Geomancer
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Amazon.co.uk Review
Geomancer starts a new sequence of novels "The Well of Echoes", set some centuries after Ian Irvine's earlier fantasy sequence "The View from the Mirror". The world of Santhenar is under attack from the Void by the lyrinx, giant winged intelligent carnivores, and generations of war have turned human society into a totalitarian spy-state with the front line of the war held over all men and so-called "Breeding Factories" held as a threat over women. Tiaan is a brilliant young artisan in a munitions factory whom the authorities are deliberately pressuring into excelling herself; when she falls foul of her rival Iriis and the apprentice spy Nish, events are set in chain which jeopardise the humanity of two worlds.
Irvine's strength here is that he makes us care not only about the idealistic, wet, misguidedly ruthless Tiaan, but also about the occasionally vicious and manipulative Iriis and Nish, who are not merely villains, but products of their unpleasant world somewhat redeemed by their growing regard for each other. This is, attractively, grimmer and grittier than most fantasy novels with a real sense of industrial squalor and a society in paranoid melt-down--and with a neatly unpleasant set of twists at the end. --Roz Kaveney --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
A page-turner of the highest order ... Irvine can now consider himself comfortably ranked next to the works of Robert Jordan and David Eddings. Formidable (SFX )
Ian Irvine has produced one of those rarities in the fantasy genre, and that is a unique, well-thought-through world coupled to a well-written storyline. A gripping read for Irvine fans, or a fresh new series for any other readers. (ENIGMA )
Geomancer starts a new sequence of novels "The Well of Echoes", set some centuries after Ian Irvine's earlier fantasy sequence "The View from the Mirror". The world of Santhenar is under attack from the Void by the lyrinx, giant winged intelligent carnivores, and generations of war have turned human society into a totalitarian spy-state with the front line of the war held over all men and so-called "Breeding Factories" held as a threat over women. Tiaan is a brilliant young artisan in a munitions factory whom the authorities are deliberately pressuring into excelling herself; when she falls foul of her rival Iriis and the apprentice spy Nish, events are set in chain which jeopardise the humanity of two worlds. (Irvine's strength here is that he makes us care not only about the idealistic, wet, misguidedly ruthless Tiaan, but also about the occasionally vicious and manipulative Iriis and Nish, who are not merely villains, but products of their unpleasant world so )
Roz Kaveney, AMAZON.CO.UK REVIEW
Ian Irvine has produced one of those rarities in the fantasy genre, and that is a unique, well-thought-through world coupled to a well-written storyline. A gripping read for Irvine fans, or a fresh new series for any other readers. (ENIGMA )
Geomancer starts a new sequence of novels "The Well of Echoes", set some centuries after Ian Irvine's earlier fantasy sequence "The View from the Mirror". The world of Santhenar is under attack from the Void by the lyrinx, giant winged intelligent carnivores, and generations of war have turned human society into a totalitarian spy-state with the front line of the war held over all men and so-called "Breeding Factories" held as a threat over women. Tiaan is a brilliant young artisan in a munitions factory whom the authorities are deliberately pressuring into excelling herself; when she falls foul of her rival Iriis and the apprentice spy Nish, events are set in chain which jeopardise the humanity of two worlds. (Irvine's strength here is that he makes us care not only about the idealistic, wet, misguidedly ruthless Tiaan, but also about the occasionally vicious and manipulative Iriis and Nish, who are not merely villains, but products of their unpleasant world so )
Roz Kaveney, AMAZON.CO.UK REVIEW
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I was half expecting to be dissapointed with this book since the previous series finished so strongly. My worries were however completely unfounded, since within a few dozen pages I was captivated by new characters and social structure.
Having read this and some of the later books in the series I was really struck by how much Irvines story telling has improved. The Well of Echoes is, as a series, in general much better paced and constructed story than View from the Mirror (the early books in VFTM were quite hard work in places). Infact its paced to perfection - better than ANY fantasy book I've ever read (and Ive read quite a lot). This is the first time that I have read a book with parallel plot lines where I was not in the least bit frustrated when it swapped over since the interest and excitement of the story was so well balanced between them. Never once did I think "I've got read this chapter quick to get back to the other plot line". Its almost as it Irvine has learned some lessons from Lian the master story teller hero of the first series :-).
