Customer Reviews

The Flight of Mavin Manyshaped (Book 2)

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The Flight of Mavin Manyshaped is the second Fantasy novel in the Mavin subseries, following The Song of Mavin Manyshaped. In the previous volume, Mavin met Ganver and was assisted by the Essty. While Mavin was gone, Himaggery supervised the preparations for making a cure for the plague.

Then Mavin returned and the ritual was completed. Huld killed his father and then rushed Himaggery with knife in hand. But Mavin stepped between them and roared in the Demon's face.

In this novel, Mavin is a shapeshifter of the Danderbat family. She and her older sister Handbright were the only remaining maidens in the family. Mavin is searching for Handbright.

Beedie Beed is a young woman of the Bridger caste. She was born on the Nextdown bridge, but moved to Topbridge with Aunt Six after her parents and other Beeds died while cutting a mainroot. She has been climbing the mainroots since she was four years old.

In this story, Beedie is measuring a mainroot for an expansion of the Topbridge town. She encounters Byle Bander on her way back home. Then more Banders confront her and demand her measuring cord to compare with Byle's.

After returning home, Beedie talks to Rootweaver about the Banders and they decide to check on Byle's measurements of the opposing main root. Then Beedie goes to help Aunt Six move out of Bridger house again. Later, Rootweaver tells her that Byle has measured short.

The next day, Beedie goes alone to start the cut. Other Beeds are supposed to be with her, but they had something else to do. When she starts the cut, Beedie smells smoke.

The smoke reminds her of the burning mainroot that killed her parents. She frantically tries to part the root by herself before the fire reaches the cutpoint. She finishes with the hatchet and starts sawing through the mainroot.

Smoke from the root is slowly poisoning her, but Beedie continues to saw the root. Wiping her eyes, she sees a white bird flying toward her. She believes that it is the bird woman kept by the Birder caste and keeps sawing.

When the root finally breaks, Beedie is struck by the sideroots and flung against the mainroot. As she is dangling from her lines, the slams and smoke overcomes her. She looses consciousness.

When she awakes, she is lying on a sideroot. Mavin is offering her water from a nearby water-belly. As Beedie recovers from her ordeal, Mavin asks her questions.

Mavin goes to Topbridge with Beedie in the guise of a Harvester. Soon she visits the Birders and meets the bird woman. At last she has found Handbright.

This tale has Mavin explaining the evil wiles of some humans to Beedie and her family. She helps Beedie escape from Topbridge. The local Banders follows behind them and another group waits in ambush at Nextdown.

This story takes Mavin down to the bottom of the Chasm. The next installment -- The Search of Mavin Manyshaped -- continues her tale five years later. Read and enjoy!

-Arthur W. Jordin

I have always enjoyed reading Sheri Tepper, and her Land of the True Game books are a particular favorite, but her Mavin books are the best, maybe because they were written later than the Peter Trilogy, and the Jilian Trilogy had too much of an agenda. Regardless, this is a book I highly recommend!

On the far side of Lom, across the sea lies a land that adapted differently to the troubles than did the lands of the True Game. Here humans, fleeing the uprising of the native creatures descended into a great chasm that split the continent. Gigantic plants lived in the chasms ecosystem, and the people built cities suspended from the great roots, connected by bridges and stairs. The cities are peopled by castes, Bridgers at the top, followed by Fishers, Harvesters and all the other folk that make the cities work. And where there are cities of people there are politics and power games. Beedie, a Bridger, finds herself in conflict with another Bridger clan - the Banders. The Banders play for big stakes and will stop at nothing to control the council, even murder.

Into this comes Mavin Manyshaped, flown across the sea on a quest for Handbright, her lost sister. When Maven left Danderbat Keep, she convinced her sister to flee as well. But, once free, Handbright took the shape of a bird and never really stopped flying. Now Mavin has found her a continent away. Gone mad, adopted by the Chasm folk as a messenger from the Boundless, and pregnant by a Birder priest who should have known better. Mavin enlists Beedie's help in keeping Handbright from further harm. Of course, Mavin is enlisted as well. This time to stop the Banders and find out what is killing the great roots. For the first time in a great while, humans descend to the bottom of the rift.

Sheri Tepper loves to tell tales that are quests within quests. When the first layer is solved then other layers are revealed, until the reader finally accepts that there are no real endings. Tepper isn't the only author to work this way, but she is one of the few that can maintain the level of inventiveness required to sustain a long effort. Mavin downplays her ability to shape-change in this volume so that the other characters that form her party can become real players rather than simply puppets. Beedie in particular is a character who could easily have stood all on her own, questioning and fiercely independent. This book represents a break from the True Game books, set on another continent with a whole variant ecology, proving there is nothing gimmicky about Tepper's skills.

In this, the second of the Chronicles of Mavin Manyshaped trilogy, prequel to the True Game trilogy, Mavin is 15 years older and seeks her sister Handbright among the people of the Chasm -- who do not have Talents -- over the sea to the west of the Land of True Game.

This is a fun, enjoyable, creative story, with a drip of tension part way through; a worthy addition to those in the series preceding it.

I love Sherri Tepper. I found the book interesting and entertaining. It is nothing to rave about but not much to be unhappy about either.

After leaving, Mavin loses track of her sister, who keeps bird form for
a long time. She eventually finds her on another continent, and she has
gone a bit crazy. The whole setup over there is also very different.