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Chronicles of Aelwyn #1
Timespell: First Chronicle of Aelwyn
Certified in the light magics after a long apprenticeship, Yan longs for adventure and sails to Sharmhurin, the imperial city of commerce and learning, where he experiences the power of the dark tower beyond Time. Original.
- GenresFantasyScience Fiction
327 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published March 1, 1996
1 person is currently reading
47 people want to read
About the author
Robert N. Charrette
34 books56 followersCredited on some German editions as "Robert N. Charette".
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 14, 2021
Mediocre magical fantasy. Got better near the end. No maps.
October 8, 2011
Generally, when a book is titled “First Chronicle of Something”, it’s a marketing ploy. The author wants to create a sense of timelessness and oh-so-subtly let the readers know that there’s more to be found where that came from.
In the case of Timespell, however, the author has created a sense of dread and a fear that more of these novels may yet lurk in your local mega-bookstore starting with a B, waiting to ambush unwary readers.
Ok, that’s a little unfair. Timespell, which is by Robert N. Charrette, wasn’t that bad. Actually, the premise was fun: young magician wants to learn more about magic, ships out for a long journey, gets attacked, never makes it to his destination, but winds up at just the right place at the right time to save the world. Formulaic, of course, but there’s nothing wrong with using a typical formula. You just need a wee bit of innovation and good execution. Timespell has the former, but not the latter.
The danger the world faces is a gradually increasing time bubble, in which time travels far more slowly than it does in the world beyond. The effect of the bubble varies, evidently exponentially, with how close you are to its center. The main character, whose name I’ve forgotten, figures it out and eventually destroys the bubble.
All in all, it’s not a bad premise on which to build a story. The main character is believably impotent, as a young wizard with little formal training and even less experience would be. He does, however, have a quick intelligence.
Nevertheless, he is at the center of one of the story’s main failings in execution. The main character is never sympathetic to the reader. I, at least, had considerable difficulty feeling any concern for him. His efforts to prove himself to his father are pathetic (in today’s meaning of the word, rather than the meaning derived from pathos), and his attitude toward women is insulting. He sees women as little more than pleasantly squeezable stress relief, and forgets the current one as soon as the next comes along.
The main character is also somewhat indecisive, which, while realistic, is not likely to endear him to the reader. Readers like heroes whose flaws lead them to do too much rather than too little. Witness Harry, whose flaw is impetuosity, or Mr. Darcy, whose flaw is pride, or even Mowgli, who trusts too much and too easily. No one – and this goes double for readers of sword-and-sorcery fantasy – likes wishy-washy characters who spend a week writing a letter to some dude and then half a day standing outside his house until finally wandering off without having ever spoken to the guy or given him the letter.
The other major flaw in execution is the ending of the story. Since time progresses at different rates outside the spell based on the distance from the center, and the party had to go into the spell to defeat it, time has passed at a vastly different rate in the world outside. I personally would have drawn a map of my fictional world, determined how far points of interest were from the center of the spell, determined the spell’s rate of expansion, and devised an equation expressing its effect on time based on the distance and expansion rate. I probably would have done that by figuring out what I needed for the story to work, and then used a curve-fitting tool to map those data points to get the equation. Then I would have used that equation to figure out how much time our heroes’ work inside the spell took at various locations of interest in the outside world.
Now, maybe Charrette did the same thing. But we’ll never know. The book ends with the protagonist and his party traveling back to a village. That’s the ending. They don’t reach the village. So we never find out if it’s been weeks, months, or years for the village people (one of whom is waiting for the main character, though he doesn’t care in the least, having found a new romantic interest). All sorts of dangling plotlines are left unresolved.
And it’s not that Charrette is unaware of the issue. His characters discuss it. But he leaves the readers hanging – and no, there’s not a hint of a “Second Chronicle of Aelwyn” that might clear up the question.
Look, buddy. Some people can write effective suspenseful endings. You ain’t one of them. You can’t spend half the book building up to this huge issue and then not resolve it. That leaves readers feeling cheated and annoyed. They did you the favor of slogging through your garbage; at least do them the courtesy of telling them what happened. Leave the suspense to Stephen King.
