Rating: 
Summary: Interesting but too long
Review: I will have to say I agree with the review by nicciech, w...a...y too long. A really good job was done in creating a society, and creating a different concept of magic. However, it is like a bunch of incomplete sentences in a paragraph...you seem to be kept hanging. Also, none of the characters seem to be well enough developed to really pull you in. If you are a really fast reader, and want something different, I would say this book is worth reading. I will have to say that a lot in the book did facinate me, and it seemed to have a good pace, not getting too long in the details. It took me a long time to finish, but not too bad considering it is almost 900 pages. I have had 200 page books that took just a long.
Rating: 
Summary: (4.5)
Review: Melanie Rawn, Jennifer Roberson, and Kate Elliott collaborate here to create a novel that is very hard to put down--despite its formidable length and flattish characters. What drew me in was the carefully designed world, the totally believable magic, the overall mood, and the centuries-spanning plot. This novel is set in Tirra Virte, an Italy-ish province where all official ceremonies and transactions are recorded not with words but with paintings. I thoight for a moment--"Hey! That can't be reliable! The artist can paint something that didn't really happen!" But then it made me realize just how unreliable words, too, can be. A scribe can write lies as easily as an artist can paint them. This art-centered world, of course, requires artists. This novel follows the rising and falling fortunes of one family of artists, the Grijalvas, who are almost indisputably the best artists in Tirra Virte. However, they are also decimated by a past plague, feared for their reputed sorcery, and shunned for carrying the blood of foreign rapists in their veins. A young Grijalva boy wants nothing so much as to be acknowledged "Gifted", an heir to the Grijalvas' genetic talents, but the art and magic come with a terrible price. WARNING: possible SPOILERS The book is divided into three sections, taking place in three different time periods. The sections are different enough in tone and style that I suspect each author wrote a section mostly by herself, with little collaboration except in world-building. However, I'm not familiar enough with the authors to guess who wrote what. The first section is my personal favorite because of its brooding and menacing mood. Two Grijalva children, the male Sario and the female Saavedra, witness a terrible punishment meted out by the family elders, and come to realize what Grijalva power really means. The two grow to adulthood--Sario becoming an acclaimed artist and lusting for more and more power, and Saavedra's skills ignored because she is a woman. When Saavedra finds love outside the family, passion and jealousy erupt, and a terrible magic is performed upon her... The second section is more of a romance, featuring a beautiful, naive, and Generically Nice princess who marries into Tirra Verteian nobility, only to be cruelly rejected in favor of her husband's Grijalva mistress. Princess Mechella does her best to make a happy life for herself despite all of this. I do like the fact that she eventually grew a spine, but I don't like the fact that the "happy ending" to this second story took place with absolutely no action by Mechella. She never even knew half of what was going on. Sigh... The third section is a story of liberty. The lower classes of Tirra Virte are in revolt. At the same time a young Grijalva woman, groomed to be a compliant daughter and an acquiescent royal mistress, sets out to make her life and art her own. And it is she who notices something strange about the portrait of Saavedra which hangs in the palace. I liked this section, though it seems a little rushed, what with trying to cram the third story and the loose ends from the other two into what is probably the shortest of the three. I truly enjoyed this book, though it left a few loose ends hanging. I want to know more about the Tza'ab, the Nerro Lingua, and how Saavedra managed to be born Gifted. I REALLY want to know more about what happened when Eleyna's brother scratched the painting containing Eleyna's blood! It's not often I reach the end of a 900 page book crying out for more.
Rating:
Summary: (4.5)
Review: Melanie Rawn, Jennifer Roberson, and Kate Elliott collaborate here to create a novel that is very hard to put down--despite its formidable length and flattish characters. What drew me in was the carefully designed world, the totally believable magic, the overall mood, and the centuries-spanning plot. This novel is set in Tirra Virte, an Italy-ish province where all official ceremonies and transactions are recorded not with words but with paintings. I thoight for a moment--"Hey! That can't be reliable! The artist can paint something that didn't really happen!" But then it made me realize just how unreliable words, too, can be. A scribe can write lies as easily as an artist can paint them. This art-centered world, of course, requires artists. This novel follows the rising and falling fortunes of one family of artists, the Grijalvas, who are almost indisputably the best artists in Tirra Virte. However, they are also decimated by a past plague, feared for their reputed sorcery, and shunned for carrying the blood of foreign rapists in their veins. A young Grijalva boy wants nothing so much as to be acknowledged "Gifted", an heir to the Grijalvas' genetic talents, but the art and magic come with a terrible price. WARNING: possible SPOILERS The book is divided into three sections, taking place in three different time periods. The sections are different enough in tone and style that I suspect each author wrote a section mostly by herself, with little collaboration except in world-building. However, I'm not familiar enough with the authors to guess who wrote what. The first section is my personal favorite because of its brooding and menacing mood. Two Grijalva children, the male Sario and the female Saavedra, witness a terrible punishment meted out by the family elders, and come to realize what Grijalva power really means. The two grow to adulthood--Sario becoming an acclaimed artist and lusting for more and more power, and Saavedra's skills ignored because she is a woman. When Saavedra finds love outside the family, passion and jealousy erupt, and a terrible magic is performed upon her... The second section is more of a romance, featuring a beautiful, naive, and Generically Nice princess who marries into Tirra Verteian nobility, only to be cruelly rejected in favor of her husband's Grijalva mistress. Princess Mechella does her best to make a happy life for herself despite all of this. I do like the fact that she eventually grew a spine, but I don't like the fact that the "happy ending" to this second story took place with absolutely no action by Mechella. She never even knew half of what was going on. Sigh... The third section is a story of liberty. The lower classes of Tirra Virte are in revolt. At the same time a young Grijalva woman, groomed to be a compliant daughter and an acquiescent royal mistress, sets out to make her life and art her own. And it is she who notices something strange about the portrait of Saavedra which hangs in the palace. I liked this section, though it seems a little rushed, what with trying to cram the third story and the loose ends from the other two into what is probably the shortest of the three. I truly enjoyed this book, though it left a few loose ends hanging. I want to know more about the Tza'ab, the Nerro Lingua, and how Saavedra managed to be born Gifted. I REALLY want to know more about what happened when Eleyna's brother scratched the painting containing Eleyna's blood! It's not often I reach the end of a 900 page book crying out for more.
