Marion Zimmer Bradley's Ancestors of Avalon [Hardcover]

Diana L. Paxson (Author), Marion Zimmer Bradley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 17, 2004

Once again, Diana L. Paxson has beautifully elaborated on Marion Zimmer Bradley’s beloved Avalon saga with this dramatic new installment, which for the first time reveals the past of the ancestors of Avalon, from their beginnings on the doomed island of Atlantis to their escape to the mist-shrouded isle of Britain. It follows the extraordinary journey of two powerful women whose destinies will shape the fates of their physical and spiritual descendants: Tiriki, a high priestess exiled by the fall of Atlantis, torn between the claims of love and duty, and Damisa, a young acolyte of royal blood, tempted by ambition to forsake her spiritual path.

Hints of this mysterious past have haunted all the novels of Avalon, but until now the full sweep of this rich history has not been revealed. Dramatic, peopled with the remarkable women who have always inhabited Avalon, and set in a world of enchantment that will sweep readers to a richly imagined time and place, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Ancestors of Avalon is another spectacular epic that is sure to please Bradley’s many ardent readers.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

In this pre-pre-pre-prequel to The Mists of Avalon (1982), a kingdom sinks into the sea--but the spirit of a deceased author appears to rise again. Paxson, who completed Bradley's Priestess of Avalon (2001) after the widely revered novelist died in 1999, fashions an entirely new entry in the Avalon saga, one that telescopes the evocative notion that the otherworldly forces supporting Arthur were remnants of Atlantis. The curtain opens on an Atlantean island just prior to its destruction; most of the novel, however, is set among refugees of the doomed kingdom who make landfall in pre-Christianity Britain. Parallel stories unfold as two lovers separated during the cataclysm, the priest Micail and the priestess Tiriki, establish two settlements and struggle with the need to adjust to a new environment (with native peoples playing a major role) while still honoring their lost civilization's spiritual legacy. The colonies develop in opposing directions, mirroring Bradley's primary thematic interests: the (typically male) desire to compete and conquer versus the gentler impulses associated with goddess worship. Paxson's storytelling features the requisite veins of mysticism, but, like Bradley, she excels at bringing the vast sweep of imagined history to an accessible level, as when the refugees of sun-drenched Atlantis struggle to acclimate to Britain's notoriously dismal weather. A rich and respectful homage that will dazzle readers longing to revisit Bradley's sacred, storied isle. Jennifer Mattson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

Monumental ... a deeply moving and at times uncanny experience... An impressive achievement. )The New York Times Book Review)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; 1ST edition (June 17, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670033146
• ISBN-13: 978-0670033140
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,180,346 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was brought up in southern California, but came north to attend Mills College and never left. I got my M.A. in (medieval) Comparative Literature from the University of California in 1966, the same year I put on the first tournament of what was to become the Society for Creative Anachronism. Since 1971 I've lived at Greyhaven, a hundred-year old house in Berkeley, with successive generations of family, friends, cats and dogs.

It's a literary family, including my husband, Jon DeCles, and the late Marion Zimmer Bradley, who was my mentor as a writer as well as colleague in founding Darkmoon Circle. My first published novel was Mistress of the Jewels, which began the chronicles of Westria. After I had written several historical fantasies, Marion, whose health deteriorated after she wrote Mists of Avalon, asked me to help her with The Forest House, which is how I ended up writing the Avalon series.

Much of the spiritual experience in my novels comes out of my work in the pagan community. I have now begun to publish that material in a series of non-fiction books, the most recent being Trance-Portation. My most recent novel is Sword of Avalon, set at the end of the Bronze Age, which gave me an opportunity to explore the end of the Homeric Age and the techniques of bronze- and iron-forging.

For more about my work, see:

www.westria.org
www.avalonbooks.net
www.seidh.org

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Unnecessary may be the kindest thing I can say for this book, October 22, 2004

By 

Ashley Megan "amazonfox" (Vernon, CT United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Marion Zimmer Bradley's Ancestors of Avalon (Hardcover)

The world of fantasy lost a great voice when Marion Zimmer Bradley died. Her protégé and collaborator, Diana Paxson, deserves credit for trying to keep that voice alive.

