Customer Reviews

The Forbidden Land: Book four of the Witches of Eileanan

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I love this book almost as much as I did the previous three. It may be shorter and may focus on Finn - but there are reasons for this! I have read a few of the earlier reviews and I felt some of the comments were misleading. The book is about Finn - yes - but it is still a great book. Isabeau re-enters the story in the book 5 (which I have also read - this is one of the few series we Australians get to read before other countries =). Books four and five are both of similar length (shorter than the others) because together, they made too big a book. And, for those who commented that the series seems to be going forever etc., there will be only six books in the series. So, although this is probably the book in the series that I liked the least (though still liked) because it didn't focus on my favourite character - Isabeau, it is still a great book to read! And it is well worth the wait to then read book five and find out what has happened to Isabeau, Maya, Bronwen, Ishbel, Khan'gharad etc. I strongly advise you to read it =)

I think it may be easier to read this book now, when they are all available than when anxious readers were awaiting publication. Now you can enjoy this for what it is and not be upset that you'll have to wait again to hear news of Isabeau.

The Forbidden Land is a fresh, compelling book in the middle of a series. Forsyth switches the perspective and action to center around Finn, the banpronnsa of the MacRuriach clan. Finn was introduced in book two, the Pool of Two Moons, as a street child and accomplished thief. Discovered to be the long-lost daughter of the Prionnsa of Rurach, stolen by the former Banrigh Maya to ensure the loyalty of the clan, she is taken back to her ancestral home to be united with her family.

But a girl raised on the streets, living by her wits, who has even played an important role in the rebellion, finds the constraints of court life rather tame. So she is more than happy to leave when the Righ's spies, travelling in their guise of a caravan of entertainers, ask for her help with a secret mission. All she has to do is sail to an enemy country, through the sea which is infested with sea-serpents and the sea race of Fairgean that wants all humans dead, climb hundreds of feet up an impregnable fortress, rescue an old, frail, maimed prophet, and sail back. Maybe not the easiest thing in the world, but it apparently beats embroidery.

Lachlan's plans to restore the banprionnsa Efrida to her throne continue, and I think this is the book where I started to feel real respect for him.
The war with the Bright Soldiers from Tirsollier continues, but is beginning to turn. The Tirsollierian people are ruled by a theocracy which enforces belief in their religion, expects its people to worship multiple times each day, and to dress in somber colors, without ornamentation, despite the predeliction of its aristocracy to array themselves in gaudy clothing and jewels.

While the politics of the Tirsollierian are undoubtably meant to make us think of Christianity, what's refreshing about Forsyth is that she doesn't demonize them. The Coven, and all the people of Eileanan who revere Ea, Who is in all things, believe fervently that everyone should be free to make their own choices and to have beliefs that they may not share. This makes them seem so much more noble than when authors hiss and spit and rail at the oppression of the Church.

This fourth book, though a departure of sorts, was so compelling that I almost couldn't put it down and read through it much faster than any of the others. Also, just because it's about Finn, and not about Isabeau, does not mean that you can skip it. The story definately progresses through this book to the next, the Skull of the World.

I've been searching, trying to find out about the fourth (and supposedly final) book in The Witches of Eileanan series.
There IS a fourth but it is not about our cherished main characters at all. It's about Finn. I believe this book does not detract from but only enhances the book that follows.
I have also found there will be six books altogether. (A far cry from not knowing when I started my quest for knowledge whether the fourth book had even been written, to find the fifth available and the sixth on the way). I can't wait 'til tomorrow to purchase the rest.
The whole series has taken me on a deep, mystical adventure that I am loathe to let go of.

... however frustrating it may be not to finish the story of Isabeau in the previous books. This is not to say that you shouldn't read the others in the series before this one (I highly recommend that) but you could still slip into the world of Eileanan with ease. But now, who knows how long this series could be? I went into the book a little peeved that I had waited so long to read a book about a side-character (I've followed the Witches of Eileanan series from the begining), but I was taken over by Kate Forsyth's masterful writing-- I completely forgot my frustration and wound myself in the novel. Of all the side-story books I've read, this one is the best. I highly recommend it.

[Also recommended for this type of medieval-ish fantasy: Patricia McKillip... she writes like a tapestry! Try her first book, Forgotten Beasts of Eld :]

I really wanted to like the book. I had read the previous 3 with great enjoyment and was excited to see a sequel. However, while the book made for some light reading, I did not find it up to the usual level of Ms. Forsyth's writing. It was nice to see the character of Finn develop, but there is a jump of a number of years, and not much filled in about the time not seen. I found the adventure lively, but somewhat disconnected. I also was pleased to hear that Isabeau would be back in the next book, but unhappy to realize that this may be the start of several sequels that are not up to the standard of the original trilogy. I have noted this with several series I am reading and am in general not pleased with the trend toward poor writing to answer the question of "but what happened next?"