Having read this and some of the later books in the series I was really struck by how much Irvines story telling has improved. The Well of Echoes is, as a series, in general much better paced and constructed story than View from the Mirror (the early books in VFTM were quite hard work in places). Infact its paced to perfection - better than ANY fantasy book I've ever read (and Ive read quite a lot). This is the first time that I have read a book with parallel plot lines where I was not in the least bit frustrated when it swapped over since the interest and excitement of the story was so well balanced between them. Never once did I think "I've got read this chapter quick to get back to the other plot line". Its almost as it Irvine has learned some lessons from Lian the master story teller hero of the first series :-).
In short this second series from Irvine is the best fantasy series since Fiests Rift War.
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Where to begin...
Ian Irvine is a truly 'great' writer of Science Fiction. In my opinion there can be no doubt. He writes in a manner that adds realism to the unreal and all of his books are epic in the extreme. His first series was an inspiration to me, forcing me to rethink the genre itself from 'trashy Sci-Fi' (please note, I use this phrase with affection, I love all Sci-Fi) to GOOD fiction and more importantly: GOOD literature.
With this new novel "Geomancer", he returns to the world of his original series. He takes an already ambitious plot and backdrop and increases those features tenfold. There is a price to this however. In his entirely admirable pursuit of realistic characters and general population he has strayed a little into adding what I would describe as 'mumbo jumbo' or technical jargon. For those comming to Geomancer after having read the first series you will have no problem at all adapting and accepting this characteristic of the book and I am certain you will LOVE the novel in all its glory (in which case, read my rating as 5 stars, I insist). However, newcomers I feel will be more than a little overwhelmed, this is very sad indeed because it may very well cause them to put down what is a VERY good book and the beginning of yet another series of genius. For this reason alone I used 4 rather than 5 stars.
I hope my words do not cause a single person to have second thoughts. I consider myself an intelligent reader (I guess I would though wouldnt I?) and I drew alot of pleasure from the first series, likewise I believe most other readers will feel the same way. This novel is in my opinion not as openly clever as the first novel of the first series, however its sheer scope and imaginative grounding is breathtaking. If the author can continue the series without stumbling, it should make a more than worthy -though slightly different- successor to "The View from the Mirror".
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Instead of writing a review for each book of the tetralogy, I'd like to write just one.
First of all, it's not what I expected given the names of the books. I was expecting a book in a highgly magical world, but this isn't, is set in a low magic world (so don't expect wizards blasting the skies, nor doing anything too flashy). There is magic, or I should better say various types of magic, but it tires its users a lot and can create just minor to moderate effect.
Secondly, these books form a continous story, and should be considered as one big story. In other words, the books are not independent from each other.
The story is about many characters, each of which interesting, with his human frailties and even making mistakes, some even inexperinced and selfish, but that slowly grow as human beings. In their own way they truly make the story more interesting and I actually cared to see what happened to almost each of them throughout the 4 books.
To the story then (in short). It's about a great war on an Island/Continent between Humanity and a race coming from the Void (called the Lyrinx) and now fully established on the continent. Each of them has powerful claws, wings and eat humans, althogh not all of them fly (those who do need magic to aid thier flight, and not all of them are capable of it).
Obviously the story involves characters learning about the world, about magic, about the enemy, the truth behind the war and how to find practical solutions to end it and have all sorts of mis-adventures, being hunted both by humanity's leaders and the enemy and it's quite well presented, with a non-obtrusive writing style with a very good flow, no excessivly long descriptions and loads of action.
My only critique is that he had separated too much his characters for the first two books and a half. The story would split into three threads, and sometimes as many as 100 pages went through before the story would go on with a character and a particular thread, just to be cut again and leaving you hanging, and making me lose interest. This, unforunately has been overdone in the second book, and it's bad because it ruins your immersion in things.
Luckily, the Author learned from his mistakes and he stopped doing this by the middle or so of the third book, making the third book very good, and the forth just excellent, bringing forth just one thread that makes you unable to keep the book down.
In conclusion, even if all books have an underlying great story/writing style:
Geomancer: Great start, but a little fractioned: 4 stars
Tetrarch: Good story, but ruined by excessive number of story-threads: 3 stars
Alchymist: Starts slow, but when all characters are all back together becomes really focused and incredibly good. At the end of the book there is one of the best scenes I have read about (that actually carries on on the forth book) 4 stars.
Chimaera: Ian Irvine's masterpiece. It had me go "wow" several times, and shows how the author has grown up as a writer. 5 stars
Now, I am really looking forward for his new tetralogy (but not the previous one).
