Rating: 
Summary: Couldn't put it down
Review: I thought Carol Berg was an amazing writer after reading her previous trilogy, but in this series she's even better. She has an amazing imagination and has created an intricate, well thought out fantasy world that's easy to believe in. The characters are both heroic and flawed. I'm most impressed, however, by Carol Berg's ability to write descriptive imagery. Every scene is rich and full of sensory information. You can see, smell, and feel it. You agonize with the heroine in her hardships, then cheer with her in her success. Yet the writing isn't bogged down by overly descriptive paragraphs or boring poetic prose. The story moves along at a fast clip. "Son of Avonar" is as much mystery as fantasy, and I couldn't stop turning page after page to get my questions answered. The ending had a complete, satisfying feel, yet I can't wait to continue reading the series. Some of the fantasy elements felt a little contrived to assist the plotline, but I'll easily forgive that, since the plotline is a non-stop, intriguing roller coaster ride. I strongly recommend this author to anyone who has time to read a novel without putting it down.
Rating:
Summary: Her best book yet!
Review: I've read all of Carol Berg's novels and Son of Avonar is by far her best. She has evolved as a writer and storyteller and has managed to create something refreshing and new in the field of Fantasy - believable, fallible and human characters.Her character work has always been her strong suit, in that even minor characters are usually fairly well fleshed out. But this book (the first in a trilogy) is a self-contained masterpiece. You could read this book and go no further. I was sure she would hang me out on a cliff like most Fantasy authors do in a multi-book collection, but she wrapped it up nicely at the end, left me wanting so much more but not suffering using tired devices to keep my interest. This is a moving story, the flashbacks (another device that I never think is used well, though her weaving of it into the present made me look for the past with equal anticipation) lend so much weight to the story and it is heavy despairing stuff, the kind that makes your fist clench in agony as you are reading it. I kept thinking, dear God, no, no, no, for it was too devastating to consider because from the moment you meet the heroine, Seriana, she has you at her side, understanding her, feeling her loneliness and deep sadness. Yet her strength is amazing; amazing, but real. It is the kind of strength of the human variety not super hero. There is a love story here too, a beautiful love story that too is very real. One of the other reviewers said her words jump off the page - and they do - it is a very active story and the writing is filled with electric energy. It is spare; Hemingway-esque actually at points, without anything overblown. Utterly readable it is a page turner - you will fight to break away from it and probably will not be able to. Make sure you have time set aside and just read it straight through. I am thrilled to have had the pleasure to read this book and hope against hope that in the series they only continue to get better. I do have what I call Matrix-anxiety about sequels but I have faith that Carol Berg is up to the task. If she sticks to a similar format where each book is inclusive to itself I believe she will have a sure-fire hit on her hands. And finally thank you Carol Berg for FINALLY creating some characters who are not fourteen year old virgins! Seriana is thirty-five years old, a grown woman and I identified wit her much more than some unrealistic portrayal of a teenage princess or a twenty-something who has never been let out of a castle. Seri is all woman, her own woman, educated, bright, resourceful, but makes mistakes in judgment and often can't see the bigger picture. Just like a real woman. Carol Berg had my interest with her other books but now she has a fan!
Rating: 
Summary: A little too Scooby-Doo
Review: If there's one thing Carol Berg it good at, it's redeeming fallen characters. Her first published work, Transformation, remains her most successful, but this book's derivation of that storyline also works well. Once again, we have an older, emotionally and physically scarred character who reluctantly draws a younger, haughty boy into an understanding of himself. What sets this book apart from Transformation is that the older character is female, and there's a significant plot twist in the young man's self-discovery. Berg also attempts a more experimental narrative form for this book. Present-time action interweaves with a past that's compelling even though we already know it ends tragically. Ideally, this form would do better than a chronological storyline at giving the past power to illuminate the present. I think that's what Berg was aiming for, and I admire her for attempting it. However, my own opinion is that this would have been better off as two separate books. The suspense would have been drawn out much more in the first story by not knowing the tragic ending, and experiencing that along with the characters would mean more suspense in hoping for a happy resolution to the second storyline. That being said, I still recommend reading this since the two stories are moving enough to make it worthwhile. My only serious disappointment came at the end of Son of Avonar. The true nature of a number of characters is revealed, but the way it all happens seems very much like the end of an episode of Scooby-Doo: everyone is unmasked at once, requiring a huge amount of exposition to fill in the backstory of why they aren't who we thought they were. In fact, Berg has to bring in a whole new character at the last minute just to cover all that exposition. It's nice to face some surprising plot twists, but it would have been better if there had been more hints of what was to come before the big reveal. That would have made the twisty ending seem more natural. Nevertheless, I do recommend this book. The characters are fully realized and interestingly flawed, and I was sucked in enough that I was very disappointed to discover we have to wait until the fall for a sequel.
