The Compass Rose (One Rose Trilogy, #1) in The Complete Idiots Guide to the Ultimate Reading List

Jul 07, 2010 Lisa (Harmonybites) rated it liked it

Shelves: novels, fiction, fantasy, romance, ultimate-reading-list

This novel was first published by Luna, a Harlequin imprint marketed toward fantasy readers that drew from both romance and fantasy writers. I generally felt most of their books were too romance aisle and not strong fantasies. The Compass Rose is actually one of the exceptions in that respect among the Luna books that I liked with some creative world-building.

I thought the world Dayton created was intriguing: Adara, a matriarchal society, practices group marriage requiring at least four members This novel was first published by Luna, a Harlequin imprint marketed toward fantasy readers that drew from both romance and fantasy writers. I generally felt most of their books were too romance aisle and not strong fantasies. The Compass Rose is actually one of the exceptions in that respect among the Luna books that I liked with some creative world-building.

I thought the world Dayton created was intriguing: Adara, a matriarchal society, practices group marriage requiring at least four members. This society is magic-based--there's North, South, West and East magic. The protagonist, Kallista, is a naitan, a magical practitioner of North magic and captain in their army who can call down lightening. When it looks like she might lose a battle she calls on the Goddess--and finds herself able to destroy the invading army--but there's a catch. She's now "god marked" and tied to others so marked she must marry and with whom she can tap magic to defeat the forces arrayed against her nation: her bodyguard, with whom she's been partnered a long time, two prisoners of war, a female refugee and a foreign merchant.

I'm generally not a fan actually of fiction involving polyamory--or forced marriage, and in a sense the "god mark" acts as such a device. I prefer stories that develop intimacy between just two, not only because multiples aren't appealing to me and to my mind just two in real life terms hard enough, but in fictional terms more than two major characters can become unwieldy and there's little chance to develop six.

I think I liked this work involving polyamory more than most for several reasons. Unlike say LK Hamilton's Anita Blake series, I didn't feel this was some piled-on harem--each character had their own conflicts and brought something into the mix--the inclusion of foreign characters, even ones from an enemy nation, meant Kallista and the others really had to work to form themselves into a family. Together with the matriarchal culture and the magical system I thought this brought an interesting dimension to the plot. In that regard this brought to mind Marion Zimmer Bradley's Forbidden Tower with its clash of personalities and cultures within a group of people who must find a way to mesh together magically and sexually in order to survive and flourish.

I also thought this novel was on the whole well-written. It's a complex plot and world and Dayton builds it well--gradually letting you in on its ins and outs through the story itself instead of wads of infodump. I think the novel's biggest fault is that I think its conflicts both internal to the group and in terms of the menace they face was resolved far too easily.

The novel was a good, entertaining read--a solid work of fantasy even if not a favorite or one that has me rushing to read the next book in the trilogy. ...more

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