Customer Reviews

Fire Sanctuary

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have loved this book for a long time and I'm sorry to see that it is out of print. I actually stole (borrowed) my mother's copy so that I could read it for the umpteenth time. The characters are stong and compelling, the plot is deep and twisting, and the setting - oh wow! I was not surprised to find out that the author has an art degree! The world of Nuala is painted with words as rich as any pigments imaginable. From the moment we meet the outworlders journeying to Nuala for a "holiday" we are swept up in intrigue, mystery, romance, and danger. The entire book is rich in culture, religion and politics that are not of our world, and yet are familiar because they are so totally human. If you are a fan of sci-fi/fantasy and are looking for something that will suck you in, this is it. Offworld soldiers Moran and Lyte are visiting Nuala for a festival and so that Moran can see his betrothed, Ronuviel, a member of the ruling house of Atare. But the offworld federation has warned Lyte of possible danger, there is a plot afoot to topple the house of Atare, and the second in line for the throne is insane. When the front lines of the war with the Fewha shift, political survival takes a back seat to the saving of lives, and Nuala is changed forever. I highly recommend this book (as if that weren't clear already!) so start looking in those used bookstores!

I greatly enjoyed this series not just this book. Her depth and understanding of human nature and social politics really shines through. I had to read one right after the other... I devoured the series and felt bad when I realized there was no more to eat!

She may not like the comparison but these to me this series is a strange and beautiful blending in my head of Dune and Andre Norton.

Now we just need to see more work from her again!

I've reread this book many times, and always find something new. Katherine has developed a new culture and world, one I love visiting in her books. Her story is thought provoking. I found this story open minded, intricate, and with wonderful characters. Thanks for sharing your story with me, Katherine!

As a Nualan Princess prepares to wed an Axis warrior, the pair discovers that enemies abound, both from Nuala and from off-world. Survival is foremost on everyone's mind.

Fire Sanctuary was the first published of Katharine Eliska Kimbriel's Chronicles of Nuala, so the reader may notice a little bit of style change between this and the other novels of the series. This story takes place on the same planet; however it is many years after the stories told in the other two books in the series, so it fits in at either end of the series right now, or as a stand-alone novel to be read at any time. Some of the characters in this novel are related to some characters in the other two novels.

I found the novel to be skillfully written, the characters well developed. As with the other two novels, this one grabs the reader and won't let go. Fire Sanctuary is a suspense-filled page turner that readers of science fiction won't want to miss.

After awhile, I discovered that, despite what I had thought at the beginning of this book, my affinity for these characters turned out to be as strong as my affinity for the main characters in the other two books; I just took longer to realize that fact. Realizing that I want to read more Chronicles of Nuala didn't take nearly as long... Now that I've finished the series, there's that sadness of leaving friends behind but also a hopefulness that Ms. Kimbriel will want to write more stories of this interesting world.

Recommended to adult readers of science fiction and fantasy, and to those looking for something a little different from mainstream fiction. I'm on the edge of my seat now... This review has been simultaneously published on Dragon Views, LibraryThing and Amazon.com.

The mid-1980s were a time of change and exploration for women science fiction writers. Marketing kept trying to shoehorn these new voices into established molds, and the writers kept introducing new concerns, new ways of looking at story, world-building, relationships, and characters.

By chance, I happened to read Kimbriel's first "Nuala" novel at about the same time as Charles Ingrid's Solar Kill (Sand Wars #1). Ingrid was the masculine pseudonym of a woman writer; the book was tightly plotted, action-focused, and replete with military technology and battle scenes, so that culture and character became secondary to the single, driving plot line.

In contrast, Fire Sanctuary almost immediately drew me into a richly complex story. Despite the external military/political threat (the planet lies between two warring empires and gets caught in the cross-fire, imperiling the already fragile colony), this is no military shoot'em up. The focus is diverse and layered. We have a colony of scientists, abandoned on a marginally-habitable but gorgeous planet and one of the first things they do is to declare Nuala a political sanctuary. High natural radiation leads to widespread impairment of fertility, so rather than imprisoning those fertile individuals, multiple marriages and loving relationships become accepted and encouraged, with the exception of the ruling family, who must go off-planet to seek the mates with whom to produce children. The openness of communication about sexual and emotional relationships sets Nuala apart. The relationships and principles are portrayed with sensitivity and intelligence, rather than the glorification of "free love" so prevalent in male-oriented science fiction of that time.

At the same time, Fire Sanctuary is about individuals, both Nualan natives and off-worlders, some caught up in internal political conflicts, some seeking refuge and healing, some wrestling with the restrictions once necessary for genetic purity. The space-wars military shoot'em up catapults the Nualans and their precariously balanced society into crisis, and the solutions, like the planet itself, are anything but formulaic. Throughout the struggle, characters draw upon insight, compassion, and intelligence, rather than brute force.

Handling all these elements is a high-wire act, and at times I felt it was more successful than others. I often wanted to see more of a character or situation, yet the constraints of putting it all together in one novel necessitated a certain amount of abbreviation. I suspect that the book is far more satisfying when read thoughtfully, "between the lines," with attention to what is implied rather than explicitly stated. I look forward to reading the next "Nuala" book to see how Kimbriel develops this tantalizing world and its people.

I have read, and re-read this book, and the other two in the same world, many times since they were first published. I was dismayed when they went out of print and overjoyed to find them available on Kindle.

If you like strong protagonists, good plots and dialog, with a mix of fun, fantasy, mystery and romance added to your science fiction -- this (and the rest of the books) is for you!

I hope there will be a follow-up novel at some point. This book stands well alone, as do the other two, but the characters are so engaging I want more!

I posted this first on GoodReads and it includes SPOILERS!

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I totally enjoyed this earlier entry set a few thousand years after the events in the first two books on Nuala - I just wished for a stronger distinction between main characters and supporting characters. Particular favourites are Braan, Ronüviel and Moran and of course Tay, for the outsider perspective.

Lyte was annoying for a long time, but I think that was planned as a necessary sceptical view at Nuala. The internal villain in this book was not as menacing as Sheel's sister or the Dielan prince in the other books, but I think that simply shows the growth in skill KEK experienced in the course of this trilogy.

I loved seeing more of the planet - the bit with the huge trees, the exploration of the desert and its animals, the waterfall outside the caves - and I would eagerly read a whole novel about the Sini City, its problematic relations with the rest of Nuala and its current ruling triumvirate/successful marriage - we only had a few pages set there and they were incredibly striking in the few scenes we had with them.

More please!

~This review is based on the ebook edition that KEK has released via Book View Café (April 2010). They offer .mobi files, too.

A great blend of grand eco-political planetary science fiction and romance, this is the start of a fat, satisfying series all set on Nuala, where the natives have adapted to living with high radiation levels, but have trouble reproducing without mutation. I'm a sucker for court intrigue.