The red wyvern by Katherine Kerr a review by..me.

The Blurb

In Cengarn, Rdodry of the silver daggers – half elven, half human – is beset by strange dreams. A dark – haired enchantress, the raven woman, is haunting his sleep, and he can find no release, even in the arms of Dallandra, his lover. Little does he know that his feud with the Raven woman goes back over three hundred years, to a time of civil war. In those days, the young king’s cousin, Lilli, was forced by her scheming mother to scry for omens, and she saw terrible visions: great red wyverns sweeping down from the mountains to plunge like hawks upon a heard of feeding swine. The fancies of an idle mind? Or omens foretelling the bloodshed and disaster for the clan of Boar?

The setting

The book is set in the world of “Deverry” which is a Celtic based world along the lines of “Lord of the rings”.

The plot

The plot is at times quite a predictable one, but the overall plot is full of surprises. The book starts with a half elven- half human somewhere around a loch. It then changes to somewhere around 300 years earlier in which you meet a bunch of new characters which is the meat of the book. You then change to a few years later than were the book started. Finally you find out characters are incarnations of other characters. Confused? I certainly was the first time I tried to read it.

The characters

I liked the characters but they were predictable at points and didn’t really feel involved with them, especially when it kept changing from one character to the next. This could just be because I’m not used to reading this style of writing. The main character you will “live” with is “Lilligora” a noble born young woman who is forced to scry for omens by her evil mother. You will also see through other characters eyes such as “Nevyn” who is a powerful, wise and caring sorcerer.

summary

Overall I felt left like I had got nowhere, not because I didn’t like the book but because the I haven’t read the first 8 books so I didn’t understand the characters and what had happened so far. I don’t think I will stick with the series of books mainly because the whole incarnations scenario is just to complex when you just want a good story, however I think that major fans of the fantasy genre will enjoy this book.

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