Gereient is the humble but magically gifted farmboy. Averil is the astoundingly beautiful but kind and humble lady, raised by nuns because her father couldn't bear to look at the reminder of his late wife. They each belong to allied noble orders (the Knights of the Rose and the Ladies of the Isle), and eventually they will meet and fall in love. Their love will undoubtedly be tested by the difference in their social stations and the Darkness Sweeping the Land. I don't know, however, because I gave up on this book about halfway through.

This book is what you get when the Belgariad and Arthurian myth are thrown into a blender, and then only the murkiest dregs are printed. It's a terribly boring mishmash of Christianity-as-last-hope-against-the-Serpent and farmboy-loves-princess. People are perpetually telling the farmboy how humble and gifted he is. Averil is continually far too mature and skilled to be 15. And the villain gets a chapter or two to explain his Evil Plans and how Evil is all he desires and so on and so forth every time the reader is getting truly bored with the farmboy and the lady's meet-cute. There is absolutely no narrative tension, the characters are cardboard cliches, and the entire thing is one huge Fantasy Trope enacted in McEurope. It is not, however, actively horrifying or insulting, so I suppose that's something.

Kathleen Bryan is actually the pseudonym of Judith Tarr, which explains a great deal. ( )

The Kingdom of Lys has an interesting form of magic. It is worked by knights, magicians, and the Ladies of the Isle. Using glass to concentrate and hold the magic they shape. They also hold the great responisiblity of keeping the Serpent imprisoned by holding the secret of his location as a sacred secret.

Averil has been trained as a Lady of the Isle but was called back home prematurely to help her father, who is the Duke of Quitaine. The Duke has good reasn te fear for the safety of his throne, so he wants his daughter home and wed to secure the succession of his lands. But when everyone's worst fears and more come to pass, she is forced to flee with a band of knights and Gereint.

Gereint is a farmboy, but not so plain and simple. He has magic of an unknown nature running through his veins. His mother, in a misguided effort to protect him, has forbidden him from seeking out the knights for training. He slips away one day to follow the knights and find his destiny. It takes him far from home where he meets Averil. When Averil is forced to run from the invaders, he goes with.

Their journey takes them to places that are made of myth and legend, and dark secrets are revealed and discovered. As they try to find safety and a return to their old ways, it dawns on them that much has been forgotten, and to win they must remember and learn.

A fantasy tale with a touch of christian story mixed with magic, I loved the characters. They were incredibly dynamic. Tere were many I loved and the ones I hated, I loved to hate. Their fourney is a fantastic one that kept the pages turning. The only draw back was that at times the point was driven home a little too hard. There is much to say for subtlety and at times it was lacking.

3/5 ( )

I thought the story was interesting, and I enjoyed the character development. However, I thought the overall plot was lacking in this novel. There was no strong conflict that was resolved. I understand that it's part of a trilogy, but this portion was very anti-climatic.The mythology of the book combines Christianity with magic, which was a little weird to me. The author jumps right into the story, and the mythology isn't explained until later, so I felt a little like I had been just dropped in to a foreign country when I first started reading. I had no idea what was going on.After I got into it, it was an easy read, and I'll probably give the next one in the series a try. ( )

In the olden days, there was an epic struggle in the Kingdom of Lys. The Young God battled with the Serpent and imprisoned him with the help of the Knights of the Rose and the Ladies of the Isle. Now almost a thousand years later, a king who is a traitor to the religion threatens to destroy all that the Young God accomplished and bring the Serpent back to the world. It appears that the only people who are able to stop him are an heir to a duchy and a fatherless son of a peasant farmer. With the help of wild magic that seems inherent in them both, they stand together to use their power to stand against him and the minions of the Serpent.

This is a classic fantasy at it's basic. This is however a new version of an old formula, made more exciting than the original. While it is old school style to have evil that has been locked away in the world come back and have only a chosen few defend the world against it; this story allows for something different to come to the forefront. The characters of Gereint and Averil are both quite confused and very intuitive of each other.

More than likely this would not be someone's first choice of a novel to read. Too much other high fantasy is like it. I would however, recommend this book to those first starting out in the genre, who are tired of the same Arthurian legends replayed over and over again. This story's real focus is the coming into power at a dangerous time. The sensitivity that is given to both sides of this magic, as well as the urgency is also felt though out the novel. All can enjoy this as a classic.

This was a good fast read. Pretty short. A little contrived at times, and somewhat overt in its lifting from the Judeo-Christian theology. But overall well written. I liked the main characters, enough that sometimes I felt like throttling them for their actions. There's magic aplenty, if not quite explained. The concept of using glass to store magic is interesting. There is contact with gods, almost-understandable evil, suitable creepiness, and unrequited love. Something will happen to these characters to completely wrench them apart or draw them so close that none can sunder it.

I'd recommend this. I was a little put out to see it's actually copyrighted to Judith Tarr...who is not a bad author by any stretch, I like her quite a bit, really...but I thought it might be a new author. Eh. It's very obviously the first in a series. It moves along at quite a clip...there's not so much action, per se, but a good amount of tension and some mystery.

(from my site: http://etoiline.vox.com/library/post/serpent-and-the-rose.html) ( )