Customer Reviews

RUINS OF AMBRAI (EXILES S.)

5 star:		(107)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

This book does a wonderful job of tying a lot of little plots into a cohesive whole. Three sisters seperated by various circumstances end up in three different positions of leadership with some very complex political, emotional, and power struggles between each. The interaction between each is pretty skillfully written.

The biggest positive to this book, is definitely the world Rawn has created here. We've got political parallels to Communism & Democracy. And we've got gender role reversal, a deeply Matriarchal society, instead of a Patriarchal one. As a man, I found myself repeatedly getting flustered at the treatment of men in this world, only to step back and realize it draws a very significant parallel to the treatment of women in our real world. It is a refreshingly unexpected change in a fantasy storyline.

All that aside, the book is not inherently perfect; there are a few annoyances. Rawn seems to take a few shortcuts here and there, the most annoying being a particular characters ability of super-intuition. There are parts where the characters seem to have a lapse of common sense and you're left screaming at the book, praying you could slap some thought into their heads.

Overall, a very good book. Slight annoyances, bring it down from a 5 to a 4, but still a intriguing read.

Thumbs up|down? Definitely up...

I must admit, this was the first book of Rawn's that I have ever read, and I picked it up simply because it was the thickest book on the book store shelf that I had not read yet. It is beautiful. The plot gets a little boggy at time when the author explains heritage, and a few of the name are a little too similer, but that was my only complaint. The idea of this society run completly by women is interesting, (In response to a comment placed before, women are in power because of their ability to bear children, as we find out in the next book) and Rawn carries it well in this brilliant book. The story is filled with characters you can really wrap your head (and heart) around, in particular, I found my self caring for two of them, Alin and Val, as I world my own two brothers, the love between them is something we all aspire to have one day. However, a word of warning, if you have no sense of humor this might not be a book for you, sometimes men are seen in a rather, shall we say, unique light. Also, be forwarned, if you fall in love with this series, you should know that the third is indefinatly delayed, pending the completion and release of another book by Rawn (Divination) so plan to read the two that are out over and over until they fall apart, I have!

Melanie Rawn is one of the most gifted fantasy wrtiers around becasue she can blend a complex plot with amazing characterization (of major and minor) characters without letting the plot slow down or get confusing. All her characters are human and have flaws, which makes you love them more. this series is on level with Lord of the Rings.
"Exiles: The Ruins of Ambrari" is an amazing journey into another world and political structure. In this world women are dominant in society and men are the background. It is a world of magic and power struggles.
It is the story of Sarra, Cailet, and Glenin, three sisters who are on opposite sides of a war between two different factions of Mageborn people.
Glenin is for the people who want to take over Lenfell
Sarra is working to stop her older sister Glenin
and Cailet is the most powrful mage but she is still a child
Sarra and the other Mageborn must protect her at all costs.
Melanie rawn blends politics, characters, action, mystery, and romance perfectly in this epic novel about survival and good v. evil.
Rawn also has a lot of humor especially in the romance between Sarra and Collan.
Melanie Rawn has created her best series in "Exiles" because her talent has fully awakened. Rawn has amazing skill and subtlety that immediatly captures the reader's attention!
I read "The Ruins of Ambrari" and "The Mageborn Traitor" in two days!
Melanie PLEASE finish the Third book soon!

Update 9/23/10

Rawn made an announcement on her website that due to bad sales, Spellbinder 3 will not be published and she will attempt to restart her career by going 'back to her fantasy roots' and writing a NEW trilogy. She was so badly flamed that she took down the announcement and had a sulk about the response. Details and links here on the forums to her site.

Captal's is not going to be written. Period.

I wrote this in 2007

I have just finished reading the Exiles books after 10 years, and think they are even better than the first time I read them.
That being said, I have to admit I am wondering if any author has the sheer talent and skill needed to patch up this convoluted
tale. And have it make any kind of sense.
I also wonder if it's possible to write the sequel and have it mesh after such a long hiatus.

