny to handle that, not ours.”

“Not fair,” Sarah said, stiffening. “You’re supposed to ask before reading my mind. House rules for all clairvoyants, even mothers.”

“As long as you tell us what the hotties are thinking, your Clair-V skills are okay by me,” Tami said with a wink.