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Great Alta #3

The One-Armed Queen

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In a land of magic, the great warrior Queen known as White Jenna has found a frail, one-armed child on the battlefield. She adopts the child and names her Scillia. As is custom with the Hames of the Dales, Scillia will be next in line for the throne. A great honor.

But Jem—Jenna's natural-born son—covets the throne for himself. Will he risk open rebellion to claim what he believes is rightfully his?

Can Scillia stop him?

332 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published November 1, 1998

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About the author

Jane Yolen

973 books3,238 followers
Jane Yolen is a novelist, poet, fantasist, journalist, songwriter, storyteller, folklorist, and children’s book author who has written more than three hundred books. Her accolades include the Caldecott Medal, two Nebula Awards, the World Fantasy Award, three Mythopoeic Awards, the Kerlan Award, two Christopher Awards, and six honorary doctorate degrees from colleges and universities in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Born and raised in New York City, the mother of three and the grandmother of six, Yolen lives in Massachusetts and St. Andrews, Scotland.

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5 stars
171 (24%)
4 stars
236 (33%)
3 stars
221 (31%)
2 stars
59 (8%)
1 star
14 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
Profile Image for Eric.
650 reviews34 followers
December 7, 2019
This series got better with each book. Masterful writing.

Still, fairy tale - ish, but intriguing.

With her little slips of "History," "Myth" and "Ballads," Jane Yolen depicts how real events get exaggerated and bloated over time. The more a story is told, the farther from the truth it gets.

Fun read this series. Not something I'd normally go after, but glad I tripped over it.
Profile Image for Pam Baddeley.
Author 2 books64 followers
January 2, 2019
For me this unsatisfactory trilogy limped to a close with a final unsatisfactory volume. Despite the story appearing to be wrapped up in an epilogue in volume two, in this we go back to when Jenna and Corum have been ruling for about twenty-five years after the war in book 2 - although that doesn't become clear until quite late on which caused confusion. I distinctly recalled the end of book 2 saying they ruled for 50 years before they departed to the fairyland under the hill, as Corum was dying and Jenna had been promised by the Alta - the goddess - that she could bring one person back when she returned. A line about half way through finally explains that this is a bit of folk exaggeration, hence their children are not middle aged when they finally depart, only in their mid to late twenties.

Anyway, the book commences when their adopted daughter Scilia is thirteen and a total and annoying brat, doing stupid things and generally being an idiot. Jenna's angst is added to by having to send her oldest son Jem abroad to an enemy country in exchange for a royal son of theirs to ensure peace. Finally Jenna manages to patch things up with her daughter and the action then moves to years later when Jem returns, having been indoctrinated in the other land's mysogny and Corum is dying. The situation is then set up for Jem's usurpation of the throne and subsequent atrocities.

I'm afraid I couldn't take this story seriously because of the way Jem descends into what you could call carpet chewing madness . The story would have been much more effective if he was sane but just had repellent views especially about women. The over the top lunacy lacks conviction.

This is not helped by the usual interruptions by a scholar years later who casts doubt on the whole story we are reading as in the other volumes, though ironically the doubter's child has now taken over and seems to be accepting Jenna's historical reality rather than thinking her a mythical figure (the tack taken in these interludes in the previous books) while still getting just about everything else wrong. They serve again to jar the reader out of the story which, frankly, needs all the help it can get with maintaining suspension of disbelief, so that is the final straw. Consequently, this is another 2 star just OK read.
Profile Image for Amanda.
169 reviews9 followers
May 22, 2017
Three things:

I thought this could be read as a stand-alone book, and I don't think I was right about that. I'd highly recommend other people actually start with book one.

I cannot tell you my facial expression every time someone referenced "The Gender Wars" but rest assured, I had to check and see when these books were written because that was some QUALITY 1970s feminist fantasy writing (yes, I know this was published in the 80s, but everyone knows what I'm saying).

This was a Real Weird book. I think I need to stop reading books that have future commentary, because all of them are Majorly Upsetting.
Profile Image for Michelle.
173 reviews44 followers
Want to read
August 25, 2008
I don't remember reading this book, so it goes on the "to-read" list till I figure it out...in other words, and archaelogical dig is called for to find the series, LOL. If this book is anything like it's predecessors, it will be a good read as well, deserving of 5 stars.

I am a huge fan of Jane Yolen, and while most of her books are geared towards children, this series is more towards older teens to adults.