Rating:
Summary: A little too Scooby-Doo
Review: If there's one thing Carol Berg it good at, it's redeeming fallen characters. Her first published work, Transformation, remains her most successful, but this book's derivation of that storyline also works well. Once again, we have an older, emotionally and physically scarred character who reluctantly draws a younger, haughty boy into an understanding of himself. What sets this book apart from Transformation is that the older character is female, and there's a significant plot twist in the young man's self-discovery. Berg also attempts a more experimental narrative form for this book. Present-time action interweaves with a past that's compelling even though we already know it ends tragically. Ideally, this form would do better than a chronological storyline at giving the past power to illuminate the present. I think that's what Berg was aiming for, and I admire her for attempting it. However, my own opinion is that this would have been better off as two separate books. The suspense would have been drawn out much more in the first story by not knowing the tragic ending, and experiencing that along with the characters would mean more suspense in hoping for a happy resolution to the second storyline. That being said, I still recommend reading this since the two stories are moving enough to make it worthwhile. My only serious disappointment came at the end of Son of Avonar. The true nature of a number of characters is revealed, but the way it all happens seems very much like the end of an episode of Scooby-Doo: everyone is unmasked at once, requiring a huge amount of exposition to fill in the backstory of why they aren't who we thought they were. In fact, Berg has to bring in a whole new character at the last minute just to cover all that exposition. It's nice to face some surprising plot twists, but it would have been better if there had been more hints of what was to come before the big reveal. That would have made the twisty ending seem more natural. Nevertheless, I do recommend this book. The characters are fully realized and interestingly flawed, and I was sucked in enough that I was very disappointed to discover we have to wait until the fall for a sequel.
Rating:
Summary: Gripping read!
Review: Not everything in this book is as it seems. Carol Berg's plots rarely are.
Seri is a village woman living at the edge of a town for 10 years- lonely, bitter and scarred from a horrible past. The arrival of a naked, handsome young stranger who tries to strangle her at their first meeting draws Seri into a painful exploration of her past, forcing her to make connections and impossible, heretofore unimaginable alliances if she is to help this tall, imperious stranger.
Anyone familiar with Berg's Rai-kirah trilogy and Song of the Beast will know that her characters often undergo tremendous suffering and humiliation before they come to their answers. Still, Berg's plots and characters are so captivating that no matter how much you cringe for what the characters undergo, you still have to know what happened, to discover the secret, to have some closure.
So if you start this book, beware, you'll need to wait till September 2004 for Book II of this entertaining, nail-biting trilogy.
Rating:
Summary: Magic, Suffering and disgrace and a good novel
Review: Seri is a noblewoman living in disgrace, poverty and exile. Then one day she is attacked by a naked man who it turns out has no memory of himself, his past or even his language. Seri does not want to get involved - she does not like the man and her past has left deep scars that he threatens to re-open. However, gradually, she gets drawn into to helping him. She finds she can not abandon someone so obviously injured and despite the risk finds herself on an adventure that will bring an unexpected clarity to the events that bought her past disgrace and will help save her world from a doom worse than she would have ever imagined. This is a well written, though long, novel with interesting characters. It is the first book in the Bridge of D'Arnath series, but it is a well contained novel in itself that does not end on a cliff-hanger. It has some similarities to the authors previous books in the disgrace and suffering of the central characters in the novel, but for all that has a quite distinct feel from the characters in her previous books. This is worth picking up to read if you enjoy a well written fantasy novel and looks like the beginning of an interesting series.
Rating:
Summary: MY FIRST BERG BOOK
Review: Son of Avonar is the first book I've read by CArol Berg and I believe I made a wise choice. This is the first in the series of The Bridge of D'Arnath and if the first book is any indication, it will prove to be a huge hit when all is said and done with. Carol Berg has managed to create a world so odynamic that you feel immersed in the tale from the get-go.
The story centers on a woman named Seri who has gone into a self-imposed exile. Sorcery is considered evil in this world. Her own husband was found out to be a sorcerer and was burned at the stake and her newborn baby was taken from her and killed for fear he may become a sorcerer as well. Nice little take on a puritanical fantasy realm.
One day Seri finds a man naked and wildly insane in the woods and flees. She is later questioned about the man and goes back to try and find him. She soon finds the man again and discovers that he, too is a sorcerer and that she must try to help him regain his mind as he has knowledge that is needed to save her world from destruction.
Berg does a good job of weaving two storylines together seamlessly. The first concerns Seri's quest to help the man regain his memory and to avoid the dangerous foes who are searching for them. The second plotline goes back in time and relates the events that eventually lead up to her going into exile including her husband's powers. The best thing is that both plotlines are interesting and key to the overall story and you don't get the sense that she is padding the story with the flashbacks.
Great first book in this series!
Rating:
Summary: Amazing Novel
Review: This book is totally amazing... but then again so is every other book of Carol Berg's that has come out so far. I can't wait for the second one!
Rating:
Summary: Impossible to put down
Review: This is the sort of book you swallow all in one piece and then sit twitching on hot coals, waiting for the next installment. Without a doubt, this is a first book in a series, not a stand-alone work. Having accepted that, you can really appreciate the pacing - not rushed, not forced. Perfect. The story is so dynamic and the style of writing so energetic, that the words just jump off the page. Carol manages to create very visual, tactile scenes with precision and economy of words, so you feel yourself in the story, bypassing the infamous sort of over-extended descriptions. She also has a most un-trivial way of juggling two storylines, one of which is the main character's past and the other - her present. The emotional depth of Seri's past frees the present-time storyline from the necessity to hurry relationships along and from forcing character development to progress at an unnatural pace. Very well done, all. The world Carol creates is currently ruled by people of the most unpleasant ilk, whom Seri rightly scorns. Yet there is no denying that the current situation came about for good reason. The "good" people in the story have the potential to do a great deal of damage, being sorcerers. There are many such complexities and contradictions. It is wonderful to see a writer including them as such, instead of trivializing them for the sake of neatness and rounded corners. Very well done - interesting, emotional, well-paced. A great read in itself and an excellent beginning to a promising series.
| 
