Paganism, Wicca, Media
The Outstretched Shadow (The Obsidian Trilogy, Book 1)
The Outstretched Shadow (The Obsidian Trilogy, Book 1)
- Fiction Fantasy
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#2 written by Michael V. Botsford "Chef Garcon" 3 months ago18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
A Decent Beginning,August 23, 2004 ByThis review is from: The Outstretched Shadow (The Obsidian Mountain Trilogy, 1) (Hardcover)This novel is very long. It hasn’t been well edited. These two comments seem to sum up the majority of other reviews of this work. I will concede that this book is long, but it was not poorly edited. Any time that you have two authors collaborating on a given work, that book will be longer than one written by either of them individually. Yes, there are aspects of the story that seem to plod along, but I feel that the overall story is well worth the slower sections. As far as the suggestion that this work was badly edited goes, let me say that I can close my eyes and recall the images that the authors created with their words, even though I read this book 8 months ago! That’s not bad editing, people, it’s called attention to detail!
I have been reading sci-fi and fantasy novels (and playing related role playing games) for almost 25 years, and the concept of “magic” as presented in this novel is the most original one that I have encountered in probably the last 20 years. The overall concept rivals the originality of the trilogy, “His Dark Materials,” by Philip Pullman. Personally, I am more than willing to read a few (slightly) long-winded descriptions in return for that. I am anxiously awaiting the second book in this series….in fact, I think it’s about time for me to re-read this book, just to make sure I’m ready.
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Excellent New Series,
I’ve always enjoyed reading books by Mercedes Lackey, but I never classified her as one of my most favorite authors. She may be converting me though if this series stays as strong as the opening book.
The book begins typically enough with the protagonist, Kellan, dissatisfied with his life. He is the son of the Arch-mage who presides over the counsel of mages who control almost every aspect of life in the city. Kellan is gifted in magic although there is very little evidence of it at the beginning of the story. All of the mages in the city are only permitted to practice High Magic which Kellan finds very boring. The story really begins to pick up when Kellan finds three books about a different kind of magic called Wild Magic. Once he begins to dabble in this very different magic the story really gets going.
I loved the system of magic that the authors developed. There is a certain coherence and structure to it. Obviously, its magic so it is still unexplainable, but I’ve always felt that even when you’re writing about magic there should be some system to how it functions.
I also thought that the various races that Kellan encounters throughout the story were very well done. The authors did a reasonably good job of giving them different characteristics and natures (i.e. elves are not simply very pretty people who love nature, but actually have characteristics that reflect their nature).
The last thing I liked about this book was that you get to see some of the development and training of Kellan. He has some gifts, but he has to work at learning to use them.
If you’ve never read Mercedes Lackey, I encourage you to give this new trilogy a try.
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