Heartlight (Light)

Rating:
Summary: A wrap up of several series...
Review: As many have pointed out, this book tours several of MZB's previous series...the Dark Satanic, Inheritor, etc., and the Light series...but the part I truly found best about (both Heartlight and Ghostlight) is that you find out more of the Fate of all the major characters of the Fall of Atlantis (2 books, which I read in a compendium). It was very touching for me to find out what finally became of Riveda....and to know that he became friends with Domaris, if not Deoris.

Rating:
Summary: Not what I expected
Review: Heartlight tells the story of the last half of Colin McLaren's life. An adept committed to working within the light, McLaren must fight evil on all fronts - the resurgence of Nazi black magick, Satanists using the rituals of the Church of the Antique Rite, and individuals turning from light to black. Throughout it all, McLaren must confront his own individual problems, particularly that of using his power as it is not meant to be.

The book is interesting, but might be confusing for someone (like me) who is not altogether familiar with the occult phenomena that the story is about. I would have preferred a book that went more deeply into some of the individual battles that McLaren undertook, rather than glancing over so many of them. That said, the book is meant to be a broad overview of the life of one champion of the light, and at that it is quite successful.

Rating:
Summary: quite disappointed
Review: I bought this book because I have read and much liked other books written by MZB. This one was such a drag to read - literally- in dragged on and on. The characters are one dimensional and seem stagnant in their development. There were times when I wanted to scream at Colin McLaren, not to make the same mistakes over and over and over again.
I was actually glad when I finished with this book.

Rating:
Summary: Horrible!
Review: I bought this book despite the seriously cheesy cover (my paperback edition had romance novel type cover art with a blond woman being bent over backwards by a studly man - although here of course the man had evil in mind) because I had read The Inheritor a long time ago and recalled enjoying it. But unfortunately, this book was nothing like The Inheritor. Many of the same events are rehashed from a different point of view, but this book really overdid the "telling, not showing" problem authors can sometimes have. Usually, MZB doesn't have that problem, so I'm not sure what happened here. I haven't read any of the other "Light" books, so don't know if they suffer from the same problem. Basically, there is absolutely no suspense built up at any point, and you never feel at all invested in anything that's happening, because everything is seen from a distance and matter of factly described. The characters are absolutely cardboard in this book (again, don't know if these same characters were better-written in others of her books), dialogue is flat, the random historical happenings thrown in to mark Colin passing through the 20th century seem forced in sometimes, the villains are 2-dimensional and never seem threatening...very disappointing book, I forced myself to finish it but was sad I had wasted money buying it. Won't buy any others in this series (e.g., Gravelight, etc.). Will go back to rereading all the Darkovan novels...and maybe The Inheritor.

Rating:
Summary: Horrible!
Review: I'm an avid fan of MZB, but this book just didn't make the cut. It's attempts to link book events to real life and other books are just tedious. And it follows a relatively stable character across decades in which he just doesn't change. Pick up a different MZB book -- you'll be happier.

Rating:
Summary: A Fitting End
Review: It's good to have read the other reviews before writing this one, because a couple of them confirmed what I had suspected -- that some references were to books that I haven't read yet. Although much of the action in HEARTLIGHT takes place before GHOSTLIGHT, WITCHLIGHT, and GRAVELIGHT, part takes place after these, so it should be read last. (Alternatively, you could start with HEARTLIGHT and save chapter 24 through the end of until after you've read the other three.) This book didn't seem overlong to me. I started late yesterday morning and continued reading even though I didn't finish until after midnight and I had to fight off the effects of three nights of too-little sleep. I wanted to learn more about the mysterious Colin MacLauren who was alluded to in the other volumes. I liked seeing younger versions of characters I'd met already, even though I felt a bit as I did when I saw "The Phantom Menace" after having seeing the three "Star Wars" movies that were made first although they take place later -- sorry because I knew the sad outcomes for some of those characters. MacLauren's various battles with Evil didn't make me feel that they were too repetitious. I would expect someone in his line of work to have to go through more than one such battle in his lifetime. I think there's enough variation in the details. In a way, it's a shame that this book came out before the shambles that is the final USA Presidential election of the 20th century -- it's fun to speculate how that might have been worked in with the other historical events and overall plot. Random comments: (Chapter one) 1956 was the 6th decade of the 20th century, not the 5th. This is a common mistake that I shared until reading about various decades of life in my library's medical journals forced me to work it out. Your first decade of life is from zero [birth] through age 10. Your second is from ages 11 through 20, and so on. It's the same with each century. By the same reasoning, the first century AD was from zero through 100, the second from 101 through 200, and so on. The 20th century is called that because it began in 1901 and will end on 31 December 2000. That is why this book is correct in stating that the real turn of the millennium is 2,000, not 1999. (Chapter 4) I'm not sure if it's true, but I read somewhere that President Kennedy screwed up his German and actually told the people of Berlin that he was a [jelly?] doughnut. Given Toller's secret, I don't feel at all bad about what Colin does to him. In fact, I thought our hero's guilty feelings were excessive. Simon's dreadful accident didn't seem so horrifying after finding out what he had done earlier. (Chapter 16) If MacLauren's birthday is February 2nd, then he was born on Candlemas, the old celebration of the purification of the Virgin Mary -- any symbolic significance? I thought that "elide" into all the other late-night emergency calls of Colin's life bit was a typo for "slide", but the word is real. (Chapter 18) As I recently learned, the real McCoy is spelled "Wedgwood", not "Wedgewood," so that heirloom plate may not have been so valuable. (Chapter 19) MacLauren's guilt seems even more senseless after reading his self reminders about persons of the Light who turn to the Dark. Chapters 22 and 23 are a real treat for the Lovecraft fan. Also, the description of the old Lattimer house delighted me because it made me think of Jackson's Hill house. I assume that the old TV Show Barnabas Sally named the cat for was Barnabas Collins of "Dark Shadows". The one aspect of MacLauren's beliefs that I found truly offensive was that before we are reborn, each of us choses the suffering we deal with in our current lives. To me that sounds like the ultimate in "blame the victim" mentality. However, I acknowledge that my viewpoint might be different if I were a true believer in reincarnation. HEARTLIGHT is not a book for those seeking easy entertainment, but I think readers looking for something to sink their mental teeth into will find it very rewarding.

Rating:
Summary: Heartlight
Review: Never have I read a work of fiction that actually made me think of a period of our recent history in a new light. Marion works magic by weaving an already compelling storyline of believable rituals and magick into a convincing explanation for and which ties many of the key moments of turmoil of the twentieth century.

Her characters are people anyone can identify with; their lives aren't sickingly happy, nor are they perfect. They have their good times, their sorrows, their hurts, anger, and the guilt of their mistakes. Nor are her antagonists completely bad--there is always room for redemption.

I also enjoyed the way Marion weaved Colin's story to cross those of characters from the three previous novels in the series. It gave us a chance to see these characters from a totally new perspective, and in the cases of Thorne Blackburn and Hunter Greyson, we were given a glimpse into their youth and personalities that we were not shown in _Ghostlight_ and _Witchlight_.

I recommend this book to anyone who has ever asked the question, "Why?"