Boudica: Dreaming the Eagle

Rating:
Summary: An Exciting Story Chronicled by a Masterful Storyteller
Review: Amanda Scott's sweeping novel takes place in Tribal Britain in the 1st century A.D. She builds a believable story from the fragments of recorded Roman history that describe the pre-Roman Iron Age. Modern archaeology provides scraps for her imaginative fiction. Boudica lived, but her story is a rich fabrication that makes one yearn for more in subsequent books.

Young Breaca nic Graine witnesses her mother's murder by a renegade Coritani warrior. The girl grabs her father's boar spear and kills the intruder, earning her first red kill-feather, the mark of an Eceni warrior. Breaca dreams, however, of holding the title of Dreamer, a coveted tribal position. A Dreamer possesses the gift of witnessing future events and interpreting visions of life and death. Dreamers are accompanied and protected by Warriors.

Additional major players in Scott's drama are Ban, Breaca's half-brother; Caradoc, third son of Cunobelin, the Sun-Hound; Corvus, a shipwrecked soldier of Rome; and Airmid, Breaca's Eceni Dreamer and friend. Throughout the tale, Ban's life and aspirations are second only to Breaca's. Ban, at eight years, experiences his first dream and is the potential greatest Dreamer of the Eceni. His path leads to distant lands, first as slave and then as Roman citizen, with his eventual return to Eceni territory.

Breaca accepts her place as Warrior and heir apparent to succeed her mother as tribal leader. She lives a bittersweet existence, forsaking womanly love for the training and ritual behavior befitting a warrior princess. DREAMING THE EAGLE is a story of peaceful agrarian peoples who defend their homes when provoked by aggression.

Love and dependence upon animals is a featured keynote of the novel. Hounds are hunters, companions and needed warriors when tribes are attacked. Horses are used for war as well. Ban devotes himself to the care of an angry multicolored mare he called the Crow. She performs for him when his life is at risk, killing those who attack with the thrust of her mighty hooves.

The author takes license with history in her telling of the Roman invasion of Britain by the legions of Caligula. He is shown to be licentious, evil, crafty, self-serving and vain. From other historians, we can agree with Scott's assessments of Caligula. He, among other self-serving men, is the hated enemy.

Scott catalogues her story with lists of names, their pronunciations, tribal groups and their locations, maps of probable tribal lands and Roman invasion routes. Her descriptions of battles, their outcomes, personal struggles and resolutions are developed with poetic beauty. DREAMING THE EAGLE is an exciting story chronicled by a masterful storyteller. If Iron Age existence was an iota of the reality Scott pictures, we can identify with and cheer for her people.

--- Reviewed by Judy Gigstad

Rating:
Summary: Dreaming the Eagle (Boudica, Book 1)
Review: I absolutely loved this book.. I felt I was really THERE, that I could see it all taking place.
I read quite a bit of fiction, but this is one of the few books that has accomplished that particular feat. I didn't feel quite the same connection with the second book ("Dreaming the Bull" (Boudica, Book 2)), but still eagerly look forward to the third, "Dreaming the Hound" (Boudica, Part 3)

I consider this trilogy a "keeper". Those that are kept and read again periodically, just for the enjoyment of them.

Rating:
Summary: Disapointing
Review: I can only speak to the entertainment value of the book, which I found dull and disapointing. As a fan of historical novels, when I purchased this book, I was looking forward to delving into a reconstruction of the Celtic past. I sought a sense of time and place, neither of which I felt were well developed or well researched in this novel. The character development lacked depth or age-appropriate emotion, and I felt I didn't connect or identify with any of them as I was meant to. The author's writing style reads as though it is forced, and many of the dramatic scenes in the book are over-stated or imbued with angst I found difficult to relate to. Most of the relationships the characters develop are pedophilic and perhaps incestuous, a detail I felt unnecessary and at times uncomfortable. It isn't a novel I would recommend, and I won't be following the trilogy.

Rating:
Summary: Dreaming the Eagle
Review: I enjoyed this overall but have some quibbles.

Firstly, though the author appends a bibliography, I find her portrayal of pre-Roman Celtic cultures less than believable. They're *interesting* people, as she portrays them, but nothing that I, as a non-expert, have read about these cultures' actual religion, social structure, or archeology matches what Scott has devised. We don't know much about early Celtic religion, but Scott's book doesn't even take into account what we do know; here are the Iceni apparently without Epona (though Scott spells them 'Eceni' for some reason). She seems to have based her Celts on Native Americans to some extent (dreams of totem animals, for example), and I'm not sure there's historical justification for that. I was confused by the portrayal of Boudica as fighting beside Caractacus against an initial Roman invasion (the work on Boudica I have previously seen has her first encountering Romans in her own homeland), and I found the gender equality in the society unbelievable. I could accept spiritual and perhaps political power in women's hands, but I can't believe that women warriors would be common in a culture that fights primarily hand to hand.

However, I was able to look past these issues and think of the book as semi-fantasy, and on that level I enjoyed it. The plot is dramatic, perhaps a bit over-long, but with plenty of action and lots of pain for the characters. The latter are reasonably appealing, with the troubled Ban a standout. I was disappointed with the rapid demise of Amminios, who was shaping up to be an intelligent and interesting antagonist. But the dark ending makes up for a lot. I will be reading the sequel.

