Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Daggerspell - a wonderful, intricate story pattern., 30 April 2002
By A Customer
"Daggerspell" by Katharine Kerr is my absolute favourite book. The Deverry sequence comprises eleven books at the moment, and this is the first of them. The leading plot is the reincarnation of souls and the complicated relations that will build up when the souls interact as different persons in different lives. The story is told in two time lines or time frames, the so called present time line that focus on Jill and Rhodry, and the past time line that focus on their previous lives during 400 years. The story thus changes between past and present, and it is all really wonderful stories, that interacts in a so complex pattern that it takes some rereads to discover some of the more hidden connections. The twelfth and last book of the sequence is being written right now, and it will let the past time line to finally merge with the present time line, and thus complete the intricate story pattern. In this first book we are exposed to the beginning of the present story, and two stories from the past. Love, Wyrd (destiny) and Dweomer (magic) interacts to create a great story out of many threads. All the stories is set in the roughly mediaeval society of Deverry and it's neighbouring cultures. My old mother, who always (or at least the last thirty years) had claimed that she didn't like fantasy literature, was instantly hooked when she started to read the books. I highly recommend this book to everyone!
- Gunnar Creutz
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
My book is falling apart, 3 May 2002
I first read this book when I was in year 7 or 8 at high school on a whim from the library. I loved it so much I promptly bought it and the rest of the series at that point. I have read the book so many times (and despite being exceedingly careful) that it is falling apart. I am trying to keep it safe because it is a non revised edition.I love this book and its series, it's complex themes and plot that entwines past, present and future. It may not be immediately obvious why the past is being brought up, but believe me, on a recent reread of the entire series, I noticed a sentence in the second book is realised into plot over 8 books later. You can't read these books on their own and expect to understand them. They are a "series" in a true sense of the word. Fantastic, can't say anything more to recommend them, and I am champing at the bit for the next one.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Well worth the effort, 22 May 2006
Before you begin, it's as well to be warned - this is the first volume in a seriously epic series; currently the Deverry chronicles run to 12 books and there's another two on the horizon, so you may prefer to check your calendar (and your bank balance) before getting too involved. It takes a while to get going, but if you've the time and the patience then you'll be well rewarded.
The geography of Deverry and its environs is pretty standard - feudal baronies for the most part, with grasslands populated by nomadic elves in the west, dwarves up in the mountains and sophisticated slave- and spice-traders across the sea to the south. What distinguishes this series from similar books is Kerr's concept of destiny and reincarnation - characters who fail to fulfill their Wyrd in one life are doomed to try again in the next one, though with no knowledge of their past lives or failures. The first few books follow Nevyn, an ancient loremaster who foolishly vowed to stay alive until he'd fixed the destinies of the people whose lives he'd ruined; unfortunately this means tracking them down every time they reincarnate, and so far he's been trying for hundreds of years with only limited success. This allows the entertaining and successful device of showing past-life flashbacks of all the present-day characters in their previous incarnations; this device is also a neat way of describing Deverry's long history.
The device does have its drawbacks, chief among which is the enormous potential for confusion between characters (who also tend to have fairly similar names) - not only do you have to remember the difference between Maddyc, Maryc and Maryn, you also have to keep in mind whose prior incarnations they are and who else's destiny is tied up with theirs... the books often have a handy chart at the back to help you keep track of who's who, but it doesn't always help when trying to remember details from a flashback chapter three books ago.
In fact, the flashback chapters were actually all that kept me reading for the first few books, as they are rather more interesting than the present-day story which takes some time to get off the ground. The present-day characters, too, are really quite annoying - both of these flaws are ironed out through later books, however, as the story picks up and the characters mature.
Kerr's language also takes a bit of getting used to. Her research into ancient Celtic society has obviously been very thorough and she really knows her stuff, but this has led to her using the correct Celtic/Welsh spellings and pronunciations (including - yikes! a pronunciation guide) and plenty of the vocabulary. This goes beyond the normal bounds of authenticity and into affectation - it's not a Berlitz guide, phonetic spelling would have done the job just as well. Once you stop being annoyed at names like Yngwimyr and words like gwerbrethyr, however, it becomes much easier to read. She also makes the mistake many Americans do - attempting a mediaeval dialect without realising that some of it has become British schoolboy slang. Phrases like "I hate his guts" sound quite odd coming from adult warriors.
All of these are fairly minor gripes, however. The style may not be fantastic, but the world is believable enough and the interweaving stories are certainly complex enough to keep you interested for twelve long books and more.
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