If a book was a kiss, this would be a breif, unexpected peck on the lips with perfect timing that just leaves you perfectly content. 'The Forbidden Land', 4th book in The Witches of Eileanan Series by Kate Forsyth, proves to be more worthy of 5 stars than its prequel 'The Cursed Towers', even when the novel is lacking the main character of the series!! The Forbidden Land is mostly geared at Finn the Cat, who has grown up into an incredibley complex young woman starving for freedom from the dismal life of being a dowager banprionnsa of the MacRurach clan. Finn's seeking and climbing skills are desperatley needed by the Righ to recover a 'treasure' in the independent part of Eileanan known as The Bright Lands. A band of gypsy like people known as jongluers, who are close to the Righ, bring her to the task and set out to sea to seek the mysterious 'treasure'. At first I was a little skeptic about the novel being taken from the lesser characters' perspective, with a complete lacking of the heroine Isabeau. But by the first 3 chapters I pretty much forgot all about Isabeau being so consummed in Finn and the new story! It was a short novel, but captured a lot of Kate Forsyth's quality points in her writing skills, including how she can use words to show the reader and not just tell the reader. Her use of cultures (among other things) really bring this out. This is the first book in the series where you really get to know more about the Tirsoillerean people and their dogmatic ways. Understanding the enemy and having empathy for them is key to making a belivable enemy and such a good fantasy series and Kate Forsyth does this brilliantly. And what is an adventure at sea without some Fairgean, eh!? This new extension of the story cleans up some things and adds hope to the Fairgean wars. ~~Miranda

The most annoying thing about these books is that the author writes in a brogue that is really over done in some parts and not bad in others. The story line is really solid, but the writing leaves something to be desired.

When I read the back of this book, I was surprised. I expected a continuation of the story that I had read thus far in the first three books in this series, something along the same lines of what I had already read. While this did continue the story, it was different from what I was expecting, focusing on one character, Finn, rather than on all of them.

As I read the story, I got caught up in what was happening, but at the beginning of the book, it felt a little bit like a cop out. I couldn't help but feeling that Forsyth knew she needed to wrap up the other lose ends that she had left open, but that she wasn't sure how she wanted to do most of it, so she just focused on one thing, one small set of characters. It was a little frustrating.

The author's note in the back of the book assures readers that Isabeau will return in the next novel, which takes place at the same time as this book. I can't help but wonder why, if they're taking place at the same time, it wasn't interspersed in one (or two) books, moving between the story lines, as she had done in the first three books.

I think that the one thing that saved this book for me was that it focused on Finn, who was my favorite minor character in books two and three. I was glad to see her get a bigger roll and I enjoyed learning more about her. That made it more bearable to have to wait to find out what was happening with Isabeau, Iseult, and Lachlan.

Because of the single-minded focus on one storyline, ignoring the other things that I knew had to be happening at the same time, this is my least favorite of the books in this series thus far.

The other problem that I had with this book was the lack of a map in the front. I wanted one with the other books in the series too, but this one focuses on them traveling and I was so confused as to where they were going, or even what direction they were going. I kept trying to picture where the various mentioned mountain ranges, seas, marshes, etc. were, but I was unable to, and it was frustrating. I'm a big believer in having maps in all books that are set on imaginary worlds.

That said, there were things about this book that I liked. As I said above, I enjoyed the further development of Finn as a character. I also liked a lot of the other characters, and how it was shown that the Fairgean weren't just the evil, scheming faeries that they had been made out to be. I loved learning more about the Nix. I liked how some of the other characters grew in power and discovered what they were capable of doing.

By the end, I was satisfied with the story and how it related to the rest of the series when some of the other characters made an appearance at the end of the book. I can sort-of see Forsyth's logic in focusing just on Finn's story, because it was complicated and involved a lot of traveling and character development. Perhaps interweaving the other storyline with it would have made things unnecessarily complicated. Still, I felt a little cheated that I didn't get to read about some of the other characters that I had grown to love.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed the first three books in the series.

As others have already said, I was too, disappointed to not be reading further of Isabeau and the Firemaker. Which is the main reason for only four stars and not five. Although this portion of the series only remotely deals with Lachlan and Iseult, it does answer many questions about Finn and the League of the Healing Hand. However, the book does follow/parallel the same plotline of uniting Eileanan under the banner of peace that Lachlan and Iseult have been struggling to obtain for the last three books. Can't wait to read Skull, inorder to get back to the twins and Isabeau!

As an anthropologist and pagan, I was highly impressed with Forsyth's development of the religious differences between those of the pagan tradition (polythiestic) and those of a Jewdeo-Christian type tradition (monothiestic). I have been overwhelmed with her display of research and thoughtfulness. From the research of euro-pagan belief and traditions, to what the effect of having two moons would do to the high/low tides of the oceans, to the cultures of the spine of the world and those of the coven, to the different beliefs of monothiestic and polythiestic religions and how the people of these religions would interact with eachother. Praise to Kate Forsyth for puting more thought into her novels than many authors today; the planning here with Eileanan, is remenicent of Tolkin's planning and thought through Middle-Earth. (I don't mean to imply that this is equivalent to Middle-Earth, because they are in two entirely separate classes of fantasy/fiction.)

I highly recomend the entire series of Eileanan!

The Forbidden Land was exciting, enthrilling and inspiring. It was well written the plot takes many twists and turns whilst following the life of the main character Finn the Cat.

Having just read the fifth book, I am happy to know this series will not drag on forever and will be finishing with the sixth book.