In the case of Timespell, however, the author has created a sense of dread and a fear that more of these novels may yet lurk in your local mega-bookstore starting with a B, waiting to ambush unwary readers.
Ok, that’s a little unfair. Timespell, which is by Robert N. Charrette, wasn’t that bad. Actually, the premise was fun: young magician wants to learn more about magic, ships out for a long journey, gets attacked, never makes it to his destination, but winds up at just the right place at the right time to save the world. Formulaic, of course, but there’s nothing wrong with using a typical formula. You just need a wee bit of innovation and good execution. Timespell has the former, but not the latter.
The danger the world faces is a gradually increasing time bubble, in which time travels far more slowly than it does in the world beyond. The effect of the bubble varies, evidently exponentially, with how close you are to its center. The main character, whose name I’ve forgotten, figures it out and eventually destroys the bubble.
All in all, it’s not a bad premise on which to build a story. The main character is believably impotent, as a young wizard with little formal training and even less experience would be. He does, however, have a quick intelligence.
Nevertheless, he is at the center of one of the story’s main failings in execution. The main character is never sympathetic to the reader. I, at least, had considerable difficulty feeling any concern for him. His efforts to prove himself to his father are pathetic (in today’s meaning of the word, rather than the meaning derived from pathos), and his attitude toward women is insulting. He sees women as little more than pleasantly squeezable stress relief, and forgets the current one as soon as the next comes along.
The main character is also somewhat indecisive, which, while realistic, is not likely to endear him to the reader. Readers like heroes whose flaws lead them to do too much rather than too little. Witness Harry, whose flaw is impetuosity, or Mr. Darcy, whose flaw is pride, or even Mowgli, who trusts too much and too easily. No one – and this goes double for readers of sword-and-sorcery fantasy – likes wishy-washy characters who spend a week writing a letter to some dude and then half a day standing outside his house until finally wandering off without having ever spoken to the guy or given him the letter.
The other major flaw in execution is the ending of the story. Since time progresses at different rates outside the spell based on the distance from the center, and the party had to go into the spell to defeat it, time has passed at a vastly different rate in the world outside. I personally would have drawn a map of my fictional world, determined how far points of interest were from the center of the spell, determined the spell’s rate of expansion, and devised an equation expressing its effect on time based on the distance and expansion rate. I probably would have done that by figuring out what I needed for the story to work, and then used a curve-fitting tool to map those data points to get the equation. Then I would have used that equation to figure out how much time our heroes’ work inside the spell took at various locations of interest in the outside world.
Now, maybe Charrette did the same thing. But we’ll never know. The book ends with the protagonist and his party traveling back to a village. That’s the ending. They don’t reach the village. So we never find out if it’s been weeks, months, or years for the village people (one of whom is waiting for the main character, though he doesn’t care in the least, having found a new romantic interest). All sorts of dangling plotlines are left unresolved.
And it’s not that Charrette is unaware of the issue. His characters discuss it. But he leaves the readers hanging – and no, there’s not a hint of a “Second Chronicle of Aelwyn” that might clear up the question.
Look, buddy. Some people can write effective suspenseful endings. You ain’t one of them. You can’t spend half the book building up to this huge issue and then not resolve it. That leaves readers feeling cheated and annoyed. They did you the favor of slogging through your garbage; at least do them the courtesy of telling them what happened. Leave the suspense to Stephen King.
August 18, 2013
(Fantasy 1996) Yan has trained as a magician, and is eager to begin his life making a difference in the world. When he sets up his business, he never seems to quite connect to people enough to earn a following... unfortunately this seems to follow him all the way through the book. His character is always detached from the ones around him, no matter what is happening. Why the others are willing to help him and sometimes save him is hard to guess. He does manage to solve the problem at hand, but more by chance than skill. Yet I am still willing to read the next of the series... probably because they came to me in a set.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews