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Llandor Trilogy #3
The Shadow of Mordican
Desperate to reach Seers' Keep, Carrie is nevertheless overwhelmed by the peace and enchantment of the land of Irriyan. But the opportunity to settle there vanishes with the appearance of the mysterious White Mage, Gerwyn, who has a thoroughly difference destination in mind. Both Carrie and he call upon the elements in their battle for supremacy, but Carrie's power is too new and untried to be a match for Gerwyn's, and soon she and Craig are unmistakably being drawn towards Mordican...
- GenresFantasy
272 pages, Paperback
First published June 3, 1996
About the author
Louise Lawrence
40 books58 followersElizabeth Holden, better known by her pen name Louise Lawrence, is an English science fiction author, acclaimed during the 1970s and 1980s.
Lawrence was born in Leatherhead, Surrey, England, in 1943. She became fascinated with Wales at a young age, and has set many of her novels there. She left school early on to become an assistant librarian. She married and had the first of her three children in 1963. Her departure from the library, she recalls, gave her the potential to turn toward writing: "Deprived of book-filled surroundings, I was bound to write my own."
Lawrence was born in Leatherhead, Surrey, England, in 1943. She became fascinated with Wales at a young age, and has set many of her novels there. She left school early on to become an assistant librarian. She married and had the first of her three children in 1963. Her departure from the library, she recalls, gave her the potential to turn toward writing: "Deprived of book-filled surroundings, I was bound to write my own."
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 11, 2016
The rating chosen for this review reflects my extreme disappointment with this volume in particular and, because this concludes a trilogy, with the series as a whole.
As with the others, it is a bit of a travelogue. Here we see the Elven land of Irriyan and travel on the last leg of the journey to Seer's Keep, the destination for the three children from our world since book 1. None of the locations are particularly well evoked although the sequence when Carrie, Craig and yet another new character, Nyssa, travel by sea is more well described, and I liked the friendly sea orcs. As usual, nothing goes smoothly and the White Mage, who is working for the opposition, although only Carrie will accept this, sabotages things so that Carrie is separated from the others. Craig eventually ends up in Mordican, where we finally find out who the Grimthane is - rather an anti-climax, and seems set to take over and inflict his idea of progress on what he views with hatred as a backward land and inhabitants. As with book 2, there's a big environmental message about the despoliation of the natural world on our Earth.
Carrie is in denial about having powers which will lead her to join the ranks of the seers and mages, and in what I found a particularly daft scene, . When she at last reaches the Keep, it is a total non event, with the place not even described; suddenly she has been there for a while, still battling her destiny. Then she, for no very good reason, decides to go for it after all.
Meanwhile, we've seen that the remaining Earth boy, Roderick, who selflessly took Craig's place at the end of book 2 and has now been in a dungeon for months, finally escapes with the aid of friends, and decides to remain in the Grimthane's/Craig's city, to help the downtrodden race of goblins, unlikely though it seems he can evade recapture. Other minor characters who have scarcely risen above the level of cardboard cutouts, turn up at the Keep at the very end to help Carrie when And Craig declares he will go to war against the rest of Llandor with the bombs and guns he will create, with his knowledge of gunpowder except - big clanger - the Grimthane already has a Victorian inventor who could have already done all that and would be better equipped to put into practice knowledge that in Craig's case is literally textbook.
We've been told all along that Craig loves computer games and reading fantasy novels, so how is this boy who has never made anything practical in his whole life suddenly going to reinvent the internal combustion engine and all the rest of it? The notion that the enemy were after them for the knowledge in Craig's head was never very convincing, and at the end of the series is totally blown out of the water by this casual revelation of the Victorian engineer who has already introduced 19th century type factories! The Grimthane never needed Craig: he already has someone who could develop firearms and probably canon, and could put to good use the textbooks the children brought with them, though in theory Kadmon took those to Seers' Keep.
The thing that I really found a total letdown though is the complete anticlimax at the very end.
