Fire in the Mists [Import] [Paperback]

Holly Lisle (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 291 pages
• Publisher: Baen Books,U.S. (November 25, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555940137
• ISBN-13: 978-1555940133
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Holly Lisle has been writing fiction professionally since 1991, when she sold FIRE IN THE MIST, the novel that won the Compton Crook Award for best first novel. She has to date published more than thirty novels and several comprehensive writing courses. She is currently working on the second book in her Cadence Drake series.

Holly had an ideal childhood for a writer...which is to say, it was filled with foreign countries and exotic terrains, alien cultures, new languages, the occasional earthquake, flood, or civil war, and one story about a bear, which follows:

"So. Back when I was ten years old, my father and I had finished hunting ducks for our dinner and were walking across the tundra in Alaska toward the spot on the river where we'd tied our boat. We had a couple miles to go by boat to get back to the Moravian Children's Home, where we lived.

"My father was carrying the big bag of decoys and the shotgun; I was carrying the small bag of ducks.

"It was getting dark, we could hear the thud, thud, thud of the generator across the tundra, and suddenly he stopped, pointed down to a pie-pan sized indentation in the tundra that was rapidly filling with water, and said, in a calm and steady voice, "That's a bear footprint. From the size of it, it's a grizzly. The fact that the track is filling with water right now means the bear's still around."

"Which got my attention, but not as much as what he said next.


" 'I don't have the gun with me that will kill a bear,' he told me. 'I just have the one that will make him angry. So if we see the bear, I'm going to shoot him so he'll attack me. I want you to run to the river, follow it to the boat, get the boat back home, and tell everyone what happened.'

"The rest of our walk was very quiet. He was, I'm sure, listening for the bear. I was doing my damnedest to make sure that I remembered where the boat was, how to get to it, how to start the pull-cord engine, and how to drive it back home, because I did not want to let him down.

"We were not eaten by a bear that night...but neither is that walk back from our hunt for supper a part of my life I'll ever forget.

"I keep that story in mind as I write. If what I'm putting on paper isn't at least as memorable as having a grizzly stalking my father and me across the tundra while I was carrying a bag of delicious-smelling ducks, it doesn't make my cut."

Cheerfully,
Holly Lisle

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Culture clashes and the consequences of gender segregation, March 19, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Fire in the Mist (Mass Market Paperback)

The above description is misleading. The main character, Faia, drives her sheep home after months in the highlands, only to find her entire village dead of plague and unburied. She calls upon her untrained magic to cleanse the place, cremating the entire village in arcane flame. Far-off magic users feel the power drain, and track her down to bring her under control. So this uneducated shepherd girl finds herself in the big city, at an all-female college of magic. Both students and teachers at the college regard her as half savage; she finds them lacking in common sense. And then her fellow students start dying. . . .

This book is a good, solid fantasy, with a well-realized world and some unconventional plot twists. There are some excellent scenes, both tragic and comic, but the characters are most creative. There is a professor at the college from a truly savage background, though she doesn't wear warpaint while teaching. There's a mage experimenting with winged horses that no sane person would ride. There's a cat with hands who likes to play with matches. There are magic otters, subversive activities, an ancient feud and one small dangerous quest. The story may not have something for everybody, but people who like to see strong women think their way through difficult circumstances will enjoy it

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great First, June 8, 2000

By 

Doug Dandridge - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fire in the Mist (Mass Market Paperback)

This was the first of Holly Lisle's books and the first I have ever read. What a first effort! A wonderful setting in a city divided on sex lines between the Mages (women) and Sages (men). Both have their legends about the cause of the rift. Both are right, and wrong. Faia Rissedotte is a young woman with great powers of magic and an attitude of defiance who finds herself among the Mages. And ancient evil is awakening, and only Faia has the ability to see past the hatred of the two groups of magicians and dicern the truth. A page turner and recommended for anyone with a love of high fantasy.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poignant, October 5, 2000

By 

Ambre Ploeger "Graduate/Escapee of CSU Monter... (Arizona, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fire in the Mist (Mass Market Paperback)

The poignant start to this story, is fitting for this tragic heroine. I felt so sad for her intro where she discovers magic/power (lets just say it's not a happy experience). It felt like a tide that was drownding this character....but she always kept trying to keep her head above the water. I have re-read this book several times, and enjoy it every time. This hero isn't some perfect paladin. She has accidentely precipiated some horrible things, and no matter what good she does that will always be a part of her persona. No don't get me wrong, this book isn't some dark gritty thing, but the characters do have multiple fascits to them. Nothing is absolutly good and has been, and vice versa. I can't recommend this book enough!