Rating: 
Summary: Buy it!
Review: I wasn't even looking to buy myself a new book, but it just caught my eye as I walked past the shelf in the bookstore where I work - and I can honestly say it's the best few pounds I've ever spent! Having never heard of Sarah Zettel before I didn't quite know what sort of quality to expect, but I found I couldn't put it down - I actually stayed up until 5 in the morning just because I couldn't bear not to finish it! Zettel is a little slow to start, but introduces her characters well and the reader is constantly kept guessing during the first third of the book as to whether Valin Kalami is a good guy or a bad guy - and is the Dowager Empress evil or just plain mad? I really began to feel a bond with Bridget and Ananda and by the end I was in tears! I'm certainly no expert in the field of fantasy novels, but I know what I like and I LIKE this - just one question... what's the next one called?
Rating: 
Summary: exciting epic fantasy
Review: In 1899 Bridget Lederle tends the Sand Island, Wisconsin lighthouse when she rescues Kalami from Lake Superior. Kalami claims to be a sorcerer from Isavalta, home of Bridget's sire and a place that the lighthouse keeper has envisioned in her dreams. The foreigner also informs his host that his liege the Dowager Empress Medeoan Nacheradavosh sent him to bring her back to their kingdom. He eventually convinces the lonely Bridget to accompany him to his realm where he serves as the royal sorcerer.
However, the Empress has bucked tradition by refusing to give the throne over to the true emperor, her ailing son and his new bride. Meanwhile Bridget learns about her mystical heritage as she starts using her magical abilities in a court filled with political and sorcery intrigues that threaten to engulf the lass. She must learn to follow her instincts in order to decide what is best for her new country, but depend on no one, as a heavy dose of paranoia would help.
Though the names are difficult to read let alone pronounce unless you happen to be Russian, SORCERER'S TREASON is an exciting epic fantasy that young readers (and some of us geriatric boomers) will enjoy. Bridget is a wonderful heroine as she runs the gamut of emotions while threats abound everywhere she goes from dastardly villains who want her dead or be gone, but never cross a sexual line (hence targeted for the youth). Fans of action-packed fantasy starring a strong, courageous female will relish Sarah Zettel's first Isavalta tale. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: Rich, detailed fantasy
Review: Sarah Zettel moves from SF to Fantasy in this novel, and I at least am glad she did. Her characters are, as always, deftly drawn, and her world building is exquisite. My only complaint, and the reason for four stars instead of five, is a matter of plot timing. She spends a long time drawing us into the convoluted problems of Isvaltan politics, and how even the people with the best intentions and motives end up doing awful things just to survive, thereby rendering it almost impossible to tell who is a friend and who is an enemy. I was waiting with bated breath to see how Bridget (our heroine) was even going to survive, never mind suceed, in the morass she'd been thrown into. Then, once Bridget actually arrives at the Isvaltan court, her amazing powers and quick thinking manage to resolve almost every difficulty in record time. She is never once trapped into the kind of Catch-22 that the others characters have spent years living with. It's deftly managed, and reasonably believable, but it feels like a little bit of a cop-out. I wanted Bridget to have some serious doubts and difficulties figuring out whose side she should be on, and that never happened. Other than that, it's an excellent read, with a lot of interesting people and places, and very rich fantasy. I look forward to the next book.
Rating:
Summary: A good fantasy beginning
Review: Since the mid 1990s, Sarah Zettel has been primarily known for her award-winning SF titles, but with A Sorcerer's Treason she makes her first foray into the fantasy realm. Zettel has created a world (Isavalta) based on an combination of Eastern European and Asian mythologies. Although the character names are incredibly unpronouncable, the characters themselves are fully realised and full of life. Beginning at the turn of the nineteenth century in a Lake Superior lighthouse, A Sorcerer's Treason winds up taking Bridget (our main character) into the magical world of Isavalta. What Bridget finds there affects her deeply and her life in the lighthouse will never be the same. Isavalta is a land torn apart by a feuding royal family and a magical rift. Somehow, Bridget finds herself locked in the middle of a struggle that could destroy an empire...and a people. Sarah Zettel, in the style of Andre Norton and Sara Douglass, is poised with A Sorcerer's Treason to take her place in the fantasy realm just as she has with SF.
Rating:
Summary: I loved it!
Review: This was the most enjoyable fantasy trilogy I have read for a long time. Bridget is entirely believable, as are all the other characters. The author draws you in from the first and slowly you are addicted.
I loved the settings, from what seemed like some historical town of the old americas, to the very russian fantasyscape of Isavalta and their neighbouring kingdoms very much based on India and China.
Briget is a lonely lighthouse keeper who lives isolated from society. She is rejected and vilified, avoided even by her blood kin.
At just the right pace, author reveals there is more to Brigets story than solitary Briget is aware.
Other realms are reaching into hers, and entangling her in their own plots, which culminate when a man comes to her one dark night to bring her ask for help.
Isavalta. A land facing treacherous times -- Medeoan, the aging ruler who has sent this man -- her son, the King, who has been bewitched by his evil wife -- the faithful sorceror, risking all to do his masters bidding. And the otherworld, which takes an unhealthy interest in Isavalta.
The culmination and cooking pot of all these frequently misused plot elements is brillant and delightful, as they are stirred into just the right mix of new and exciting. And nothing is quite as it seems.
It was so beautifully written. As a trilogy, I would rate it on par with the wonderful collaboration of Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurtis in the Servant of the Empire series.
I have given it five stars and if I could rate it higher, I would.
It's a fantastic book, you have to read it - a jewel for any collection.
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