I hope this review was useful.
First of all, it's not what I expected given the names of the books. I was expecting a book in a highgly magical world, but this isn't, is set in a low magic world (so don't expect wizards blasting the skies, nor doing anything too flashy). There is magic, or I should better say various types of magic, but it tires its users a lot and can create just minor to moderate effect.
Secondly, these books form a continous story, and should be considered as one big story. In other words, the books are not independent from each other.
The story is about many characters, each of which interesting, with his human frailties and even making mistakes, some even inexperinced and selfish, but that slowly grow as human beings. In their own way they truly make the story more interesting and I actually cared to see what happened to almost each of them throughout the 4 books.
To the story then (in short). It's about a great war on an Island/Continent between Humanity and a race coming from the Void (called the Lyrinx) and now fully established on the continent. Each of them has powerful claws, wings and eat humans, althogh not all of them fly (those who do need magic to aid thier flight, and not all of them are capable of it).
Obviously the story involves characters learning about the world, about magic, about the enemy, the truth behind the war and how to find practical solutions to end it and have all sorts of mis-adventures, being hunted both by humanity's leaders and the enemy and it's quite well presented, with a non-obtrusive writing style with a very good flow, no excessivly long descriptions and loads of action.
My only critique is that he had separated too much his characters for the first two books and a half. The story would split into three threads, and sometimes as many as 100 pages went through before the story would go on with a character and a particular thread, just to be cut again and leaving you hanging, and making me lose interest. This, unforunately has been overdone in the second book, and it's bad because it ruins your immersion in things.
Luckily, the Author learned from his mistakes and he stopped doing this by the middle or so of the third book, making the third book very good, and the forth just excellent, bringing forth just one thread that makes you unable to keep the book down.
In conclusion, even if all books have an underlying great story/writing style:
Geomancer: Great start, but a little fractioned: 4 stars
Tetrarch: Good story, but ruined by excessive number of story-threads: 3 stars
Alchymist: Starts slow, but when all characters are all back together becomes really focused and incredibly good. At the end of the book there is one of the best scenes I have read about (that actually carries on on the forth book) 4 stars.
Chimaera: Ian Irvine's masterpiece. It had me go "wow" several times, and shows how the author has grown up as a writer. 5 stars
Now, I am really looking forward for his new tetralogy (but not the previous one).
I hope this review was useful.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Brilliant
The Well of Echoes is my favourite Ian Irvine series. Geomancer starts very oddly in a manufactory set in a world where life is hard and full of strange and wonderful machinery. Read more
Published 7 months ago by DAVID BURROWS
Deprived of tangible characters and plot
i've read the previous reviews with immense surprise. I actually bought this book after reading some reviews on here and have to say the book does not deserve the accolades some... Read more
Published 17 months ago by CiscoBear
It started with a View from the Mirror
Irvine does it again! An unbelieveable start to yet another fantastic series. We are taken to Santhenar to follow the journey of Tiaan and other great characters. Read more
Published on 28 Mar 2008 by Jane Belcher
Slow to start. But once it gets going...
I'll be honest, I didn't buy this book looking for very much more than distraction on a long train journey, it was going off cheap and was a decent size so I gave it a shot. Read more
Published on 8 Aug 2007 by Sam Anders
Boring..
This books had so many good reviews when it is actually boring. The main character has almost no depth and very little actually happens in the book. Read more
Published on 14 July 2007 by W. Garland
Simply amazing
(Quick note, the opinions below, while aimed at this book, take the entire Well of Echoes series into account). Read more
Published on 12 Feb 2007 by Jaggeh
Very impressive
This is an extraordinary book.
It is fantastically written and I couldn't put it down, reading for hours at a time. Read more
It is fantastically written and I couldn't put it down, reading for hours at a time. Read more
Published on 9 Feb 2006 by Mr. L. Parker
EXCELLENT BOOK
geomancer is an excellent book! if you have not read ian irvines work before , i suggest u run down to your local bookstore now , even if its midnite , and get a copy of it. Read more
Published on 7 Feb 2004 by Eugen
Brilliant!
you must read this, whether you've read Irvine's work before or not (and if you haven't yet, what a treat you've got in store for you! Read more
Published on 11 Jun 2003 by kaye watson
Brilliant
A great book, even better than the through the mirror trilogy. Irvine creates a wonderful world poised on the brink of destruction. Read more
Published on 13 Jan 2003
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