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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
deceptive authorship, August 8, 2009
It's one thing to have a book co-written by two authors. It's one thing, perhaps, to have a book ghost written for some famous person who has never written a book and is telling their story to a ghost writer -- though even those people are often honest enough to indicate the book is 'told to' in the authorship.
But it is quite another to have an author who has written many books have someone else write a series authored under her name, copyrighted originally under her name and sold with the assumption that they are solely the author's work. I never could understand why I could never read anything but the first couple of pages of any of MZB's 'light' series before putting them down, convinced that age really had destroyed her writer's voice. Turns out I had a reason to think that as they were not written by her.
I remember purchasing the 'light' series in hardback because I had loved the authors other works and wanted to give them a chance. And being so puzzled not just at how bad they were, for I had read all her early pulp works and knew she could be clumsy at plotting and rushed and sloppy in finalizing manuscripts, but shocked at how they had nothing of her voice or intrinsic themes. After you have read dozens of an author's books, you know the authors voice, style and themes. They were missing here.
Now apparently, the truth is out that these books now have another person's name on the copyright, (though my original copies, bought when they were first published, have MZB) and this is the person who actually wrote them.
I look at the dust jackets, which proclaim "written by the author of the Mists of Avalon" and have MZB's name on them and nothing of this other person, who did more than "prepare the manuscripts for publication" as MZB writes in one forward, and I really think both TOR who published them and MZB are guilty of both fraud and deception. All it would have taken to be honest would have been to put the other author's -- call her co author if you like -- name on the books. I wouldn't have bought them -- I hate collaborative works, they usually are terrible -- but most people probably would have. I wonder at the sheer fraud involved in this practice and how what was done can be legal. I feel like I deserve my money back.
All I can say is if you are looking for books by MZB, don't buy this series. And you might not want to buy any of her books at all. By condoning this fraud, she certainly didn't show any respect or honesty toward her readers in her later years. And this is from a former fan of her work.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Get the Whole Set, November 24, 2000
This review is from: Ghostlight (Paperback)
It's too late for me to read HEARTLIGHT first because I didn't find out that it existed until after I'd read GHOSTLIGHT, WITCHLIGHT, and GRAVELIGHT. I've never gotten around to reading my copy of MISTS OF AVALON, so I won't be making comparisons. My previous acquaintance with Ms. Bradley's writing was with her earlier Darkover novels. Yes, Truth is almost as annoying as The X-Files' Scully when it comes to denying the existence of magic. Yes, Truth often acts about as dim-witted as many gothic romance heroines were back when heroines were expected to be innocent and helpless. Yes, there were times when I wanted to reach into the book and shake her and scream out the obvious truths she was missing, but... This was still a gripping novel. I didn't suspect the whole truth about Thorne Blackburn's fate. I loved the house and its grounds. The occult trappings were very interesting. The characters came alive for me and I found myself impatiently waiting for each new twist to be revealed. One final note: My compliments to Carol Russo and Mark Hess. I LOVE a cover that accurately portrays the characters and surroundings in the book. Don't let its beautiful serenity fool you. This book is far from serene.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
still excellent after all these years, June 8, 2008
I read this years ago, and recently re-read it. It's always interesting to read a book you loved in the past to see if your perceptions or tastes have changed. In this case, I still enjoyed it immensely.
Truth Jourdemayne is the daughter of notorious psychic con-artist Thorne Blackburn, who started an occult movement in the 60s and who killed her mother during one of his rituals, then disappeared.
So she's dedicated her life to showing the truth about such things, scientifically, and put the past, and her father, behind her.
But now she's been asked to write her father's biography, and her aunt Caroline gives her Thorne's grimoire, and Truth decides it's time to go back to Shadow's Gate and write the true story.
When she gets there, she discovers a cult trying to recreate her father's work, and everything becomes much more confusing.
I think I liked this so much because I'm a huge sucker for gothics. The creepy old house, the intrepid heroine, the two men--one good, one evil, but you don't find out until the end which is which, and the whole air of mystery.
The twists and turns in this one were both surprising and logical, and I was sucked right in. I really enjoyed Truth--sure she knows what's real, desperate to distance herself from her father, but deep down even more desperate to know her father and for him to be someone she can love and admire.
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