Rating:
Summary: Lovely
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it brought people to life who are barely mentioned by history and re-created (if fictionally) a people long absorbed on the island nation.

I am not a critic, but I'm a voracious reader, and on the topic of Boadicea, I have read but ONE other account of her life, that by Pauline Gedge. It was also quite a gripping, absorbing and read-until-2 a.m. book.

If we are not to believe everything Scott creates about the Iceni/Eceni culture, why do we have reason to disbelieve, either? We were not there and have relatively little material culture from which to guess at the tribe's actual life. I live in a country that still retains many tribes which survive the onslaught of western civilization, and most of them have lost many portions of their culture. If Scotts is not to be believed, at least she creates a plausible, interesting one.

More importantly, to me at least, Scott reminds us of the possibilities of spiritual life interacting with outer life, the possibilities that many have lost. Dreamers? Wow. Warriors? Too much for me. If I was plunked down into Iceni life, I'd be hard put to do the things they probably did every day to survive. Knowing that basic bit about ancient peoples is enough to remind me of what a drastically different life I have ... and how lucky I am to descend from such tough folk.

Rating:
Summary: Excellnt historical fiction
Review: In 32 AD Britain, eleven years old Breaca only wants to be a Dreamer foretelling the future for her tribe. However, destiny provides her a different role when she slays the warrior who just killed her mother, Graine, the hereditary leader of the Eceni. Her father Eburovic reacts with elation as he concludes he needs no son with a fighter like his daughter Breaca.

Over the next seven-eight years Breaca becomes a warrior leader of the Eceni. She meets and falls in love with Caradac, perhaps the only male that can claim to be her peer as a warrior. She also cherishes, perhaps loves, her half-brother Ban, as powerful a Dreamer as there ever has been though he wants to be a warrior like his sibling. However, their world of magic and tribal disputes is on the verge of ending as an outside force, the Romans, has crossed from Gaul intent on conquering.

DREAMING THE EAGLE, the first of Manda Scott's Boudica trilogy, is a tremendous ancient historical biography that brings a vivid a picture of Britain during the decade just prior to and at the beginning of the Roman invasion. The story line is rich with a feel for the atmosphere of Druid Britain yet cleverly interwoven into the prime theme of the life of the legendary warrior queen. The cast is cleverly used to enhance understanding of the heroine in her late preadolescent and teen years so that the reader receives a deep well-written, gripping novel that never slows down. Perhaps the only disappointment is that readers will have to wait for Manda Scott's next installment.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: lacks character development, dialogue, and plot
Review: The best things about this book are the battle scenes and the historical setting. Unfortunately the characters never feel very real or believable. Key characters like Eburovic (Breaca's father) figure prominently in some sections and then disappear from the story even though they haven't gone anywhere. The second most important character, Ban (Breaca's brother), never develops a personality of his own and never feels remotely convincing.
Buyers should also be warned that sections of the book include episodes of homosexuality, rape, and sexual mutilation. Some sections are gratuitously perverse, while at other points the book reads like a gay romance novel. This book is definitely not appropriate for children.

Rating:
Summary: lacks character development, dialogue, and plot
Review: The best things about this book are the battle scenes and the historical setting. Unfortunately the characters never feel very real or believable. Key characters like Eburovic (Breaca's father) figure prominently in some sections and then disappear from the story even though they haven't gone anywhere. The second most important character, Ban (Breaca's brother), never develops a personality of his own and never feels remotely convincing.
Buyers should also be warned that sections of the book include episodes of homosexuality, rape, and sexual mutilation. Some sections are gratuitously perverse, while at other points the book reads like a gay romance novel. This book is definitely not appropriate for children.

Rating:
Summary: She's working too hard. Overwritten.
Review: The prose contained within this fabulous book is both unshakable and brave. But what I think readers will most appreciate is Manda's eye to detail. Her descriptions of the eagle were so archly vivid and so palpable, that every night I was reading this book (for over a 3 week period!) I would wake up in a sweat, after having dreamt deeply about the eagle--just as she described it--inch for inch. That alone made this book worth reading! Not to mention all the philosophical things it make me think about.

Rating:
Summary: Dreaming The Bull
Review: Well....I read Dreaming the Eagle first by Manda Scott and didn't particularly like it. I found that the characters were superhuman and grew up very fast. The dreaming all the time made me wonder if they were stoned half the time. There were of course many things I did like it and I pressed on to read Book 11, Dreaming the Bull.
It can only be said that if one was too add up the number of people killed it would make one wonder how many people were left in Britiania to carry on. And the wounds that people received would be enough to sink a battle ship.
One positive thing is that the book is extremely well written and I was gently drawn in to the world of Breaca and Ban. The descriptions of the battles are amazing. One feels as if one is on one of the horses at the height of the battle, and I felt a real kinship with Hail. I realize that a good part of the book is fiction but I am now encouraged to read the books listed in the Bibliography.
Manda's command of dialogue is superb. One can see the logic unfolding behind each character's decision to act. Things are very well talked out. One suspects that in actual history it would not have been so. However, I recommend this book to everyone, even if you were not impressed with the first book, you must read the second. It leaves you hanging and I can hardly wait for the third. I hope the powers that be make this series into a movie.