Customer Reviews

Fortress of Eagles

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book follows the action of "Fortress in the Eye of Time" and marches forward into a new series of unknown length: "Fortress of Owls" and "Fortress of Dragons" follow, and it doesn't end there, so we may have to wait a year or two to get the ending! Fortunately Cherryh writes fast, and we probably will not have to wait as long as we will for the conclusion of Jordan's "Wheel of Time".

Without going into all the Cherryhshly complex history of the world, the situation at the end of "Eye" was pretty much like this. One of the chief protagonists is Cefwyn, newly the king of Ylesuin, his father having died in the course of "Eye". The political situation in his realm is something like 14th-century Britain or France: that is to say that he is not one of those absolute rulers of later centuries, but is trying to reign over a large number of largely autonomous lords who are continually plotting with and against each other and with whom he has to practically renegotiate his sovereignty every time he turns around. Across the river from Ylesuin is Elwynor, to whose young queen, Ninevrise, Cefwyn is betrothed. Most of her realm is in the hands of rebels hostile to Ylesuin, however, as a result of the sorcerous conflict recounted in "Eye". Cefwyn must unify his realm, wage war on the Elwynoran rebels, and restore Ninevrise to her throne. This task will take at least four volumes (depending on how many volumes will follow "Dragons").

Cefwyn's most loyal and problematic ally is Tristen, who is not "of woman born," but a "Shaping" created by Mauryl the wizard (now deceased), raised to adulthood in a few months' time, and still largely naive about the stuff of human life. Tristen is thoroughly good and innocent, but is likely to be the reincarnation of a dangerous wizard-lord of the past. Of course he has magic running out of his ears, and in "Eye" was mainly on hand to blast the evil sorcerous revenant Hasufin by indescribable means.

I read "Fortress in the Eye of Time" a few years ago, and am only now catching up with the sequels. I'll be very honest here: I didn't like "Eye of Time" all that much. The hero who is weak, the flawed, innocent, crippled hero, the hero who is not quite what we think of as human, the fool-as-hero: this is a common theme in Cherryh's work, but I found Tristen a bit overdrawn for my taste in "Eye". And then there is the whole theme of the newbie wizard who discovers how to defeat the powers of Evil just by Discovering Who He Is, without having to do any work hardly - a theme which is a cliche' in the Fantasy genre, and a cliche' which is just not to my taste.

In my view, however, the pace and tone of "Eagles" and the succeeding volumes (well, "Owls" anyway, which I've read) are much different from "Eye of Time", AND are an improvement on it. Gone is the breathless urgency of "Eye", punctuated by battles and megamagic attacks and wizards' duels. The pace has become MUCH slower, much more deliberate. Now we have embarked on a political and military campaign which will take months and months to complete in the world of Ylesuin, and several volumes (years) to describe in our own world.

And Cherryh is going to describe it all to us very painstakingly, making very clear to us all the considerations that King Cefwyn and Lord Tristen and their servants and vassals both loyal and treacherous are going to have to deal with. The complex loyalties of blood, state, feudal allegiance, and sect are going to be explained to us in detail. Of course anyone familiar with Cherryh knows that NOBODY does as well creating a complex world as she. We will also hear about their horses, their letters, their accounts, their grain, their boats, their weather. We are boating down a long, meandering river through a majestic landscape, as it were, and Cherryh is NOT going to spoil it by moving too fast.

Furthermore, the direct clash of wizardries has been pulled considerably back from center stage. Tristen's actions are now much more those of the Lord of Ynefel and Althalen than those of an incomprehensible sorcerous wild card, as compared with "Eye". He is more mature and more aware: still morally innocent, but much less alien to us. I find this an improvement. Cherryh's only flaw is a slight tendency to make her protagonists so convincingly alien that we can't identify with them or even understand what the hell they are up to. She avoids this in the Chanur/Merchanter volumes, but you see it in the "Faded Sun" volumes and "Serpent's Reach" for example. And there is a little of this in the Tristen of "Eye", but with "Eagles" we get a much more "reader-friendly" Tristen.

It comes down to a matter of taste. If you really really liked "Fortress in the Eye of Time", then you may not like "Eagles" and its successor volumes of unknown number nearly as much. They ARE different: much slower, less wizardry, less general weirdness, more political intrigue, more detail, and there's no telling how long the river is going to be. But these are exactly the reasons I like the successor "Fortress" volumes better. I appreciate the scope and precision of the work Cherryh is now undertaking. Its only drawback, I'm afraid, is that it's not done yet.