Anything by Yolen is good to me!
28 reviews
August 20, 2016
Peace has long reigned in the Dales due to the wise rule of King Carum, Queen Jenna, and their council. This book, the last in the trilogy, "The Great Alta Saga," marks a return to the strengths of the first, containing strong female and male characters. Here the next generation, adopted Princess Scillia, Prince Jemson and Prince Corrine come of age to face issues of blood, duty, culture and gender roles.
Profile Image for M.
417 reviews2 followers
October 30, 2008
I love Jane Yolen, but she doesn't write many books for adults. She has two others, I think.
Profile Image for Sarah.
61 reviews
March 9, 2009
I really like Jane Yolen's work. Goddess-oriented, feminist fantasy!
371 reviews38 followers
September 13, 2019
Some good character interactions here, some well-rounded characters, and also a few things that were really, really annoying.

On the one hand, Scillia is kind of an insufferable brat. Never mind that she's a princess with a loving family living in a time of peace; everything in her life is just so hard, every little inconvenience or setback is the end of the world, and nothing her parents do is ever, ever right. While she does think and act realistically like a 13-year-old, after having watched her mother fight a war at the same age and suffer orders of magnitude more hardship with orders of magnitude less whining, I didn't particularly care to spend time in Scillia's head.

On the other hand, there are times when it's impossible not to sympathize with her and her upset is completely justified, most notably concerning Jenna's attempts to keep her in the dark about her past, and her well-meaning but incredibly misguided attempt to perform an adoption ceremony without consulting Scillia first. And the good part is that she does grow out of it; by the second half of the book after a time skip, she's taking on real responsibility and acting with a reasonable degree of maturity.

Regarding the hostage exchange subplot, I did like that the way Jenna deals with Gadwess's misogyny is not by getting angry or trying to punish it out of him, but by simply refusing to lend it any legitimacy. "You don't like it? Well, too bad. This is the way we do things in the Dales and you're just going to have to learn how to deal." If he were a grown man, it might not have been enough, but he's just a kid, who's only parroting what he's been hearing from the adults around him for most of his life—and from what we hear in the second half of the story, he actually does grow up to be a pretty decent person (though I would have liked to have actually seen some of this).

The biggest downside is the same downside that I complained about with the last two books, which if anything is even worse in this one: the queer-baiting. In the previous books, there were several mentions of historians reading homoerotic content into contexts where it wasn't necessarily present; okay. I don't particularly like that this was the way the possibility was handled, but I can at least accept the precedent. In this one, though, there is no excuse, given that it's actually made explicit that Sarana is falling for Scillia. It's touched on, fussed over by the character, and explicitly mentioned several times, and then... nothing. In the end they go their separate ways and it's never mentioned again.

So my question here is, who exactly is the author trying to pander to? It's certainly not the more conservative set, given that she felt okay with including any mentions of same-sex relationships at all. It can't be her queer audience either, though, since people who genuinely wanted to see a good F/F relationship are only going to be angry that she baited the possibility but then was too much of a coward to actually follow through with it.

Profile Image for OskariF.
143 reviews6 followers
March 4, 2023
A bit of an underwhelming finale to delightful and fresh-feeling trilogy. It continues the fun feminist fantasy / alternate history story of the Dales, now moving to the next generation with White Jenna's children. The structure of the story has some similarity with the story of "gender wars" depicted in the earlier books. Instead of Garun invaders, however, the antagonist is a hostage-prince, who is raised in the Garun realm and then sent back to Dales with mischief in mind. On one hand I think the variation on the theme is an interesting choice. Instead of a foreign invasion we get sibling rivalry and fratricide. On the other hand the new repetition has considerably less flash, so some potential is left unrealized.

Nevertheless it feels like the author was out of steam by this point. Judging by the years of publishing, this third book came somewhat later than the previous ones, which might explain the uninspiredness. The new characters in the book remain very shallow, because a big chunk of the book is dedicated to describing the last days of Jenna and Carum.

The best part of this series are the little bits of myth and history sprinkled between the chapters. As the readers progress the story, we also get to see how the events are molded in song and in history. These parts sadly remain flat in The One-Armed Queen. This underlines the afterthought-feel on this book. But the concept remains delightful nonetheless.

