Customer Reviews

Cast a Bright Shadow (Lionwolf Trilogy 1)

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I admit that I've never read any novels by Tanith Lee before, so this book came as a bit of a surprise. I was out of town, without any access to books when someone gave me a copy of "Cast a Bright Shadow" to read. My favourite fantasy writers are Feist, Brooks and Hobb, so I found Lee's style of writing somewhat obscure, yet refreshing at the same time.

Set in a winter world, Lionwolf, the son of mortal Saphay and the god Zezeth, unites a variety of races to destroy his mother's city of Ru Karismi. Along the way Lionwolf is accompanied by his `uncle' Guri-a living ghost who survived his own death when Saphay's abduction by the Olchibe goes awry. The plan, organised by Vuldir, Saphay's father, is intended to cement an alliance with the Jafn, without payment ever being made-such if the disdain they have for the Jafn that they would conspire with another enemy.

Lee's white world is colourful in its design. A myriad of races, cultures and belief systems accentuate an almost limitless amount of fantasy and magic. There are no constraints; Lee writes it as if it's all possible. Intertwining stories lead to a somewhat weakened ending, yet it is a trilogy, and I welcome the break from tradition, and look forward to reading the following volumes.

So this was strange. I really liked it at first. The ice barbarians thing was great. I hadn't seen that done much and only Tanith Lee would take it to the next step and talk about Ice Jungles. I'm still trying to figure out how that would work because she never really described them. Guri was my favorite character but most of the other characters I didn't care about at all.

Still it kept me interested enough to read for 500 pages. So it's definitely not the Flat Earth series (one of my all time favorites) but still pretty good. Some of the stuff got a little surreal and I still don't understand it. But I am curious about the 2nd book (since I already own it). So I'll probably read some reviews on it before I make a final decision to read it or not.

One final comment. Every once in a while she would slip into this kind of 2nd person writing and it was really jarring.
(made up example)
"We walked along the parapet. You could see for miles in every direction."

Now I know that it can't just be a mistake, Tanith has been doing this for way too long. So all I can think is that it was some kind of experiment.