Wizard of the Grove

Rating:
Summary: An emerald-eyed wizard with an attitude
Review: "In the Beginning there was Darkness and out of the Darkness came the Mother."--If you like a fantasy that starts out by creating its own theory of evolution, "Wizard of the Grove" is for you. By the time this book (actually two books in one: "Child of the Grove" and "The Last Wizard") begins, the Age of Mortals is in full swing and humans are running the show. Although a few hamadryads, centaurs, dwarves, and what-have-yous are left over from the creation of the Elder Races, they usually avoid humanity. There are a few important exceptions, including a hamadryad who bears the son of a human king, and a very bad wizard who has survived from a time when the wizards slew the gods, and dragons slew the wizards.

A lengthy prequel pits Rael, son of the hamadryad against the evil wizard, Kraydak. Rael survives to beget a line of kings who are part Elder Race. Eventually Crystal, the true heroine of this duology is born.

Kraydak, the wizard also survives. He has been waiting through many boring thousands of years for the birth of Crystal, the only human who might give him a magical run for his continuing existence. Meanwhile he amuses himself by building towers with human blood as mortar, torturing various walk-ons, etc.--even in this early novel, Tanya Huff writes zingy, attention-getting prose about evil--you gotta hate her bad guys, even though they're often her most interesting characters.

Presumably the good guys should be interesting, too. My only problem with Crystal is that she doesn't have room to grow. She starts out as a total knock-out with emerald eyes and silver hair, is born into the royal family, and is the world's most powerful wizard, except for Kraydak. The Centaurs educate Crystal offstage, which is too bad as this might have been the most appealing part of the book. As it is written, she enters the spotlight as a slightly sulky, sex-crazed teen-ager who happens to be a gorgeous princess-wizard.

In Book I, "Child of the Grove," Crystal battles Kraydak, the wizard who killed a god. Book II, "The Last Wizard" follows Crystal's adventures as she attempts to clean up a dead wizard's castle. Her quests are standard fantasy fare, but there's a strong cast of eccentric supporting characters, and even early Huff reads better than half the sword and sorcery stuff that's currently on the market

Rating:
Summary: An emerald-eyed wizard with an attitude
Review: "In the Beginning there was Darkness and out of the Darkness came the Mother."--If you like a fantasy that starts out by creating its own theory of evolution, "Wizard of the Grove" is for you. By the time this book (actually two books in one: "Child of the Grove" and "The Last Wizard") begins, the Age of Mortals is in full swing and humans are running the show. Although a few hamadryads, centaurs, dwarves, and what-have-yous are left over from the creation of the Elder Races, they usually avoid humanity. There are a few important exceptions, including a hamadryad who bears the son of a human king, and a very bad wizard who has survived from a time when the wizards slew the gods, and dragons slew the wizards.

A lengthy prequel pits Rael, son of the hamadryad against the evil wizard, Kraydak. Rael survives to beget a line of kings who are part Elder Race. Eventually Crystal, the true heroine of this duology is born.

Kraydak, the wizard also survives. He has been waiting through many boring thousands of years for the birth of Crystal, the only human who might give him a magical run for his continuing existence. Meanwhile he amuses himself by building towers with human blood as mortar, torturing various walk-ons, etc.--even in this early novel, Tanya Huff writes zingy, attention-getting prose about evil--you gotta hate her bad guys, even though they're often her most interesting characters.

Presumably the good guys should be interesting, too. My only problem with Crystal is that she doesn't have room to grow. She starts out as a total knock-out with emerald eyes and silver hair, is born into the royal family, and is the world's most powerful wizard, except for Kraydak. The Centaurs educate Crystal offstage, which is too bad as this might have been the most appealing part of the book. As it is written, she enters the spotlight as a slightly sulky, sex-crazed teen-ager who happens to be a gorgeous princess-wizard.