Great Alta series has some interesting similarity with Bernard Cornwell's Arthurian "Warlord Chronicles". Even though the latter is considerably more grim and violent, the basic outlines have curious similarity. Dales is obviously a fictionalized version of Celtic Britain, same as the milieu of Warlord Chronicles. Both stories depict the threat of foreign invasion to an indigenous Celtic culture, which ends up falling despite of succesful resistance. In both stories the indigenous peoples have a peculiar native cult (Warrior women of the Hames – Druids) which plays a significant role in the resistance, but is destroyed because of foreign influence. The similarity is slight but thought-provoking.
Profile Image for Angela.
195 reviews14 followers
December 11, 2021
I jumped into this without reading the two before it and was underwhelmed. This was less about the woman that the book was named for and much more about queen Jenna who came before her. The character development of this book by itself want enough to really grab me. I was more irritated by most the characters than awed.

Maybe if I'd read the first two books in the trilogy I would have been more invested in how things played out. As it was, one bad decision decided a disastrous fate for everyone with little to no climax.

Many people loved the artistic pros of the author. Many loved this series. Based on this book it was meh.
1,009 reviews2 followers
April 12, 2022
A good finalization of the series, though in some ways it felt tacked on. It seems like this was a two book set and Jane felt like she had one more in her to make it a trilogy. There is a good job to ensure the story does carry from the beginning of the series to the end, even though the last book seemed like the end too.

The style of mixing story with songs, poems, mythology, and bad history is still very interesting and unique. Though the interruption of the "chapter break" style break wasn't always appreciated when it showed up.

There are some things that may make this unsuitable for early teens, such as non-graphic rape and mildly graphic violence.
Profile Image for Jo Oehrlein.
6,361 reviews9 followers
January 28, 2019
Starts with Scillia at age 13 being a difficult teenager. Then, there's a big jump forward in time.

Ends not at all as you might expect.

Sad to see the Hames gone, but not sad that people don't give away their daughters anymore.

The interludes are funny, but I still find that they slow the story down.
Profile Image for Tony Peck.
586 reviews4 followers
January 26, 2020
A great series. The three books build nicely on each other. There are such good people in these stories with great goals that will lead to more equity and better lives for the subjects. How good.

Really nicely written. I liked the interchanged distractions of historic reflections and songs and poems celebrating the events - usually replete with inaccuracies.

Lovely and highly recommended.
Profile Image for Hendrix Eva.
1,968 reviews3 followers
July 20, 2020
I fell in love with this series and the women of the Hames. However, it was bloodthirsty world of hard-won justice. As for this final installment: Huzzah for the birth of democracy and good men who adore a tasteful caftan! Super sad that Scilla and Sarana never got together. Disappointed Jenna and Carum failed to emerge from the Grenna.
1,111 reviews3 followers
November 28, 2017
The follow up story to finish the trilogy, and a much more introspective story about the lives of the royal children. A bit darker, but more realistic in my mind.
Profile Image for Tracy.
519 reviews10 followers
January 12, 2019
I thought I knew this series, really I did. But I only recognized a few pieces in White Jenna and Sister Light, Sister Dark.

Memory is weird.
Profile Image for Russ.
40 reviews1 follower
February 25, 2020
This was a wholly unnecessary edition to the “trilogy”. I thought the author ended the story satisfactorily with the second book.
Profile Image for Sarah Shorter.
25 reviews
March 5, 2021
A rather unsatisfying end. It would have been better to stop at the end of the previous book.
881 reviews6 followers
July 12, 2024
It's been at least 20 years since I've read this. Not nearly as good as the first two books, but it's kept its place on the shelf for another turning.
Profile Image for Sarah.
612 reviews20 followers
May 21, 2018
I honestly am a bit confused about why this book exists, because I thought the story had a perfectly satisfying ending after White Jenna. That being said, it's nice to meet another awesome woman in the world of the Great Alta.
Profile Image for Mike.
Author 29 books90 followers
February 8, 2017
I grabbed this book from the library, not noticing that it was the third in a trilogy (or maybe tetra- or penta-logy). It's OK, but certainly not great. I might have liked it more if I had read the preceding books..

I didn't think the world-building was compelling. The light/dark sister was surprising, and refreshing in that the "dark sister" wasn't an evil alter-ego; dark sisters, which appear only in shadow, look unflinchingly at harsh realities, and don't hesitate to tell you about them. But honestly, the dark sister just wasn't that interesting. There's lots of teenage "you aren't my real mother" angst between the Queen and the crown Princess. The princess is right, as her mother readily admits, but I found that personal struggle tiresome rather than illuminating, and Scillia's growth into adulthood uninteresting, because most of it is skipped.

