Rating: 
Summary: Fantastic!
Review: A book that will catch your attention, pull at your heartstrings, and keep you in suspense. This one is hard to put down, and will be an emotional roller coaster ride. A must read!
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic!
Review: A book that will catch your attention, pull at your heartstrings, and keep you in suspense. This one is hard to put down, and will be an emotional roller coaster ride. A must read!
Rating:
Summary: An absorbing and beautiful novel set in medieval Gwynnedd.
Review: Another tasty installment in Kurtz's Deryni series.
Preoccupied with the fortunes of the Deryni, a human race
possessing extensive telpathic and empathic powers, this
book offers yet another "stay up all night" read. As in all the books of this remarkable series, Kurtz weaves together a beautiful and sensitive examination of human
responsibilities, the majesty of the Catholic church, and
a rollicking good tale. Great for gifts!
Rating:
Summary: A conflict of loyality verus justice.
Review: Camber of Culdi is a story about a plot to overthrow the tyrannic King Imre of Festil, and replace him with the last survivor of the Haldane line, who happens to be a middle aged monk. Eighty years before, it was the Festils who overthrew the last Haldane king. More importantly, this book introduces us to Camber, the man behind the legend; an aging, wise, and moderate person, whose family has served the Festils loyally for generations, and only joins the plot, after his son is murdered by Imre. This book combines a conflict of loyality verus justices, with reason against radicalism. It is well written and its plotline is quite believeable. It is a great book for pure escapism. Read it and enjoy
Rating: 
Summary: don't be fooled by the fanboys
Review: I got this book many years ago and never started it because it didn't look particularly interesting. I finally did start it because I was bored and this was on the top of the stack of books I hadn't started yet. I'm now writing this review two thirds through and wondering if I will even be able to finish the book.
There are three problems with this book, and they are pretty significant to me. First, there are cliches left and right. Second, much of the writing is downright loquacious. Lastly, and most importantly, is the difficulty in suspending disbelief.
The problem of cliche is one highly common to the entire genre. In that light, I can't be overly critical of this particular book beyond noting that I'm just tired of reading the same old thing again and again. There's a wicked princess, complete with slutty attitude and deep, plunging necklines on all her dresses. There's an evil king with a napoleon complex. The good girls are all beautiful, serene, intelligent, and perfectly mannered. The good guys are all handsome, rugged, and unquestionably just and noble. The characters all fit a horribly cliched mold, and quite far into the book have shown no signs of growing. The plot is no better, as it's just another rehash of the evil king/empire that must be overthrown for the good of the world. Again, this is a common problem in the genre, but other authors tend to make up for this deficiency by adding other interesting aspects to distract you from the cliches. Kurtz does not provide this distraction, but more about this later.
Secondly is the grating loquaciousness of the book. Kurzt constantly uses six words when three would do. I imagine this book was written with a thesaurus at hand. This style is obviously supposed to enhance the atmosphere of a pseudo-medieval world, but it comes across as the author simply trying too hard. In some cases, this problem went hand in hand with the cliches, such as the watchmen all speaking like embiciles (e.g. "well I says to him, I says"). I would also criticize the naming of people and places in this book. One of the many things Tolkien did so well was to have a logical naming scheme. You could always tell if the person in question was a dwarf or an elf or a man. Even Robet Jordan's thinly veiled allusions to real world countries provided a coherent naming scheme. In this book, most of the names seem chosen merely for the fact that they sound vaguely archaic.
The third and worst problem is the absolute inability to let the reader suspend disbelief. The biggest impediment was, of course, the presence of Christianity. Christianity is not an inherent impediment, of course, as the magical stories of King Arthur have shown since those myths are supposed to have taken place on earth anyway, but in this book we are clearly on another world. 95% of the names clearly have no relation to any real world names, the kingdom is obviously not supposed to exist in this world as the geography and naming suggests, and the presence of a different race if magic using pseudo-men drives this point home. Then we have Christianity thrown in our faces and we must pause and ask ourselves if we have mistakenly picked up the wrong book. Even the portrayal of religion apart from the plot is unbelieveable. We are told about these fictitious religious orders and holidays, and then the name of Jesus Christ himself is invoked along with mention of Christmas. It would be one thing to have a religion for this world that heavily mirrored Christianity so we could have a point of reference, but to base such an integral part of this imaginary world around the life of the most famous real human of all time is incredibly jarring and obnoxious. Even worse, Kurtz places dates in our real world, giving birth dates in XXXX year, Anno Domini. For example, she places an important date of birth on December 28, 843 AD. That's a very concrete date in our real history being applied to a fictitious reality and it simply doesn't fly when we know that the lord these people are talking about is Christ.
When you combine cliche and awkward language with this horrible reality-jumping, you get a book that is simply NOT worth reading. I'd even suggest Robert Jordan over this, and he's practically a plagiarist.
Rating: 
Summary: Deryni History
Review: I have read almost all of the deryni series. This one is not my favorite, but is a must read to know the history of the Deryni race. I can say that there was a few events in this book that captured me in, but not as capturing as the others. In my opinion this book should be the first read out of all the other books in the deryni series, since it gives the first recorded story in the historys of Gwennydd. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Deryni History
Review: I have read almost all of the deryni series. This one is not my favorite, but is a must read to know the history of the Deryni race. I can say that there was a few events in this book that captured me in, but not as capturing as the others. In my opinion this book should be the first read out of all the other books in the deryni series, since it gives the first recorded story in the historys of Gwennydd. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: review on the deryni world......
Review: Katherine kurtz has always been my favourite athor. Her combination of the medieval world and her deryni characters is really weel detailed and researched. There is lots of character developement and conflict. Her ideas are original and full of ingenuity. Anyone who lies History and magic will love her books!
Rating:
Summary: Are Christianity and Fantasy Compatible?
Review: These days there are those worried about this question. As a devout Roman Catholic, let me state that Kurtz's Deryni novels answer this question in the affirmative.Her heroes are obviously devout people of Faith and of high moral and ethical standards, willing to sacrifice their personal welfare to do the right thing. They prove the value of self sacrifice again and again. The use of scripture to head off chapters is a nice touch as well. I highly recommend this novel for anyone tired of the same old Tolkien-derived elves and goblins in their fantasy.
Rating:
Summary: Are Christianity and Fantasy Compatible?
Review: These days there are those worried about this question. As a devout Roman Catholic, let me state that Kurtz's Deryni novels answer this question in the affirmative. Her heroes are obviously devout people of Faith and of high moral and ethical standards, willing to sacrifice their personal welfare to do the right thing. They prove the value of self sacrifice again and again. The use of scripture to head off chapters is a nice touch as well. I highly recommend this novel for anyone tired of the same old Tolkien-derived elves and goblins in their fantasy.
|
