Customer Reviews

The Ancient Future

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3 star:		(1)
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I am incredulous that one book so poorly written got published at all, let alone a number of sequels. I haven't read the sequels; perhaps they improve. Based on the first one I doubt it.

The dialogue, in particular, is incredibly bad. About halfway through I realised that she was using "pseudo-medieval" dialogue to indicate that the characters were speaking in ancient Brythonic (which she describes as an "ascendant" of Welsh - presumably supposed to be the opposite of "descendant". The word you're looking for is "ancestor", Traci.) However, all the dialogue in the first part of the book is in this ancient language (as is perfectly obvious from the context), so it's a pointless distraction.

Not only that, but she has picked two features of Renaissance English ("thee" and "hast") to represent early medieval Welsh, and then not used them correctly. They are "thee" and "hast" regardless of their grammatical function in the sentence. I hast, we hast, thee hast, they hast. Along with many other incorrect word usages and the almost complete lack of understanding of how commas should be used, this reveals what poor knowledge of her basic tools the author possesses. It is also intensely irritating to the educated reader.

(I understand that Ms Harding is dyslexic. This is an unfortunate affliction and I sympathise. It explains the poor comma usage and possibly even the use of incorrect words, but nothing can justify "thee hast said it", let alone "we hast said it", in my view. Pseudomedieval dialogue is irritating enough even when it's grammatical.)

One more example of her lack of historical and linguistic knowledge: the Welsh prince is addressed as "Your Majesty", which wasn't a title of kings until about the 15th century and has never, anywhere, been a title of princes.

The characters, plot and world-building are about at the level of the language. The magical background is an unoriginal mishmash of vague New Agery, and there is no historically convincing depiction of Dark Age Wales.

For example, the time-travelling Tory gets her Welsh ruler husband to implement modern socialism, in which all children between 5 and 15 are educated by "the state". What "state"? There was no "state" in early medieval Wales (or late medieval Wales for that matter). Nor would the peasantry have meekly submitted to their ruler if he confiscated the essential agricultural labour of their children for a substantial portion of the year in order to receive education which was of no practical use to them. A Welsh ruler of the time was not an absolute monarch, and even if he'd been stupid enough to try doing this his people would not have let him. It would have resulted in starvation and they, and he, would be well aware of this. But Ms Harding evidently is not.

(Her supporters cry, "But it's fantasy fiction! It doesn't have to be realistic!" Actually, if it has a historical setting, it should be at least reasonably plausible in that setting - she doesn't have to have every detail right, but displaying this level of ignorance about the difference between the early middle ages and the modern era just - well, displays her ignorance.)

In her acknowledgements, the author thanks her editor for greatly improving the writing. If this is a great improvement on her original manuscript I am very glad I didn't have to read it. I used to be a book editor myself and saw some awful manuscripts (written by journalists, usually), so I understand how hard it is to fix a truly badly written manuscript. Sometimes you just don't have time. But if it had been me I would have at least insisted on removing "thee hast".

And yet, I made it to the end of the book. Why? I'm not sure. Somehow she made me care enough about the fate of the flaky, ignorant, two-dimensional Tory to persevere through the ridiculous dialogue and obvious historical gaffes and find out how it ends (which I've now forgotten). Not enough to make me read the sequels, though.

I subsequently read some of Katherine Kerr's books, and realised that probably most of what I'd found interesting in this book (like the idea of reincarnations not being in chronological order) had been lifted from Kerr. Kerr is a far better writer; I recommend you read her books instead.

Incidentally, Amazon has the date of publication wrong; it's 1996, not 1952.

For people who love history and a good romance, I highly recommend this book- but for those who like to nitpick about discrepancies like a few of my friends and who are more into science fiction instead of fantasy, this book might not live up to you standards.

It starts out with the main character Tori, who falls asleep in a ring of stones. When she wakes up she finds herself in England during the late 5th century. After which her adventure begins, from falling in love as well as having love problems, to dealing with issues such as womens rights ,meeting merlin, reincarnation and the usual problems one will have if ever any modern woman gets dropped into the dark ages.

Tori is a very interesting character, strong in nature (It also helps that she is black belt in tae-kwon-do.) yet possessing many flaws as well. What is nice also is that many characters are developed along with the two main characters. It becomes a series one gets to love, and while it may not be historically correct in some areas- those who enjoy a good/relaxing read may themselves happy with this book.

Be warned though- for those that find topics such as magic, druid rituals, beliefs in reincarnation and the fae, uncouth or have strong beliefs against these topics/themes, this book is chock full of them so you might not want to get it. For those who find these topics interesting or have no strong feelings against them- this book is something you won't mind buying and adding to your personal library.

The Ancient Future: The Dark Age is the complete and unabridged audiobook adaptation of a modern-day young woman thrown past the boundaries of time and space. Stranded in the Dark Age, she encounters Prince Maelgwn of Gwynedd and his loyal warriors; at first they mistake her for a nefarious witch, but soon she and steadfast fighters of a faraway time learn to rise above their fear and strive their hardest against menaces that shroud the land. A captivating saga of adventure, danger, and learning to adapt to trying times, The Ancient Future: The Dark Age is a rapturous listening experience and highly recommended. 16 CDs, 19 hours 46 min.

Starts off ok, then ends as too much of a romance novel, not enough the adventure. I suppose if you get in trouble in England, you should avoid all fairy rings, standing stones, old elf circles, ley lines, or other things like that, and break out a tent, or sleep in your car. Then you don't have to teach low level martial arts to sweaty men at arms!