There are lots of interesting elements (the all-female warrior (?) "hames," etc.), but I've seen most of them in other books, and better done. This felt rushed. And I just realized why. The book isn't overly long. it includes lots of folk-songs, which is fine, but it also includes 15 or so pages at the end that set the songs to music. Mixed in with the story, there are lots of grouchy letters to academic publishers by a scholar, presumably writing some centuries later, about the material in the story. And there are lots of callouts for bits of mythology and legend that are clearly related to the story. I suppose--you take the quadrilateral formed by the folk songs, the mythology, the story itself, and the scholarship, and you have a vehicle for telling a story about the generation of academic history, about mythmaking, about different perspectives on the past. Which would be dull, but different. But seriously: you take a 300 page book, and devote a significant chunk of it to machinery that just doesn't need to be there, and the story itself is going to feel rushed.
Profile Image for Angela.
Author 6 books67 followers
December 22, 2008
Just to give you an idea of how behind I am on getting my To Read shelf cleared out, Jane Yolen's The One-Armed Queen--the followup to Sister Light, Sister Dark and White Jenna--has been on the queue for NINE YEARS. The thing came out in 1998. It has taken me until now to actually read it.

Was it worth my wait? Eh, it was a decent enough novel. It didn't particularly blow me away, and the interspersing of snippets of myth, legend, song, and "historical" research through the story sometimes struck me as annoyingly distracting and sometimes as a rather cool meta-level interpretation of the story... which, I suppose, is a sign of it not quite working for me. The same for the title character, Scillia, adopted daughter of the Jenna who was the heroine of the previous two books. She starts the story off as an angsty child who mostly annoys the tar out of me, and finishes as more of a catalyst for others to act rather than someone really driving the action herself. While I can see why this was in character and appropriate for her, it was still unsatisfying for me as a reader.

So. All in all, kind of ambivalent about this one. Yolen's way with a word is solid, and I do like the songs that were leavened all over the novel, but ultimately I could have taken or left this one. Two and a half stars.
29 reviews
August 4, 2016
I bought this from a library discard sale without having read the first two of the series because it was written by Jane Yolen. I quite liked it.

Ms Yolen writes about ideas I like to think about then she presents those ideas in a way that I think about them from a new and valid perspective. For example, the kingdom is in a time of peace after fighting the internal gender wars. Now the kingdom and a neighboring kingdom exchange their young princes for a period of several years. The other kingdom does not respect women. What happens when the prince comes home and faces the prospect of his (adopted)sister becoming queen instead of him becoming king. Add to the gender issue the view that a queen could not rule without two arms.

Profile Image for Valerie.
322 reviews6 followers
July 3, 2011
While The One-Armed Queen was enjoyable while I was reading it, it had a lot of the pitfalls of historical fiction without actually being historically accurate. I felt a little cheated by that. Again, the ending was a distant summary of what happens to the characters at the end of the action in the novel - not open-ended at all, and not satisfying.

Still, the middle was very entertaining and I had trouble putting the book down. Scillia is a 13 year-old when we meet her, but don't hold it against her - she gets better. A realistic portrayal of how families can have trouble relating to one another despite the best intentions.
Profile Image for Katie Barber.
Author 5 books8 followers
October 6, 2014
I think this was the best book in Yolen's trilogy; so rarely do you get to see the heroes rule their kingdom after the war is won and how they go on to raise their children. The novel's ending "tie-ups" were a bit too neat and easy, but the story pulled me right in and kept hold of my attention the whole way through the book. I fully admit that I stopped reading the italicized "extras" and kept to the story. I found the breaks distracting and disruptive. Easily skipped, which some readers may call a literary crime, but I did not find that they added much to the story. There was plenty of rich world history in the tale itself.
Profile Image for Chere.
164 reviews5 followers
February 8, 2012
While this still doesn't quite match the first book, I found this more engaging than the second. The third and last book in the Great Alta Saga, this one is just as full of exciting adventure as the first ones. Yolen's writing is once again brilliant as she effectively writes in different voices as she tells the story, the tale, the legend, the myth, the history, the song, the ballad, and all the rest. Excellent!
Profile Image for Grace Makley.
44 reviews2 followers
January 22, 2013
Jane Yolen is an excellent author. The prose, world-building, and poetry in this book are all incredibly satisfying. Unfortunately,
Profile Image for Cherie.
1,554 reviews2 followers
July 17, 2016
This book the last in the trilogy of The Books of Great Alta. It didn't have any of the charm of the first book. It was sprinkled throughout with adages to the point of being annoying. Not for the school library due to violence.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews

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