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Wednesday 12 August 2009

ELVENBORN

Third book of the Halfblood Chronicles by Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey.

Genre: epic fantasy

My Review:
Interesting but not very good.

It took me a long time to read this book. The ending was a bit of an anti-climax. The pleasure is more on the reading of their adventure rather than what happened at the end. The authors are admittedly a good spinner of a tale, but did not quite pull it off in the end, which was rather surprising. This book is almost like a WGC (wild goose chase) that Heroes Adrift by Moira Moore is.

There were a few salient points in the story that the authors completely missed to exploit. They either did this intentionally with an intent of another book to follow or they just completely missed, hence the flat ending. I think they intended to follow this book up in the beginning. But it seems that got cancelled as shown by Mercedes Lackey's website that this series is supposedly to have four books. The fourth book being Elvenbred. But Elvenbred was never published (yet).

Cherry's Rating: 2 out of 5 cherries.

Caption on the book cover sleeve:
In this long-awaited new novel in the Halfblood Chronicles, fantasy greats Norton and lackey tell the enthralling story of the reclusive elvenlord Kyrtian, who emerges as a hero in a world torn by politics and war. When his cousin, Aelmarkin, tries to prove that Kyrtian is unfit to run his estate, the plan backfires, and soon Kyrtian, who doesn't share the venal, greedy nature of his cousin, finds himself with more power than he ever wanted.

Like his father before him, Kyrtian has always treated humans on his estate like servants, instead of enslaving them as other elvenlords do. His father's legacy also leads Kyrtian to learn ancient military skills long since lost to elvenkind through the carelessness of the elvenlords. Kyrtian's re-discovered knowledge piques the interest of the current elvenlords, and soon Kyrtian finds himself appointed the new commander of the army, to the relief of his ruling peers.

For the Young Lords, sons of the most powerful elvenlords, have rebelled against their fathers and are waging war. But by taking advantage of both the privileges of his new command and the help of some unexpected new friends, Kyrtian finally gains the resources to embark on his own, personal quest - resuming his father's search for the Great Portal, the magical doorway through which the original elvenlords entered this world.

As war rages between some sons and fathers, Kyrtian reaches desperately for his own lost father, hoping to uncover not only the mystery of his disappearance, but also the secret behind the origin of elvenkind.

Books in this series in chronological order:
Elvenbane Mercedes Lackey with Andre Norton
Elvenblood Mercedes Lackey with Andre Norton
Elvenborn Mercedes Lackey with Andre Norton
Elvenbred Mercedes Lackey with Andre Norton
Source: http://www.mercedeslackey.com/books/elven2.html on 20/07/2009.
redrosedivider

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