Customer Reviews

The Elvenbane

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The Elvenbane (1991) is the first novel in the Halfblood Chronicles. The Elves are aliens from elsewhere. They are long-lived and have great magics and, long ago, they conquered Earth. Now the humans wear slave collars and take orders from Elven overseers. The Elves and humans can interbreed; the resulting child usually has Elven magic and the mind powers of the humans. These halfblood Wizards are reluctant to obey the Elven Lords and eventually rebelled in the Wizard's War. Ever since, it has been a killing offense for a human to become pregnant by an Elf.

The Elves and humans unknowingly share the planet with the dragons, who came during the Wizard's War. Dragons are shapeshifters and their shamans have the power of mind speaking and reading the thoughts of others. They can also play with the lightning and create gates between worlds. The dragons despise the Elven Lords and cause confusion and anger whenever they can. One of their favorite ploys is to spread the prophecy of the Elvenbane, a halfblood who will free the human from Elven tyranny.

In this novel, Alamarana is a shaman and pregnant. She is traveling across the world, shifting her shape and becoming one with the planet. For a while, she impersonates an Elven maid and leads an Elven Lord into a marriage agreement just before she vanishes from his manor. Then, as she is meditating in a body of stone, a human slave, also pregnant, literally stumbles across her. Serina Daeth had been the chief concubine of Lord Dyran, but another concubine managed to make Serina fertile with the Elven Lord and so now she is fleeing for her life.

Alara almost abandons Serina in the desert, but decides to help deliver the child. When the mother bleeds to death, Alara takes the girl child home with her. Seeing the baby, all the dragons of her lair start to argue and complain. The infant is too noisy, she is too smelly, and she is ugly, but Alara is determined to keep the child. Moments later, she goes into contractions herself.

Alara's son, Keman, thinks the infant is kind of cute. He is the type of dragon child who brings pets home with him and the human baby looks to be another pet, yet so small and feeble. When his mother goes into labor, Keman takes the child home and puts her in the pen with Hoppy, his three-legged two-horn, who soon includes the human in her nursing brood.

Keman names the baby Lashana, which is "orphan" in Elvish, but since she is so little, he shortens the name to Shana. Since his mother is very busy with his baby sister, Keman takes over the care of this little human. He makes her a shift of his own shed skin to protect her tender skin. He starts teaching her to talk, refusing to just speak mind-to-mind. He soon learns how hard work there is in being a mother.

This novel is about family, fate, and freedom. As with most of both authors' stories, this tales features characters who persevere in their struggle against hardship and injustice. Moreover, it contains alien characters who defy there own kind to help win the struggle.

Recommended for Norton and Lackey fans and anyone else who enjoys tales of strange powers, friendly dragons and righteous conflict.

Before reading this evew, please take into account the fact that I am slightly prejudiced; this is my favorite book of all time. The thing I love about this book is the way it destroys stereotypes. In this book, elves are evil beings, humans are stupid, and dragons are either lazy or terified of being discovered. There are no people fighting all that is bad in the world because they want to, instead they tend to run away as fast as possible. When you have been reading this book for sometime, and hen put it dow, prepare to take 10 to 15 minutes in order to readjust to reality. A few people I have lent this to have also experienced this, so It's not just MY overactive imagination. There are some minor problems. By about half-way through the book, the alliances of all the main characters are clear, so it's fairly obvious what will happen in the end (although the details are surprising). The book also leaves someting of a cliff-hanger, remedied by the sequel, Elvenblood (although this too has an ambigous ending). In all, if you like realistic, gritty, and above all well-written ficton, this is the book for you.

Escapist fantasy at its best! "Elvenbane" is a wonderful ride, well-written and absorbing. You're swept up at once in the world of the story, and carried along relentlessly to its end. This is a page-turner in the best sense -- you always want to know what happens next!

As others have said, the real fun of this book is the way it turns our expectations on their head. It takes a fairly standard fantasy set-up -- a prophesy foretells that one of the despised and hunted half-bloods will become the savior of humankind -- and quickly subverts it. Nothing is as it seems. As soon as we think we're safe in a standard fantasy cliche (such as the wise and kindly dragons who take in the orphaned child, or the half-blooded wizards in their hidden fortress in the forest who will become the heart of the fight against the elves) -- boom! It evolves (or perhaps I should say devolves) into something else entirely. There are no pure and good-hearted heros in this book. These characters are real people -- grumpy, bad-tempered, and petty, as well as kind-hearted and brave. Even Shana, the main character, has a sharp temper and a tendacy towards self-centeredness (in my opinion, anyway). These flaws make the characters more realistic; I cared about Shana and her foster-brother Keman, and I wanted them to win.