Rating: 
Summary: Ok Book
Review: This book was ok, very slow to start with. I actually stopped reading it for a long time as I got bored with it and got back to it when I was desperate for a read. It does get a lil better towards then end, but I like Melanie Rawn's other books much better. I would not recommend this book to most people.
Rating:
Summary: Golden Words
Review: [note to amazon.com--the following is taken from a much longer copyrighted review I had published elsewhere on the web. The reference is "The SF Site Featured Review," It isn't true a picture is worth a thousand words. Melanie Rawn, Jennifer Roberson, and Kate Elliott grace their novel The Golden Key with far more than a mere thousand per picture. And these are words well worth the read. It is a fantasy novel about art. Or is it a generational saga? Actually, it is an alternate universe story. Then again, maybe it is hard science fiction. Or should that be hard fantasy? To define it within only one genre is impossible. Suffice it to say that this nominee for the 1996 World Fantasy Award is a remarkable book. The story centers on two families, the artistic Grijalvas who live in the duchy of Tira Verte and the royal do'Verradas who rule the duchy. An inextricable link joins them; all records of births, deaths, treaties--all human interactions--are painted rather than written. Or are they mere paintings? The answer to that question takes the reader through a tale of intrigue, magic, romance, and page-turning adventure. The book consists of three novels that fit together beautifully, like a literary jigsaw puzzle. A striking difference exists in Roberson's style in Part One and Rawn's in Part Two. It works because three hundred years separate the stories. The luminosity of Roberson's prose reflects the youth of the characters and culture, whereas Rawn's elegance fits their maturation. The closer resemblance of Rawn and Elliott's style goes well with the lesser time span between Parts Two and Three. Elliott's chapters have a subtle difference in feel suited to a world on the doorstep of an industrial age. The authors maintain the right balance, giving continuity without creating seams in the overall picture. Just as a frame surrounds a painting, so the authors frame their stories with scholarly writings from fictional experts who discuss works painted by characters in the book. It is an ingenious device, one that showcases the history of this intriguing world without the exposition becoming intrusive. The magic is set up with scrupulous care. This is no slap-dash of spells spattered across a story canvas; it has the same depth as the world building. The authors base inheritance of the Gift on genetic principles with a rigor worthy of the hardest science fiction. In an ironic twist, the Grijalvas inherit their Gift the way hemophiliacs inherit the traits that prevent their blood from clotting. It leaves the reader a question to ponder: is Grijalva magic a gift--or a disease? As a physicist, I was intrigued by how the magic plays on relativistic theory, in particular time dilation and "frames" of reference. The Golden Key reads like fantasy, yet within it are lovely allegories to physics, as if spacetime were painted into its universe just as its characters paint themselves and their passions into their own works. How much of it is deliberate and how much derives from the authors' natural intuitive gifts, I can't say, but I do know it evoked for me a real sense of wonder. My favorite subplot is Rohario's romance with Eleyna in Part Three. Eleyna's artistic genius shines like a star, and at first Rohario seems an unlikely choice for her. As the Grand Duke's second son, he may be handsome and good-natured, but even he considers himself a fop. His maturation into a leader, combined with his earnest love for Eleyna, utterly charms. Through it all, whether riding in pig carts, sneaking around after dark, or getting clobbered in a fight, he valiantly tries to maintain his well groomed self. Elliott's delightful humor thoroughly enhances the story. The crowning touch to this book is the gorgeous cover painted Michael Whelan. His depiction of the character Sario, who holds a golden key, is actually a picture of Whelan himself. Read the book and it will be clear why Whelan's choice to do a self-portrait is such an eerie -- and effective -- play on the golden key magic. The Golden Key is one of the most absorbing books I've read in some time. I give it my highest recommendation.
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