Lyonesse: Suldrun's Garden (1983)

Let's be clear: it's not perfect, and it's not for everybody. But (for me) it's imperfections seem deliberate and charming. It was apparently written in the 1980s, but has the air of something written in the 1940s crossed with something written in the 1600s.

If you're familiar with the "romance" genre--not the Harlequin or Mills & Boone kind of romance, but the antecedent of the novel, exemplified in Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, you will have a sense of what to expect: a dazzling array of characters, whose character is little delved into, points-of-view that skip all over the place, an uneven sense of scale and description (there is no guarantee that the more that is written, the more important it is. At one point he lists, in list form, the characteristics of a dozen or-so individual fairies, none of whom enter into the story), and other such flaws.

And yet, it felt like a masterwork to me, and criticizing it would be like criticizing The Odyssey or Grimms' Fairy Tales. I loved it. It was odd, but lovely, and very much itself throughout.

(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, but I grade on a curve! ( )

Wow. What a wonderful surprise!

For an early eighties fantasy, it reads rather fantastically easy, with a near perfect blend of adventure, spry heroes and heroines, and an almost mythical command of myth, history, and magic in a hugely creative blend. We're not even bogged down in any such weird concepts like "historical accuracy", either.

And actually, I loved the whole idea of slap-dashing a whole continent next to Gaul and throwing in Merlin (Murgen), Mithra, evil christians, the fae, chivalry, high Celts, and so much more.

None of it overwhelmed the taste of adventure, where three kingdoms vied, played, made alliances, and started wars during a span of 30 years, and the characterizations were pure fantasy boilerplate, but lest you get turned off by that idea, just know that they all go through tons of changes... heck, they went through nearly as many as what happen to the plot, itself.

Is that a problem? Hell no. Not for me. I was actually rather amazed at the sheer scope of where we started, from a princess's childhood (Suldrun), her setup as a fairytale, then the betrayal of her wonderful prince (Aillas), their love, and their tragedy merely sets the stage, even if it takes up a sizable portion of the book. The rest of the tale happens to be one of the best written and most imaginative, quickly paced, and thoroughly satisfying traditional fantasy novels I've ever read, staying firmly on the road of adventure, adventure, adventure.

Aillas's tragedy is only the starting point, after all, and making a ladder out of bones is just the beginning, especially after he learns that his lost Suldrun had a child.

Tons of trigger points for me, and I've never gotten tired of such tales. I just can't believe how awesome the adventure was, or just how much was accomplished all the way to a mostly happy ending.

And now that I've finished the first book in the trilogy and loved it, I have absolutely no reason not to enthusiastically dive into The Green Pearl. :) ( )

I decided to borrow this, as it was available on Libby, and I had nothing to read with me. I recognized the title as it was on my Goodreads "to-read" shelf (I added it after finding it on a list of best fantasy books or best fantasy series somewhere a while back.)

This has only served to exacerbate my boredom; even if it does get better I doubt it's worth the slog. ( )

Weet niet goed wat ik hier over neer moet schrijven. Op zich een leuk verhaal, dat zich afspeelt in een ver verleden op Aarde.

Misschien later. ( )

Aside from the Dying Earth books, I’ve not read much Jack Vance. Which is odd, as I do adore those, the complexity and richness of the language, the sly wit and dark humour, the anti-heroes so well rendered. Lyonesse is a quite different beast. In some ways it feels far more of a traditional fantasy than the much earlier tales of Cugel the clever and Turjan and Chun the Unavoidable. It is definitely more of a true novel; most of the Dying Earth books are portmanteau made up of episodic short stories, while this is a distinct single tale.


The novel is set in several of the divided kingdoms of the Elder Isles, placed south of Ireland and north of Iberia, roughly where the Bay of Biscay becomes the Atlantic Ocean proper, as shown with a truly terrible map. We gather from the setting and occasional footnotes that this is where so many of the myths of Europe originate; this is Atlantis and Hy-Brasil and the Fairy Isles.


It did take me a little while to find my feet, for a couple of reasons. It wasn’t initially clear to me where this Atlantean land in which the tale unfolds was situated in time; the language and mores felt largely like those of the late middle ages (or, at any rate, with that Arthurian feel of the late middle ages from which much high fantasy takes its tone) but the references did not truly help to place it anywhere - or, rather, anywhen. It is stated that the founding family of one kingdom are also of the line that gave rise to Arthur Pendragon, although this seems to have been some time before. There is a Christian missionary, and reference is stated to the power of the church of Rome. It is, I think, deliberately vague and anachronistic, and it cased to be an issue once I was in caught up in the story.


Also early on, I had a problem with some changes of tone. At the outset the authorial voice is recognisably high fantasy, and becomes somewhat mythic or fairytale at points, but then we have a sudden shift into a rather dry chapter of historical and political exposition, before returning to the fairytale fantasy tone. Not long after this, however, I saw how the separate sections began to come together and that they were threads weaving into a greater tapestry. Vance does this quite superbly, introducing what appear to be obvious directions for the plot (obvious because of the fairytale fantasy inflection of the writing) only to immediately subvert them - and then call back much later on with an unforeseen payoff.


The characters are somewhere between mythic archetypes and actual people, something brought out by the habit of several of the magicians of the books splitting off from themselves scions, or sub-personalities, which begin as an aspect of the original but quickly develop their own characteristics.


For perhaps the first quarter of the book I was enjoying Lyonesse and thought it fine but, by the halfway point, I began to see why this is considered one of the great works of fantasy.
( )