In Book I, "Child of the Grove," Crystal battles Kraydak, the wizard who killed a god. Book II, "The Last Wizard" follows Crystal's adventures as she attempts to clean up a dead wizard's castle. Her quests are standard fantasy fare, but there's a strong cast of eccentric supporting characters, and even early Huff reads better than half the sword and sorcery stuff that's currently on the market

Rating:
Summary: Godess Born
Review: An excellent story about the trials and travels of Crystal, a young woman who also happens to be one of the last wizards. Tanya Huff does such a brilliant job of characterization and creates such an original plot that I find it hard to believe that this book is a compiliation of some of her earliest work! Plot outline: Everyone thought that the wizards were dead, killed by the dragons that they created in a fit of pride, but one very powerful and very evil wizard escaped, and hundreds of years later he has recovered his strength and is attempting to (what else?) take over the world. Realizing that that no mortal could hope to oppose a wizard, the Earth Mother, the last of the gods, and the Elder Races (dwarves, centaurs, hamadryads, etc.) collaborate to create one last wizard. Unfortunately for sixteen year old Crystal, that wizard is her! Now, even though she is barely trained in the use of her powers, she must save the world from her infinitely more experienced nemesis. And you thought that YOU had it rough as a teenager!

Rating:
Summary: ok read
Review: compared to other science fantasy books I've read, this one is ok. The characters are kind of undeveloped. I didn't really feel any sympathy or...actually, I couldn't feel anything for Crystal. She was a very bland character. However, I do agree with other online reviewers that the best character was Lord Death. His character for some reason was very developed and I could feel his thoughts more than those of Crystal, when I think it should have been the opposite since the main heroine was Crystal.

Rating:
Summary: This is a reprint edition.
Review: Fans of Tanya Huff should know that she has not, in Wizard of the Grove, come out with a new book in her Crystal series. This is a reprint edition with the original two books, Child of the Grove and The Last Wizard, combined in a new cover.

I haven't found this series to be as interesting or well-written as either her Blood series or the last two books of the Four Quarters series.

Rating:
Summary: excellent fantasy
Review: from the time i first picked this book up i just couldn't put it down. it only took me three days to finish, and i really don't read very much. i would definitely recommend this book to any one

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Fantasy
Review: I found this book wonderful. I read it in three hours, and it was worth every second. I believe a few of the characters are under-developed, while most are well characterized. Most of the plot is understandable, although a few parts were hard to follow. This is one of my two favorite books.

Rating:
Summary: Maybe two stars is too many
Review: I found this book, or these two books to be very poorly written. There is no depth to these stories. At one point the heroine stumbles into a cabin in the middle of the woods and eats for two days straight. Where did the food come from?

The characters in this book seem completely unphased by the totally unbelievable things that happen to them. Character development is below average and each event seems like a bridge from one lifleless coincindence to the next.

Oh, and the endings are boring... . For good fantasy of the female genre try JV Jones.

Rating:
Summary: A TOTAL PAGE-TURNER!!
Review: I had never heard of Tanya Huff before, but the cover caught my eye and when I started, I couldn't put it down. I totally felt the tension between the characters. When someone died, my heart droped, because I had grown so attached to them. And I had a clear picture in my mind of what everyone looked like, and what they were doing. I just fell in love with Lord Death, and was praying that his name would be on the next page. Don't be intimidated by the size; once you start, you'll never want it to end!

Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written and moving.
Review: I had never picked up a Tanya Huff before.. or at least I had never picked one up and taken it home. I am always wary of authors I haven't experienced, and her other books, such as Sing the Four Quarters, didn't appeal enough to my spontanious side. However, this time I was lucky enough that the cover art (by Yvonne Gilbert) appealed to that side of me. I picked up the book last week and was not disappointed. The characters feel wonderfully realistic, and Huff did not forget that the heroine of the story was also a 17 year old girl, and had her act accordingly. Other characters were also realistically varied; some made me frustrated, others made me laugh, some even made my eyes tear. All in all, this book is wonderful and definitely worth the shipping and handling.