C.J. Cherryh has done it again. I was mesmorized by Fortress in the Eye of Time, and this book has lived up to its predecessor. It is a little slower, but it must be remembered that it covers a very brief expanse of time.

Cherryh's inclusion of the political and religious rivalries of the north, while annoying, are a necessary evil. Our own world is wrought with politics and politicians. Why would another world of Man be any different? Politics are a fact of life, and they do get in the way of doing what is right very often.

This book focuses on the development of Tristen as a Man, yet he continues to be more than a man, a Shaping. It amazes me how Cherryh can convince me of Tristen's continued innocence even while finally beginning to come to his own. Tristen is forced to make some difficult decisions, but it becomes clearer and clearer (to me, if not to him) that he was meant to rule as he becomes more and more comfortable with the use of his extraordinary magical abilities.

I highly recommend this book and this series to anyone that has the patience to watch the transformation of this poweful character. He has much to teach Ylesuin and more to teach us as readers.

With the battle won in the previous book, and Cefwyn seated upon the throne of Ylesuin, Cefwyn undertakes to rule his new kingdom. However, many things are not what they seem. Cefwyn's barons scheme against him, the Quinatine church stands against his friends, and strange things are happening. So, the king sends his friends off to safety, and begins scheming his own way through the morass. Situations turn, and new enemies and crises are encountered at every turn.

I liked the story in this book. Within, you can see that Tristen is in many ways a child learning about the world around him, and how it really works. At times the author brings you to the edge of your seat, and makes you care for the characters. Unfortunately, this book has the feel of a bridge, one connecting the previous book to the next. That is, however, my only complaint. This is a very good book indeed.

Once again Cherryh brings to life the idea of time as fluid, rather than set. Anyone who loved Fortress in the Eye of Time or her Morgaine series will love this book. I like how Tristan is a man, yet the opposite of Man. Where Man cannot physically shift through space, but can mentally remember the past and forecast the possible futures - Tristan has been brought physically from the past and has no mental history to easily remember and thus does not have the ability to forecast the future possibilities either. It is a fascinating juxtaposition, and fits well with his innocence and yet knowledge. The only reason I do not give this book 5 stars is because it does not really end, but continues on in the next 2 books. Without an end to look back from, it is difficult to judge.

Fortress of Eagles (1998) is the second fantasy novel in the Fortress series, following Fortress in the Eye of Time. In the previous volume, Cefwyn, Ninevrise and Tristen led an army from the Southern provinces against the Elwynim rebels in Amefel. During the slow march, Tristen finally discovered how to read the book given him by Mauryl Gestaurien and learned something of the nature of the gray space.

As the Elwynim rebels under Aseyneddin ambushed the Ylesuin column at Lewenbrook, a great Shadow assaulted the vanguard. Tristen rode directly into the light at the center of this Shadow, carrying the magic blade he had created, and slashed the spirit of Hasufin Heltain. Defeated, yet still not dead, Hasufin withdrew from the battlefield. Afterward, Uwen called back Tristen from the gray space and they rejoined the survivors.

In this novel, Cefwin returns to Guelessar with Ninevrise and Tristen. The Guelenfolk who had been at Lewenbrook bring back strange tales of sorcery directed against their king. Of course, the Northern Barons hadn't been there, so they disbelieve the talk of magical forces, but they hear enough about Tristen to fear him.

The Quinalt priests are upset at having a Sihhe Lord among them. The Quinalt Patriarch complains that Tristen is using magic to have the pigeons make a mess on his portico. Then someone introduces a Sihhe coin in the harvest offering and lightning blasts a hole in the roof of the Quinaltine. The Patriarch comes to Cefwyn to complain of sorcery.

Cefwyn becomes exceedingly angry with the Quinalt Patriarch and forcibly reminds the priest of his grandfather's attitude toward the Quinalt Hierarchy. The Patriarch, who is a political priest, gains a healthy fear of the rage of his King, but his priests defy him to force a confrontation. So Cefwyn invests Tristen with the Duchy of Amefel and sends him back to Henas'amef. Emuin decides to return to Amefel with Tristen.

In this story, Tristen feels the need to travel quickly to his duchy. When the farrier wagon breaks down, Tristen decides to leave the wagons to travel at their own pace and rides ahead with his Dragon Guard in Ivanim style, each with only a horse and a remount. They reach Henas'amef in two days, only to find that an Amefin earl has taken over part of the Zeide.