Now please, don't ever do it again.

There is so much wrong with "Ancestors of Avalon" I don't even know where to begin. How about the fact that the book is entirely unnecessary? From veiled hints and glimpses of past incarnations, astute readers will have already managed to piece together a pretty good idea of how the vows of Deoris and Domaris, the two sisters from "Fall of Atlantis," shaped the world and lineage of Avalon. Why, then, do we need to hear the specifics of how the Atlantean refugees built Stonehenge, or settled at the Tor? Short answer: We don't. Long answer: We don't, and thanks a lot for boring us with it anyway.

Then there's Paxson's writing style, which is unfortunately so inferior to MZB's that I had to go back and read "Fall of Atlantis" just to cleanse the bad taste out of my mouth. Every sentence is either ridiculously expository or hopelessly vague. And the exclamation points! So annoying! Like a ninth-grader's email! Furthermore, the story just DOESN'T MAKE SENSE. I'm sorry, but Micail and Tiriki end up the equivalent of three towns over from each other, but they don't find each other for FIVE YEARS?

Speaking of the characters, most are so poorly drawn that at times I literally could not remember whether certain characters were even male or female. And far from MZB's wonderfully nuanced and conflicted portrayals of, say, Riveda or Lancelot, here all we get are cartoons. In Paxon's Avalon, anyone who was rich and privileged in Atlantis will invariably become a power-mad egomaniac bent on exploiting the British natives, while her "good-hearted" characters love their savage brethren and rail against the injustices of their countrymen. Oh no! Damisa thinks. Will I join the clearly delineated forces of evil and enslave the natives so I can keep wearing silk and drinking decent wine, or will I become a force of truth, justice, and the Atlantean way by painting myself blue and grubbing in the muck in a thinly veiled attempt at atonement for my race's arrogance? Boooring.

If you're a fan of "Mists of Avalon" I know you think you need to read this book, but honestly, you don't, and you shouldn't. Sometimes certain things are better left unsaid, and this story is one of them.

54 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Ancestors of Avalon Should Have Stayed Buried In The Past!, August 21, 2004

By 

Kelly Houser (United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Marion Zimmer Bradley's Ancestors of Avalon (Hardcover)

When I learned that a new installment in the Avalon series was published, I was thrilled. "The Mists of Avalon" is one of my favorite novels and I have read all of Bradley's other novels in the series. Diana L. Paxson who collaberated with Bradley on one of the Avalon books, decided to take on the prequal and link Bradley's Avalon series with Bradley's Atlantis novel. She should have left both alone.

Paxson cannot write. I would go as far as to call her work drivvel. It was terrible. The chacters were unsympathetic and hollow. They contained no substance whatsoever and as a reader I could not connect with them. Their speech was all wrong as well. Paxson had the characters swearing and using modern day slang! The whole novel was contrived, poorly written and not at all inline with Bradley's previous writings.

I cannot advise anyone to read this novel, it was so poor.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars 3 stars for some effort, August 29, 2004

By 

Dukat - See all my reviews

This review is from: Marion Zimmer Bradley's Ancestors of Avalon (Hardcover)

I'm a huge MZB fan, so I had to get this. I'm really discouraged by Paxon's work. The effort to make a storyline was a good one, the result was not.

There are too many characters and it's difficult to tell them apart, they're so similiar! Part of the cast ends up in one place, the other in another. While there is a list of characters and a brief, one-line description at the beginning of the novel, it's just not nearly enough. I was reading about one girl, and I was asking myself, "Who is this? Elara? Cleta? Damisa?" They're really that indistinguishable.

The characters are also very static. The good ones do No Wrong. the bad ones are Suspects From the Start. What I enjoyed about MZB's books is that the characters were like real people--they made some bad choices, some good, some totally uncomprehensible.

AoA does explain the transition from Sun-worship (masculine) to Moon-worship (feminine), and I'll give Paxton credit for that.