Maybe there was going to be another trilogy to answer that question, but I consider these three books to have been outrageous padding if so. Something that should have been the starting point of the fight against the enemy - reaching the Keep - is the hastily sketched ending. I suppose it can be argued that each of the three discovered their role the hard way rather than by being told, but having had to endure endless belly aching from Craig about Llandor and childish bickering from most of the other characters, plus the aggravating overuse of adverbs every time someone speaks, or umpteen substitutes for the word said, for three whole books, I feel that the reader deserves more than this.
As with the others, it is a bit of a travelogue. Here we see the Elven land of Irriyan and travel on the last leg of the journey to Seer's Keep, the destination for the three children from our world since book 1. None of the locations are particularly well evoked although the sequence when Carrie, Craig and yet another new character, Nyssa, travel by sea is more well described, and I liked the friendly sea orcs. As usual, nothing goes smoothly and the White Mage, who is working for the opposition, although only Carrie will accept this, sabotages things so that Carrie is separated from the others. Craig eventually ends up in Mordican, where we finally find out who the Grimthane is - rather an anti-climax, and seems set to take over and inflict his idea of progress on what he views with hatred as a backward land and inhabitants. As with book 2, there's a big environmental message about the despoliation of the natural world on our Earth.
Carrie is in denial about having powers which will lead her to join the ranks of the seers and mages, and in what I found a particularly daft scene, . When she at last reaches the Keep, it is a total non event, with the place not even described; suddenly she has been there for a while, still battling her destiny. Then she, for no very good reason, decides to go for it after all.
Meanwhile, we've seen that the remaining Earth boy, Roderick, who selflessly took Craig's place at the end of book 2 and has now been in a dungeon for months, finally escapes with the aid of friends, and decides to remain in the Grimthane's/Craig's city, to help the downtrodden race of goblins, unlikely though it seems he can evade recapture. Other minor characters who have scarcely risen above the level of cardboard cutouts, turn up at the Keep at the very end to help Carrie when And Craig declares he will go to war against the rest of Llandor with the bombs and guns he will create, with his knowledge of gunpowder except - big clanger - the Grimthane already has a Victorian inventor who could have already done all that and would be better equipped to put into practice knowledge that in Craig's case is literally textbook.
We've been told all along that Craig loves computer games and reading fantasy novels, so how is this boy who has never made anything practical in his whole life suddenly going to reinvent the internal combustion engine and all the rest of it? The notion that the enemy were after them for the knowledge in Craig's head was never very convincing, and at the end of the series is totally blown out of the water by this casual revelation of the Victorian engineer who has already introduced 19th century type factories! The Grimthane never needed Craig: he already has someone who could develop firearms and probably canon, and could put to good use the textbooks the children brought with them, though in theory Kadmon took those to Seers' Keep.
The thing that I really found a total letdown though is the complete anticlimax at the very end.
Maybe there was going to be another trilogy to answer that question, but I consider these three books to have been outrageous padding if so. Something that should have been the starting point of the fight against the enemy - reaching the Keep - is the hastily sketched ending. I suppose it can be argued that each of the three discovered their role the hard way rather than by being told, but having had to endure endless belly aching from Craig about Llandor and childish bickering from most of the other characters, plus the aggravating overuse of adverbs every time someone speaks, or umpteen substitutes for the word said, for three whole books, I feel that the reader deserves more than this.