The Guelen Guard under the Viceroy has occupied another part of the Zeide containing the spring and food stores. Yet the rebels are holding the King's Herald. Tristen has his men declare his identity and estate and, when the rebels fail to respond, leads the attack over the wall against the rebels. Tristen drives them back through the Zeide and out the eastern side until the rebels are surrounded by his men and finally surrender.

The Lord Viceroy is a hindrance from the moment Tristen enters the fortress. After he orders his Guard to kill the Amefin prisoners, Tristen banishes the Viceroy from the province. When he takes Liss, Uwen's newly purchased mount, Tristen reaches through the gray space and wills Liss to buck off the Viceroy and to come back to the Zeide. The horse returns with some interesting things in the saddlebags, including a message that Tristen forwards to Idrys to show the King.

This story shows the further development of Tristen as a leader of men as well as a user of magic. Moreover, it shows more about the plans that Tristen and his friends have disrupted. And then there is the puzzling murder in the Zeide archives; just what had been removed from the wall cavity and burned?

The jacket illustration puzzles me. Obviously the characters portrayed therein are Cefwyn, Ninevrise and Tristen, but these three did not ride together in this novel. The horse armor would seem more appropriate to the previous volume, but Tristen was not the Duke of Amelfin at that time nor would he be carrying the Amelfel standard. Artists!

Once again, the author uses her almost unique style of plot development to lend suspense to this story. Her style makes every story a mystery, with each new incident coming as a surprise to the characters and readers. While the plot itself is not unique, the evolution of the plotlines is most unusual. And this story is not yet complete!

Highly recommended for Cherryh fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of high magic, feudal intrigue and magical Unfolding.

-Arthur W. Jordin

There is no need to repeat all those praises Cherryh has received already, especially concerning her skill of creating believable worlds and sketching convincing characters.

Though Fortress of Eagles is a sequel and these lines may therefore be a bit late, it should nonetheless be mentioned that Cherryh has had predecessors. I do not want to write an essay on all the roots modern fantasy has, but still I am quite surprised no one has mentioned the strong parallels of the very story of Tristen's with Katherine Kurtz's Deryny universe. There is f.e. the existence of magic within a medieval world, the conflict between orthodoxy and magic and the fight for power within a feudal, almost utterly Anglo-Saxon society. Of course Fortress of Eagles is about good v. evil (it is still fantasy), but since Tristen's rise to ducal honors it is not the absolute evil the hero has to fight but the evil of every man's life, insofar again quite similar with Kurtz. So why 5 stars?

Simply because besides all the aforementioned skills every page is breathing authenticity in an up to now unknown scale. Never before I have read f.e. about the necessity of oxcarts and their tactical influence on medieval warfare or about the scale of a royal household, lest the behavior of horses in such detail and knowledge.

It is a commonplace that a splendid scholar does not necessarily turn up a splendid writer. Having read almost every available book of hers, I have no doubts that Cherryh's erudition will be the source of reader's future delight.

I picked up this book on the day of the WTC attacks. I needed some pulp fantasy to put me to sleep, or else I was going to have nightmares. Instead, what I found was a well drawn plot, with complex characters. Cherryh definitely did a good job of drawing me into her world, and helping me to forget about mine. The author certainly seems to be going for more than quick dollars in this novel, and her blurring of the lines between good and evil is quite a refreshing change. It's good escapism, and a worthwhile read for any fantasy fan.

The problem with this book is that it is not complete. It is nowhere near complete. By its end, we are only given the opening stage of the next arc of story of Tristen of Ynefel. This book is the first book in the trilogy that is the sequel of Fortress in the Eye of Time. It is well written, and our hero is not quite as clueless as the last book. I awaits eagerly for Fortress of Dragon, and Fortress of Owls.

I thoroughly enjoyed this sequel to Fortress in the Eye of Time. Fortress of Eagles is intelligently written, contains a good balance of humor and drama, and does a great job of continuing the characters' development from the first book. I recommend it to people who liked Fortress in the Eye of Time with very few reservations, though I'm not sure what someone would make of it who hadn't read that book. My only real complaint: too short. I almost got the impression it was the first half of a much longer book--the ending didn't quite feel like an ending. But I'll try to be patient and wait for the other books....

So many words to cover so brief a span of time. A time of great tumult in Guelessar, to be sure. And so many faiths for so small a land! The ongoing religious intrigues among Quinaltine, Bryaltine, and Teranthine do become a bit vexing. (I keep expecting the appearance of the Ovaltine, and their elliptical doctrines.)