Customer Reviews

Hawkmistress!

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I loved reading this book!!! The heroine doesn't like being a "lady". She loves working with the animals and helping with outside things rather than being inside. Her "gift" is a rare kind of laran, to feel the emotions of animals and what they are thinking.

She travels in the disguise of a boy and everyone believes that's just what she is. A boy with a very special talent. Helping a group of men with some birds, a kind of bird where if you link your mind with it you can see through it's eyes, she learns that a war is starting to take effect. Adventure is teeming everywhere and she enters places that no other girl, or woman could enter. But her gift isn't always good. Sometimes she feels too much and sometimes she could almost loose control on what's human ... and what's animal.

This is one of my favorite books in the MZB series and it's a wonderful read.

Hawkmistress is one of Bradley's Darkover series and one of the best. This is the story of a woman's liberation from a male dominated society intent on marrying her to an undesirable match. Escaping from her family she roams Darkover enroute to battling usurpers and earning fame as a swordwoman.

Hawkmistress! is valuable to Darkover fans as part of the history of the Swordswomen/Renunciates and as a tale of one of the more unusual forms of laran to be mentioned.

However, since I had just finished reading Stormqueen! (IMHO, the best of the series), almost anything would have disappointed me at that point. And I just couldn't warm up to Romily the way I did to Renata Leynier or Magda Lorne (my two favorite Darkover heroines). My original impulse was to post a three-star review, but the book did improve on re-reading, so four stars it is.

I didn't stop reading this book till I'd finished it (literaly) the next morning. This is the age old tale of a woman who shows that she can be an equal in a male dominated world. Quite insperational!

This book is set in one of the earlier time periods of Darkover: The Ages of Chaos. The heroine of this novel is a girl named Romilly. Romilly MacAran is the daughter of an important family. She has her family's gift of laran: the ability to intuitively feel what animals are feeling, thus making it easier to work with them. In particular, this laran is used with hawks and horses (her family is known for the MacAran gift with hawks). Because of the strained family dynamic, more pressure is put in Romilly than otherwise might have been. The eldest son left home to train his laran in a Tower, and this enraged Mikhail MacAran (so much so that mention of laran or the eldest son's name was forbidden). The heir was a disappointment to Mikhail and he wished that Romilly was a man. Mikhail tried to push Romilly into a marriage with someone that she found disgusting and unacceptable. Instead of accepting the marriage, she ran away from home.

Romilly disguises herself as a man. This era of Darkover is extremely patriarchal and women have few rights in society. Romilly meets up with Dom Carlo and his exile band who are joining the army of the exiled King Carolin. Though her travels she is learning who she is and who she wants to be. Romilly also gets to experience some of the prejudice Darkover society presents women. For a brief while, she also joins the Sisterhood of the Sword, a female/warrior society. Even while we learn about Romilly we also see more of Darkover and what the society is like.

This is a feminist novel in the characterization of Romilly and how she reacts to the men (and world) of Darkover. It is also a very good novel. It goes in a different direction from Stormqueen (another novel set in the Ages of Chaos), but is just as rich and just as good. Darkover is one of the better fanstay worlds and Marion Zimmer Bradley is an excellent writer. Most, if not all, of the Darkover novels are self-contained, so it is not necessary to read them in any particular order. Just pick one up and give it a try. I haven't been disappointed by this series yet.

This darkover novel is my personal favourite in the entire darkover series, it involves a daughter of the MacArran clan, who has the laran of the MacArran clan as a help or hindrance on her adventure. Her father refuses to send her to a tower to have her laran trained, and then tries to marry her against her will. Read the book to find out more! It's a good read

I have recently gotten reaquainted with the Darokover novels and found myself very taken with this book. It has a lot of elements that make it a good read: a heroine who has a great power and is able to work with what she has and in various situations; the idea of working within an animal's mind and being one with it; the fact that using weapons which hurt innocents is immoral; trying to stay neutral in a war but how you may need to choose sides eventually. With a lot of adventure in between, to me, this book is great for Darkover fans.

Five stars with a bullet; considering some of the books that I've given five stars to, I wish I could give this one six. This is one of the best of a very fine writer's works; Bradley created a very in-depth world in which many of her books were set; this is a marvellous coming-of-age story of a young woman finding her place in a world that did not, as a matter of course, recognize the value of her skills when they appeared in a woman. A very powerful feminist statement without being preachy or radical, the characters are all very well-handled, very human, very real. This is one of my 10 or 20 favorite books of all time.

The main character is a young girl, forced to step away from her family because she can not conform to what is expected of a young woman. She has an amazing ability to communicate with hawks and horses, called "laren", and begins a quest to find others like her. She also searching for a brother, who also could not conform to their father's wishes. In the beginning of her journey, she disguises herself as a man, but still trouble finds her along the way. This is a very believable character, and reading it as a young woman, I can't help but relate to the pressures that come as you get older. If you like horses, this is also a book for you. I also highly recommend "The Wolf Experiments" by Carey Borgens. Both of these book depict a strong female character, a journey of discovery. While Hawkmistress is more of a medieval fantasy, The Wolf Experiments is a Science Fiction. These titles are well written and keep you on the edge of your seat.

Romilly MacAran is hitting puberty. Not only does that mean the usual mood swings and hormone surges, but also the surges of Romilly's awakening laran. Romilly has the MacAran gift of rapport with animals in full measure. Her overbearing father, Dom Mikhail, loves her as his favorite, but will not bend in his views of what is right in their society; that women should stay at home and embroider while men work with hawks and hounds. Mikhail also does not believe in tower training to control laran, and Romilly's beloved older brother, Ruyven, also strongly gifted with laran, fled home to take a place as laranzu in Tramontana tower against his father's wishes.

Romilly is unhappy under her father's autocratic rule, (as is her other older brother who is ironically berated for not having the family laran) but is hopeful until her father gives away her prized hawk and pledges her hand in marriage to a fat, greasy, older lord who has already lost multiple wives in childbirth. Romilly cuts her hair, puts on boy's clothes, and takes to the forest. She has many adventures and gets embroiled in the battle to restore the rightful Hastur King to the throne of Darkover, a battle in which she unsurprisingly plays a major part.

Romilly is very like Menolly from Anne McCaffrey's DRAGONSONG books. She is very sensitive and talented, subjected to emotional abuse (and a little physical abuse by her family-especially her father) and she suffers from low self-esteem. Her feelings of injustice are keenly felt and heart-rending. She grows and matures as she comes into her talent and is instrumental in helping a respected surrogate father figure. I first read this book as a teen, and found the angst and righteous indignation of Romilly tore at my heart. It still does. Would highly recommend this, especially to teen girls.