March 15, 2015
Just finished re reading this trilogy. I've been a huge fan of Louise Lawrence for a long time and the Llandor trilogy has a special place in my heart. On the surface the adventure seems completely by the book, even predictable or derivative. An argument could be made that actually nothing really happens - that the company goes round in a circle in their travels. This is not the case. Rather Lawrence has used familiar fantasy tropes and characters to tell a story where the journey - the part that matters - is almost exclusively internal. This is Bourne out by heavy action scenes being told and told in retrospect. The actions when characters are fighting for their lives is not as significant as when they wrestle their own internal critics and tyrants, and this shows in the very deliberate way it is written. Do not be fooled by the children's covers or the light blurbs, these books cover adult topics and quandaries. In a way it is a shame that once again the author was pushed to tone adult material down to fit what was growing to be the new YA genre of the '90's. There is so much in this trilogy that is told without being said - Carrie's relationship with Kadmon for example (I would have liked to see the no holds barred version of that as Carrie came to understand her own power and value as a person.) this is the final book in the trilogy and as usual with Lawrence's books does not end up where you might expect - there is never an unmitigated happy ending. At times she does boarder on preachy, at others she is delightfully pompous but each book is always written with real heart and intelligence and you can't put a value on that.
Roderick, Carrie and Craig have finally been separated from each other and now know they will never return to our world. Llandor has plans for them. But of the three who is strong enough to fight the Grimthane in this final battle of wills?
Great end to a brilliant trilogy.
Roderick, Carrie and Craig have finally been separated from each other and now know they will never return to our world. Llandor has plans for them. But of the three who is strong enough to fight the Grimthane in this final battle of wills?
Great end to a brilliant trilogy.
January 7, 2009
Disappointing as some of Lawrence's stories are profound. I found the characters odd and the story strange. It doesn't resolve at the end of no 3 so there must be more.
December 16, 2010
this book is GUUUDDD!!!:P
April 16, 2017
Ah fantasy books in the nineties! Humans are usually centred. Elves have pointy ears and higher culture. Dwarves are rough and working class and sometimes a figure of fun (in this book at least that last cliche was avoided) there is some other fantastical "race" (in this case goblins being the main one and to Lawrence's credit a few others figured) and a map of the land at the beginning of the book.
So this was recognisably fantasy from its era. What made it a little better than most was that the common misogyny was missing (maybe because we have a female author), female characters were real characters not just love interests and serving wenches (in the main). What made it "just like the others" was the purple prose. A lot of it is just kind of pompous or in some cases anachronistic language (which admittedly my first drafts of fantasy stories nearly always have and which it is difficult to avoid) but also that the characters rarely "said" anything. They shouted, cried, sobbed, advised, growled, retorted, murmured (yes more than once), declared, etc, etc, etc. I do realise back in the day that was how teachers told us good writers do dialogue!
I tried hard to love or at least like the book because of said female characters, because of the ecological and vegetarian ideology of the elves and because the "bad guys" were basically capitalists intent on bringing in the industrial revolution...even though that whole part of the world-building was very cartoonish and not complex enough I did not completely lose faith in it until I met the bad guy and he was some sort of lich-think giant that feeds off other people's negative emotion. Right. So he couldn't just be greedy and entitled like a real-life bad guy? A lich as a symbol works for me, even if he had become one in his greed and desperation for power but he just was a "thing that feeds off other's pain and fear". So all the building up of an ecological framework is undermined and not surprisingly some key characters decide that progress in the form of flushing toilets and high tension springs is a good idea.
I think for the critique of the form of progress that brings "barbie dolls and televisions" there was a weakness, as if the author wanted to undermine her own argument. Considering this is a fantasy world she didn't have to do that- and ironically without trying to be so "balanced" she might have kept it more human and complex.
Also the gendered stereotypes and compulsive heterosexuality (literally Carrie and Craig were expected to hook up just because each other was there...the utopian spell placed on them made them immediately want to hook up...and all males seek females and females seek males to live out the Utopian dream in unlikely and sudden couples. That rankled the hell out of me, and for all that Carrie moved in some ways out of the headspace...what happened was not that this "automatic attraction" was deconstructed in any way but just Craig was a big meanie and she still tried to dutifully love him but he didn't like her not being under his control. Which has a vague sort of feminism to it but in such a binary and essentialist framework that I kept wanting to vomit!