As for the reason why I gave this book four stars instead of five? Norton and Lackey spend so much time establishing their world and characters, that by the time the action picks up, they've run out of room! The ending felt greatly rushed to me. It's true that the end brought no real surprises, but the fun is in seeing the story play out, and I felt a little cheated by all the scenes I felt were missing. Valyn's sacrifice in particular lacked the emotional impact I felt it should have -- simply because he hadn't been around long enough for me to care that much about him! I realize that, at 560 pages, this book is already quite long, but if as much attention had been paid to fleshing out the ending as was paid to the beginning and middle, it would have been perfect.

But, even so, I greatly enjoyed this novel and I recommend it to anyone. It gives you what all fantasy readers want -- a story you can lose yourself in.

In The Elven Bane, Shana (Lashana) is born to a human of an elf lord in a time when people are considered slaves and elves rule all. Shana's mother dies out on the desert and a wandering dragon who is about to have a baby finds her and helps her give birth in the guise of a nurse woman near a place of refuge. Alara (the dragon who helps to birth Shana) takes the newborn human child and raises her with her own son Keman. Shana is Keman's "pet" but instead of being treated as an animal a marvelous relation forms between them.

A great book for me and others I would highly recomend The Elven Bane to all readers whither they like fantasy or not (its a great opening book to those who don't know what to read next).

I read this book last year and could NOT put it down...Literally. I'd go to classes in school and constantly get it taken away for reading it in class! For some reason, it took me a long while to read this book. But after I did, I was so happy with it that it wasn't even funny. I wanted to read it over and over again. I think this book was very excellent and made me wish I was Shana, the girl with a telekenesis-type power. Shana was the daughter of a concubine of Lord Dyran, who was an elven Lord. He got the concubine pregnate and, since the child would be a forbidden half-blood, the concubine ran away. She got stranded in the desert and a "shiftshaper" dragon came across her as the concubine was giving birth to the half-blood child. The woman giving birth dies and the dragon, Alara, takes in the child to raise it with her own. The half-blood is raised by dragons and creates a controversey within the dragon's lair upon raising a "human" with none other than it's own. A lot happens from there on. It is too odd & difficult for me to explain. Therefor, I'll leave it up to all of you to be smart and read the book.;)

This book is absoulutly amazing! For anyone who likes magic and dragons, this is definatly the book for you. Basically, the story is about these elves that have taken over a human world. The elves have magic but the humans don't so the elves rule over everyone. As time passes, there are human and elf couples who have children creating a half-breed of humans that do have magic and can fight back. You may ask where the dragons fit in. Well, the dragons remain in hiding because of their fear of being hunted but since they can shape shift, they often go and stir up trouble in the elven community. Anyone will love this book because it contains everything a good book should.

This book was simply incredible. What a spectacular job Mercedes and Andre do of creating such emotion into words on a paper. The very thought of that book fills me with swelling anticipation of how good a fantasy really can be. To me it created an entirely new world, something that was so real I can picture it with ease. If you really want to experience a fantasy filled with every kind of emotion, from dizzying romance, to boiling hatred, you have found it.

This book was very well written and exciting. Took my imagination to new arenas. One of the few series that I have re-read. I'd recommend it for anyone that enjoys intellectual stimulation with their fantasy.

Most foster children have foster parents of the same species, but in this fantasy a young girl, Shana, half human half elf, is brought up by the fabled creatures, dragons. She is brought up with beliefs of dragon kin and dragon ways. Shana is exiled from the saftey and comfort of her own home and from her loving foster brother Keman. Because of a power she could not control, she is forced from her way of life. Shana meets humans for the first time. She is awkwardly placed in an Elven city and knows not the customs of human or elf. Shana is forced to forget everything she has learned since birth and realizes the real world. This story shows how one person can overcome any obstacle with the faith of friends, or in this case, dreaded dragons. In Elvenbane, it is mostly towards science fictional and fantasy readers.

The story moves along without being overly predictable with interesting characters and a fascinating background world. The writing enables the reader to clearly understand the political climate in all the races: dragon, elven, human, and half-blood. I was very impressed by how quickly I was able to comprehend this new world, which I believe is due to the great story-telling abilities of the authors. My only complaint is that I NEVER in all my LIFE had to READ as many ITALICIZED words per PAGE as in this book. I felt that it distracted from what was a wonderful story with the overly dramatic intrusions of way too many emphasized words. Please don't let that stop you from reading this book though!