Childe Morgan (Deryni) [Hardcover]

Katherine Kurtz (Author)

Book Description

Series: Deryni | Publication Date: December 5, 2006

Alaric Morgan has been pledged to the king's service, for his Dernyi blood makes him ideal to safeguard the Haldane kings and ensure that Prince Brion shall have protection of his hereditary magic. But the Deryni are feared by the populace of Gwynedd and are viewed with deep suspicion by the Church. And the Camberian Council, which secretly oversees the activities of Deryni, scorns Alaric for his half-breed ancestry. Alaric has the king's protection, and a future mapped out for him that in time should ensure his survival as well as that of the king's heir. But Alaric is only four years old-and first he must survive to reach manhood.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In bestseller Kurtz's morbid second tale of her new Deryni trilogy—following 2003's In the King's Service and set before the King Kelson novels—King Donal Haldane is mourning the loss of his bastard son, Krispin, a boy he thought would be companion and protector to Crown Prince Brion, and hoping that Alyce and Kenneth de Morgan's toddler son, Alaric, heir to Alyce's Deryni magic, can be groomed to take Krispin's place. Bishop Oliver de Nore's brother, Septimus, was put to death by the king after Alyce used her powers to reveal that he orchestrated Krispin's killing; now Oliver is doubly motivated to accelerate the church's campaign to exterminate the Deryni, who are feared by many humans in the land of Gwynedd. Kurtz renders even the most plot-twisting demises more dreary than dramatic, which makes for terrific medieval realism but uninteresting narrative. (Dec.)
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From Booklist

Alyce de Corwyn, Deryni heiress to two lands, is happy with her human husband and precocious son. Three-year-old Alaric was pledged from birth to serve the royal heirs of Gwynedd, however, and Deryni powers are feared and hated by too many in Gwynedd. The Deryni are divided, too, between loyalty to their kind and loyalty to their lands and kings. Alyce expects to have sufficient time before Alaric must fulfill the pledge, and then unexpected events throw responsibility on Gwynedd's young king; Torenth, the heir of Gwynedd's enemy; and Alaric, who is now four. Kurtz's fans will celebrate this continuation of In the King's Service (2003). Frieda Murray
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Ace Hardcover; First Edition edition (December 5, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0441012825
• ISBN-13: 978-0441012824
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #859,421 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Kurtz's Childe Morgan gives an interesting backstory to the longer series, but.., December 7, 2006

By 

Rebecca Huston "telynor" (On the Banks of the Hudson) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Childe Morgan (Deryni) (Hardcover)

Following up her previous novel, <a href="">In the King's Service,</a> fantasy author Katherine Kurtz continues her tales of the childhood of Alaric Morgan, the Duke of Corwyn, told mostly through the eyes of his parents, Sir Kenneth and Lady Alyce.

The intervening two years have been peaceful ones in the kingdom of Gwynnedd. But if the land is peaceful, there's plenty of underlaying currents that promise future turmoil. At the start of the novel, we see the queen mourning the death of one of her young sons, and Lady Alyce remembering the death of another young child, one who was planned to grow up and be a protector of the future king. But now that burden has passed on to her own young son, Alaric.

While Alaric is very much a child, not much more than a toddler in this story, he plays a prominent role in the story at several points, mostly because he is a Deryni, a member of race born with magical abilities. Most of humanity hates and fears the Deryni, a hatred that is spurred on by the religious authorities, who never miss a chance to prate on about the need to purge the land of their evil ways, and the faith, based about christianity, is given rather short shrift in this one.

Indeed, I was tempted to term this one as a novel in search of a plot. A great deal of the novel is given over to regal splendour and ceremonial, births and marriages, quite a few deaths, and only a few short chapters where there is any sort of excitement at all, and that mostly towards the end of the book. There is also a noted lack of any sort of humor as well, and most of the action seems to be anticlimatic.

Indeed, with the exception of the chapter on the Naming of Alaric, a death that previous readers of the Deryni novels know is coming, and a few encounters with the mysterious Sir Se Trelawney, this one just lumbers along. Sir Se, I suspect, will appear in the third novel of this set, if there is a third novel. Other characters who appear later on also make an appearance, from a young King Brion, Rhydon, the Torenthi royal siblings Wencit and Morag, and various members of the Camberian Council -- the only entertaining bit was picking these various folk out early on and knowing that they were going to be making trouble later.

And it's a very short book, not much over two hundred and fifty pages. Readers not familiar with the series, which Kurtz has been working on for about thirty years or so, will find themselves very confused. Sadly, those who are fans might find themselves very bored indeed with it all. We already know all of this that is happening, and it's got a hint of being all too familiar and that we've read it all somewhere before.

To make things worse, there are a huge number of people and places in the cast, enough so that Kurtz has a listing for both people and places at the end of the book to help the poor reader keep it all straight. There is also a rather grainy, grey map of the Eleven Kingdoms as well.

That's the saddest part of all this. Kurtz is certainly capable of writing tightly plotted, action filled fantasy fiction -- her first two trilogies with the Deryni universe certainly proved that. But her later work has the feel of just going through the motions, and these characters lack the moral questioning that made them so interesting when they were first introduced. Instead, now everyone is either so poisonously good that they don't even think bad thoughts, or so scheming that you know that they are going to come to no good end. But now, Kurtz has dwindled into a very second rate author, and her more recent works are palid copies of her first novels.

Summing up, this one isn't worth the purchase price in hardcover. Try to be patient and pick it up in the paperbound release, or check it out from the library if you have an overwhelming urge to read it.