Also the essentialism extends to "race" (I find this word for different species problematic, especially the way most fantasy writers present them but that is a bigger issue than this book). The race stereotypes were kept to a minimum (mainly because the lesser "races" were marginal to the story) until p273 where the dwarf explains that dwarfs are "practical" and not suited to magic or academic learning and therefore cheerfully meant for service and kitchen work. Which sort of classist discourse circulates a LOT in some people's ideas about education, but here with "race" added into it is even more sinister. After this revelation tendency by dwarves and goblins to address Carrie and various elves as "lady" or "mistress" or whatever stopped seeming quaint and faintly silly and started seeming offensive.
Without giving spoilers the ending was more or less what you would expect. It was left quite open to many tedious sequels. I need to also mention that a unicorn prominently appears in the book and Carrie pats it and cuddles it a lot. I suspect that would appeal to some readers. Yeah you could read worse. I hope to read better in the fantasy genre some time soon!
So this was recognisably fantasy from its era. What made it a little better than most was that the common misogyny was missing (maybe because we have a female author), female characters were real characters not just love interests and serving wenches (in the main). What made it "just like the others" was the purple prose. A lot of it is just kind of pompous or in some cases anachronistic language (which admittedly my first drafts of fantasy stories nearly always have and which it is difficult to avoid) but also that the characters rarely "said" anything. They shouted, cried, sobbed, advised, growled, retorted, murmured (yes more than once), declared, etc, etc, etc. I do realise back in the day that was how teachers told us good writers do dialogue!
I tried hard to love or at least like the book because of said female characters, because of the ecological and vegetarian ideology of the elves and because the "bad guys" were basically capitalists intent on bringing in the industrial revolution...even though that whole part of the world-building was very cartoonish and not complex enough I did not completely lose faith in it until I met the bad guy and he was some sort of lich-think giant that feeds off other people's negative emotion. Right. So he couldn't just be greedy and entitled like a real-life bad guy? A lich as a symbol works for me, even if he had become one in his greed and desperation for power but he just was a "thing that feeds off other's pain and fear". So all the building up of an ecological framework is undermined and not surprisingly some key characters decide that progress in the form of flushing toilets and high tension springs is a good idea.
I think for the critique of the form of progress that brings "barbie dolls and televisions" there was a weakness, as if the author wanted to undermine her own argument. Considering this is a fantasy world she didn't have to do that- and ironically without trying to be so "balanced" she might have kept it more human and complex.
Also the gendered stereotypes and compulsive heterosexuality (literally Carrie and Craig were expected to hook up just because each other was there...the utopian spell placed on them made them immediately want to hook up...and all males seek females and females seek males to live out the Utopian dream in unlikely and sudden couples. That rankled the hell out of me, and for all that Carrie moved in some ways out of the headspace...what happened was not that this "automatic attraction" was deconstructed in any way but just Craig was a big meanie and she still tried to dutifully love him but he didn't like her not being under his control. Which has a vague sort of feminism to it but in such a binary and essentialist framework that I kept wanting to vomit!
Also the essentialism extends to "race" (I find this word for different species problematic, especially the way most fantasy writers present them but that is a bigger issue than this book). The race stereotypes were kept to a minimum (mainly because the lesser "races" were marginal to the story) until p273 where the dwarf explains that dwarfs are "practical" and not suited to magic or academic learning and therefore cheerfully meant for service and kitchen work. Which sort of classist discourse circulates a LOT in some people's ideas about education, but here with "race" added into it is even more sinister. After this revelation tendency by dwarves and goblins to address Carrie and various elves as "lady" or "mistress" or whatever stopped seeming quaint and faintly silly and started seeming offensive.
Without giving spoilers the ending was more or less what you would expect. It was left quite open to many tedious sequels. I need to also mention that a unicorn prominently appears in the book and Carrie pats it and cuddles it a lot. I suspect that would appeal to some readers. Yeah you could read worse. I hope to read better in the fantasy genre some time soon!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews