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Lynn Abbey

Autor(a) de Storm Season

69+ Works 8,960 Membros 69 Críticas 1 Favorited

About the Author

Séries

Obras por Lynn Abbey

Storm Season (1982) — Editor; Contribuidor; Editor — 886 exemplares
The Face of Chaos (1983) — Editor; Contribuidor — 810 exemplares
Wings of Omen (1984) — Editor; Editor; Editor — 675 exemplares
The Dead of Winter (1985) — Editor; Contribuidor — 608 exemplares
Blood Ties (1986) — Contribuidor; Editor; Editor; Editor; Editor — 504 exemplares
Uneasy Alliances (1988) — Editor — 384 exemplares
Stealers' Sky (1989) — Editor; Contribuidor — 345 exemplares
Sanctuary (2002) 274 exemplares
Daughter of the Bright Moon (1979) 248 exemplares
The Brazen Gambit (1994) 223 exemplares
Out of Time (2000) 215 exemplares
Turning Points (2002) — Editor; Contribuidor — 211 exemplares
Planeswalker (1998) 203 exemplares
Jerlayne (1999) 199 exemplares
The Wooden Sword (1991) 198 exemplares
The Simbul's Gift (1997) 190 exemplares
The Black Flame (1980) 177 exemplares
Cross-Currents (3-in-1) (1974) 175 exemplares
Cinnabar Shadows (1995) 170 exemplares
The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King (1996) 168 exemplares
Unicorn & Dragon (1987) 166 exemplares
The Nether Scroll (2000) 158 exemplares
Catwoman (1992) 143 exemplares
The Shattered Sphere (1968) — Editor — 123 exemplares
Behind Time (2001) 122 exemplares
Enemies of Fortune (2004) — Editor — 118 exemplares
Rifkind's Challenge (2006) 108 exemplares
Beneath the Web (1994) 99 exemplares
Forge of Virtue (The Ultima Saga) (1991) 90 exemplares
Taking Time (2004) 74 exemplares
The Price of Victory (1987) 73 exemplares
Guardians (Ace Fantasy Book) (1982) 68 exemplares
Unicorn and Dragon (2003) 67 exemplares
Thieves' World: First Blood (2003) 66 exemplares
Siege of Shadows (1996) 60 exemplares
The Temper of Wisdom (1992) 53 exemplares
Down Time (2005) 50 exemplares
Thieves' World Player's Manual (2009) 32 exemplares
Thieves' World Graphics: 4 (1986) 26 exemplares
It's About Squirrels 2 exemplares
Gyskouras 1 exemplar
War Wounds 1 exemplar
Then Azyuna Danced 1 exemplar
Steel 1 exemplar
Introduction 1 exemplar
Web Weavers 1 exemplar
Good Neighbors 1 exemplar
A Chama Negra I Livro 2 (1984) 1 exemplar
A Chama Negra II 1 exemplar
The God-chosen 1 exemplar

Associated Works

Thieves' World (1987) — Contribuidor — 1,543 exemplares
Inheritor (1996) — Illustrator (Map), algumas edições1,345 exemplares
Tales from the Vulgar Unicorn (1980) — Contribuidor — 1,148 exemplares
Shadows of Sanctuary (1981) — Contribuidor — 950 exemplares
Aftermath (1987) — Contribuidor — 461 exemplares
The Blood of Ten Chiefs Vol. 1 (1986) — Editor, algumas edições348 exemplares
Festival Moon (1987) — Contribuidor — 311 exemplares
DAW 30th Anniversary Fantasy Anthology (2002) — Contribuidor — 304 exemplares
Fever Season (1987) — Contribuidor — 284 exemplares
Troubled Waters (1988) — Contribuidor — 216 exemplares
Divine Right (1989) — Contribuidor — 194 exemplares
Smuggler's Gold (1988) — Contribuidor — 191 exemplares
Winds of Change: The Blood of Ten Chiefs Vol.3 (1989)algumas edições178 exemplares
Flood Tide (1990) — Contribuidor — 175 exemplares
Endgame (1991) — Contribuidor — 170 exemplares
Against the Wind (Blood of Ten Chiefs, No 4) (1990) — Autor, algumas edições144 exemplares
Realms of the Deep (1999) — Contribuidor — 135 exemplares
Basilisk (1980) — Contribuidor — 135 exemplares
Nebula Awards Showcase 2010 (2010) — Contribuidor — 132 exemplares
Elf Fantastic (1997) — Contribuidor — 126 exemplares
Masters in Hell (1987) — Contribuidor — 98 exemplares
Novel Ideas-Fantasy (2006) — Contribuidor — 16 exemplares
Alien Encounters (1982) — Contribuidor — 8 exemplares
The Further Adventures of Beowulf: Champion of Middle Earth (2006) — Contribuidor — 8 exemplares

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

Membros

Críticas

Urban fantasy like Terry Pratchett is urban fantasy, set in an urban setting, this is gritty and grim and nasty things happen to nasty and nice people. Dark Fantasy isn't really my thing but some of these stories about a fantasy world where various characters' actions have consequences in other stories. I missed the 5th instalment in this series and I think that was a bit more pivotal than a lot of other sets of stories.
I remember gobbling up some of these when I was younger, my tastes have changed since then.… (mais)
½
 
Assinalado
wyvernfriend | 3 outras críticas | Jan 5, 2024 |
As with the first volume, it is slow to get going though eventually there is a lot of violence and gore, a lot of it centred around a new villain who is introduced in this book but should at least have been mentioned in the first volume since he is such a threat to Stephen, the romantic lead of this series.

Some of the violence is in a fantasy context as magic figures far more strongly in the second half of this book than previously. Also, Wildecent finally discovers who her parents are (at least, we think she does - the revelation is made while she is sent out of the room, but hopefully Ambrose tells her 'off stage') but it doesn't lead to anything significant as, when he offers to escort her to France to try to track them down, she refuses. Possibly this was meant to be followed up in the planned extra 3 volumes which were never published, but as it is, this comes across as a damp squib after the build up over the previous volume as well.

I'm not sure how this story would spin out to five in all, although the pacing is always very slow until a violent episode occurs at the end of each book, so maybe that's how it would've been handled (that is, dragged out very slowly). As it is, we are left with an unresolved question at the end because Wildecent goes off thinking Ambrose betrayed her and Alison. I don't find it convincing that Wildecent believes that Ambrose sent men to drag off her and Alison to be raped - a fate Wildecent manages to escape - and that Alison has been murdered (she is rescued by Stephen and Ambrose) all on the basis that the kitchen woman heard the two men go past in the night, as even Wildecent realises this was some time after the abduction. Especially since the new villain, the illegitmate son of Stephen's uncle, has already attempted to rape Alison not long before. At the very least, the new villain is a far more likely culprit for what has gone on and the misunderstanding seems very artificial.

As with the first book, I think it would've benefited with taking out all the fantasy and making it a straight historical about the clash between Saxon and Norman cultures, and the effect on women in particular. There is more than enough material for that, and it would have been more convincing, plus I think such a judicious rewrite could have condensed the whole thing into one novel and we could have had a resolution for the characters.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
kitsune_reader | 3 outras críticas | Nov 23, 2023 |
The setting is Saxon-about-to-become-Norman England. King Edward (the Confessor) is dying, the countryside is beset by murderous men who turn out to be working for one of the claimants to the throne, and two women, Alison and Wildecent, raised as sisters, are caught in the struggle when a young Norman male, Stephen, staggers to their stronghold, wounded. Stephen has been attacked while trying to take a despatch cross country for his uncle. Raiders subsequently menace the countryside around, and Alison's father, Saxon lord of the settlement, has to ask Stephen's uncle for help against the raiders, even though this puts him in a difficult position because Duke William of Normandy is a rival claimant to the throne and it is not clear whether William should be Edward's successor, or Harold Godwinson or Godwinson's brother.

Alison's companion Wildecent has been passed off as an illegitimate half sister to Alison, although it emerges that she was brought to the settlement when she was five and is no relation at all. Alison has been secretly taught ancient goddess based magic from Celtic and pre-Celtic times by the sister of her dead mother. Wildecent has shared in the herbal lore taught them both, but feels left out because she lacks the psychic abilities that Alison has been trained in. They must be wary of anyone else finding out, as the church would view their abilities as witchcraft.

Despite the opening sequence of the attack on Stephen, this book is slow to get going and I struggled to keep interested. Partly because it focuses on two young women in Saxon-about-to-become Norman England, and their lives mainly consist of spinning and weaving, and creating herbal remedies, realistically enough. However, the book is fantasy, not straight historical fiction because Alison has the ability to read people's minds, and later on, a Norman male character is introduced who is a sorcerer whose magic actually works.

Wildecent's feeling left out leaves her vulnerable to the attractions of the sorcerer, Stephen's friend Ambrose, who might teach her his different magic, based on sympathetic magic and physical objects and not dependent on the psychic abilites which Alison and her aunt use, and which they view as linked to the ancient worship of the goddess. It remains ambiguous as to how much of a villain Ambrose really is, since although he is hostile to Alison and her aunt, he seems to have Stephen's best interests at heart.

I did not find the characters well defined. There is a lot of head hopping and it is hard to find any of them sympathetic, for example, Stephen makes a half hearted attempt to seduce Wildecent. Alison is characterised by being headstrong and is sometimes rash in using her gifts, and both she and her aunt are quick to assume that Wildecent - who has vague memories of her real parents and seems to be Norman - must be a supporter of Duke William of Normandy and hence cannot be trusted. The relationships don't ring true. Wildecent is probably the most sympathetic character, level-headed and putting up with a lot of suspicion from her nearest and dearest, especially as we learn that when six years old she was locked in a dark cellar for hours just for asking about her real parents.

There is one jarring continuity error where Wildecent defends herself against an attacker with a knife she had in her sleeve, but then a couple of pages later it is back in her sleeve in circumstances where she cannot have put it there herself.

Like Abbey's Rifkind books, this is illustrated, but by a different artist, and unlike those, the reproduction here is very poor and indistinct.

The story ends, not exactly with a cliffhanger, but with a question mark over the future of the two women, though it continues in 'The Green Man' which I intend to read next.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
kitsune_reader | 3 outras críticas | Nov 23, 2023 |
In my opinion, Abbey makes some questionable choices in this novel - at the end of the first book, war has broken out and Rifkind is going back with the hero, a potential romantic interest, to his mountain stronghold to help defend the mountain country against, among others, the hero's nasty and ambitious father. But when book two starts, there is amnesty and the army is being disbanded. We're told that the veterans respect and like Rifkind though others still regard her healing powers as witchery, and there are various statements throughout the book, for example, saying she trained a lot of the fighters, but we aren't given the chance to see how they all coped in the war, how she adapted to their different fighting style, how she coped with the suspicion about her being a desert tribeswoman and having uncanny powers, etc. Instead, she decides to go off on a quest into a swamp because the moon goddess she is vowed to does not give her a sign that it is OK to marry the hero although she has feelings for him, and faced with her refusal he arranges to marry someone brought in from elsewhere, to fulfill his dynastic duty. Just seems to cut out what could have been an interesting story with maybe her deciding to leave at the end because most of his people would not accept her as their ruler's wife and she would also find domesticity and child rearing too difficult to reconcile with her life as warrior and healer sworn to her goddess.

As it is, we instead have another quest which lacks the motivation of the first book where she was in conflict with a powerful worshipper of the negative dark moon, who was manipulating politics in the country she ended up in after her desert tribe was wiped out by the other tribes. The swamp environment and the culture of the raft people in the current volume is well evoked and the descriptions of how Rifkind and her companion Jenny cope with it, and there is a tie-in to the first book when she discovers that an enemy is after the same thing as her but for evil purposes.

However I couldn't believe in Rifkind's sudden over-riding passion for the callow and non warrior rather weedy man she finds living in the place she has been seeking. Also fans of Turin, the horned horse, will be disappointed as he has far less to do in this book.

As with the first volume, this suffers from a convoluted and turgid writing style which deadens what would otherwise be action packed or suspenseful scenes.

I recently found out that Abbey finally published a third volume in 2006, about 25 years after The Black Flame, but on the basis of this volume and an extract she published on the internet, don't intend to read the final volume.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
kitsune_reader | 2 outras críticas | Nov 23, 2023 |

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Robert Asprin Contributor
C. J. Cherryh Contributor
Diana L. Paxson Contributor
Janet E. Morris Contributor
Andrew J. Offutt Contributor
Diane Duane Contributor
Robin W. Bailey Contributor
Chris Morris Contributor
Robin Wayne Bailey Contributor
David Drake Contributor
Jon DeCles Contributor
Jodie Offutt Contributor
Selina Rosen Contributor
Jody Lynn Nye Contributor
Andrew Offutt Contributor
Jeff Grubb Contributor
Diana L. Paxson Contributor
Jean Pierre Targete Cover artist
Andrew J. Offutt Contributor
C. S. Williams Contributor
Duane Mcgowen Contributor
Raymond E. Feist Contributor
Todd Lockwood Cover artist
Jane Fancher Contributor
Ian Grey Contributor
Steven Brust Contributor
Joe Haldeman Contributor
Poul Anderson Contributor
A. E. van Vogt Contributor
John Brunner Contributor
Walter Velez Cover artist, Illustrator
Gary Ruddell Cover artist
Robert Gould Cover artist, Illustrator
Steve Fabian Illustrator
Bob Adragna Cover artist, Cover art
Jim Odbert Cartographer
Tim Sale Artist
Bruce Pennington Cover artist
R. K. Post Cover artist
Stanley Martucci Cover artist
Cheryl Griesbach Cover artist
Julie Bell Cover artist
Donato Giancola Cover artist
James Ryman Cover artist

Estatísticas

Obras
69
Also by
24
Membros
8,960
Popularidade
#2,686
Avaliação
½ 3.7
Críticas
69
ISBN
107
Línguas
6
Marcado como favorito
1

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