Three stars, if only for the deathbed scenes, and the little bits of magic here and there.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars missing the vitality of the other Deryni novels, February 17, 2007

By 

Joe Sherry (Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Childe Morgan (Deryni) (Hardcover)

I could not have been more disappointed with Childe Morgan unless I tried to write the book myself. Let me back up. I am a long standing fan of Katherine Kurtz and her Deryni saga. These novels set in back in an era which approximates England's Eleventh Century in terms of society and history feature a Church and a human population fearful of and persecuting a race of humans called the Deryni. The only difference between human and Deryni is simply that the Deryni can use magic and normal humans cannot. But the Church, which is just as powerful as the King of Gwynedd, hates and persecutes the Deryni so they must operate in secrecy not to advance some secret agenda, but more to try to shape the world around them to be more tolerant of the Deryni race. I loved these stories, in particular the ones set earlier in the chronology which featured more of the interplay between the Church and the Deryni.

Childe Morgan is the second entry in Kurtz's Childe Morgan trilogy which began with In the King's Service. These novels are set not long before the Kelson novels (Deryni Rising) and the Childe Morgan novels introduce us to the character of Alaric Morgan, so central to the Kelson novels. Only here, Alaric is four years old, and Kelson's father, King Brion is fourteen. I believe that this trilogy is setting up the battle of Brion against the Marluk, Hogan Festil, which we have referenced in the Kelson novels, but unfortunately, most of Childe Morgan is simply that: Set up.

Rather than the political and cultural intrigue which Katherine Kurtz has so successfully treated her readers to over the past thirty years, she instead focuses two thirds of Childe Morgan on Alaric's mother, Alyce de Coursy, and her relationship with her husband Kenneth Morgan, and a little bit of hinting by the King Donal Haldane that Alaric will have to be Brion's Deryni protector, but very little actually happens in the first two thirds of the book. I described Childe Morgan as mostly set up, but that is inaccurate. Childe Morgan is waiting for a set up. It is stasis. We learn a little bit about Alyce and her sister Vera, are introduced to Duncan (another player in the Kelson novels), and pretty much Katherine Kurtz spends the novel preparing Gwynedd for Alaric and Brion and later Kelson by moving several pieces around and hinting at Deryni magic.

In the final third of the volume there are several events which could rightly be called Major Events, but somehow in the telling they feel like Minor Events, and that is not a good thing. These huge events (in terms of this trilogy) somehow fail to resonate. There is a sense of relief that finally, something is happening, but the emotion is diminished by the fact that by this point in the novel I didn't care. An action sequence late in the novel does work well, but it is too little too late.

If I were not so invested in the Deryni novels and count several of them among my favorite works of fantasy, I would have given up long before I go to the last third of this 250 page novel. At least in the earlier Deryni novels the reader could get the sense that major acts are in the works, there was intrigue, risk, and excitement even in the description of arcane magic and Church politics. It's all missing here.

I will read the third Childe Morgan novel when it comes out and I will hope that when Katherine Kurtz writes her long rumored 948 novel that it will reclaim that vitality that she had when writing about Camber, Joram, Evaine and others, but that vitality is sadly lost here and I cannot recommend Childe Morgan to anyone, not even fans of the Deryni.

-Joe Sherry

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The most stylized Katherine Kurtz yet, June 2, 2007

By 

fidistria (NY, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Childe Morgan (Deryni) (Hardcover)

Ostensibly the first book in a 'Childe Morgan' trilogy -- and an appreciation of the adult Alaric Morgan and his world is probably the only reason to pick up this latest Deryni novel -- this book is more of a sequel to Kurtz's previous tale of Gwynnedd, In the King's Service: A Novel of the Deryni, as it continues the life of Alyce de Corwyn and her husband Sir Kenneth Morgan as their marriage ages alongside their children.

This is not a book for the faint of heart or short of attention span; only hardened Kurtz fans need apply. Characters spend most of their time reciting genealogies and history, recapitulating the action of the previous book, or making allusions to events that will come to fruition only in the later ones, continuing the feel of exposition for something to come rather than independent story. The tone of In the King's Service continues as well, but even more so. This book has substantially less plot, less conflict, and less action: something that I didn't think could be possible after reading the last one. Kurtz has clearly built up her world to the point where she thinks she can dispense with these things, and write tableaux of her characters' life instead.

I never thought that I would criticize a fantasy novel for not having enough action, or for being too domestic, but I find myself making that criticism here. Everything is simply too easy. The only conflict of any kind to be found in this installment is the interminable debates of the Camberian Council over whether Character X should marry Character Y or Character Z, or whether Potential Baddie Q should be taken out preemptively or not. This could be interesting, if we weren't assured by the author and every other good character that the Camberian Council has everyone's best interests at heart, and would never contemplate anything morally iffy. This lack of ambiguity, which was always present in the Deryni novels, has become unbearable by this one. No character has to make a difficult decision, or oppose another character on ideological grounds. Paradoxically, only people who have qualms about what they are doing are the villains, who occasionally are made to weigh, say, condoning the murder of children against extirpating the Deryni. For the main characters, everything is in the clear. The king is committed to the safety of his realm and the good of his people; his nobles are deeply loyal to it and to him; with the exception of a few brutal and bigoted bishops, the church is godly and invested in the well-being of the populace; lords are invariably kind to their underlings, and the peasantry are cheerfully subservient to their good masters (cf. Diana Wynne Jones' The Tough Guide to Fantasyland: The Essential Guide to Fantasy Travel on "Good Aristocratic Feudalists"). There is something rather Victorian about this happy and virtuous realm, and the feeling is compounded by the precociously adorable and saccharine children, among which young Alaric (in his rare appearances in this rather mis-named book) takes his place with darling questions about God and fealty that the adult General Morgan of Chronicles of the Deryni would squirm to remember, even as he would have a hard time recognizing the blithe moral confidence of his parents in the even slightly more checkered world-view he imparts to his protegé King Kelson.