After reading these two books, I have come to realize that Ms. Rawn will have a hard time finishing this story. She has
effectively painted herself into a creative corner. Bear with me a moment.
First and foremost, the story is getting too complicated. Where one or two major groups of families would have sufficed,
there are literally hundreds of names the beleaguered reader has to try to remember. Added to that, layers upon layers of shadings
and meanings behind every word ever uttered by one Gorynel Desse. And with all the names in the two books, I'm not exactly
sure he's the only one. Also, there are tales within tales that boggle the mind. You have the 3 sisters' history and the question of Auvry Feiran's
true reasons for going evil. There was some kind of cover up there. The divorce and all was some kind of fake maneuver to hide some other events.
Also, you have the Ganfallin revolt over 200 years ago that is tied into the current events, plus
the Malerrisi lord and the ancestor of Leninor Garvedian who were in love and tried to revolutionize the magical hierarchy. Or was
it the ancestor of Lusira, Alira Gavennos, Tragan Maifirran - huh? You see what I mean here. Not to even get started on who
actually colonized the planet of Lenfell, who started the Mage wars over a thousand years ago . . . Spaceships, anyone? There is
just too much stuff.

Second, too many characters are aged too rapidly. Cailet is just a young woman at the beginning of book 2 and in 100 or so pages
becomes middle aged, empty hearted and bitter. There is almost no fleshing out of her character. After all the time spent on her
thoughts and feelings in the first book, to be suddenly cheated of her real growth into a woman is astounding. The reader just has
to make the leap and read between her grim faced silences and acid comments to Gorsha. The same goes for Glenin, her doings are
only hinted at,and it would have been nice to get a clearer idea of what made her tick other than rigid adherence to the Malerissi
Code. Why does power mean so much to her? There are issues left unresolved with her at the end of book 1 that are not continued
in book 2, but glossed over. Certainly her relationship with her son would have fleshed out her personality more and made her
eventual choices that much more frustrating and heartbreaking. And the last sister, Sarra, becomes a robot in the service of the
government, missing out on her children's lives and feeling just about as cheated as the reader at having seen it whirl on by so
quickly. It all feels so rushed.

And worst of all is what is done with Collan. Without going into major spoilers here, all I can say is that what we are left with at
the end of book 2 is not enough. Not even close. One page of teasing phrases and almost finished sentences. Just two more words
in the right place would have given so much! Now, the explanations will need to come by way of flashbacks, or visions- if the third
book actually ever gets written. The whole mystery of his true identity is almost given, then tauntingly jerked away.

At last we are left with Ms. Rawn's 10 year and counting hiatus.
Has anyone thought of just writing the darn thing themselves? Anyone? Not even fanfic? Thought not. The truth is that it will take
a lot of talent and brain drain to get the next book to be even halfway coherent and not the total anti-climax mess it probably will be.
In fact, at one point Ms. Rawn called on her readers to help her with it. No joke, the request by her was made on her website and has
since been removed. But I remember my jaw dropping to my shoes when I read it last year. She emphatically stated that a book takes
anywhere between 1 and 5 years for her to write, not to get too exited and please not to tell her our own ideas about who Collan really
is. She just needs some help with, you know, the story and stuff like that.

Doesn't that just say it all? Even she can't keep it all straight and in fact said she needed the help to remember what happened. Having
just finished this, I can see why. Too many names, too much time gone by for both the characters and for the author.

My advice is: Don't read these books until the last book is out. The books are good enough that it is maddening wondering if and when the author
will ever finish it.

This is one of the best fantasy book series beginnings you could read, but according to Rawn, it appears as though she has moved on to other novels and will not be returning to this world to finish this great story.

It's a real shame.

I highly recommend her other fantasy series with Rohan and Sioned as the main characters as well. That series, thankfully, is completed.

This book when I got it from a friend to read I thought "I'll start to read it, and then give it back" Much to my suprise i liked it! The concept of the magic and wardings, and the way society is structured is unique, and the characters while difficult to understand at the begining very quickly grow on you, along with their strugles. This author did a wonderful job, and i can't wait for the next installment, as i have just now finished book 2 and I'm waiting on #3.

Melanie Rawn is one of the few fantasy writers trying to get away from what has been referred to as "campaign fantasy," i.e., fantasy that basically reads like an AD&D game with a bit more description, following a cast of characters whose purpose is clearly defined and the outcome fairly predictable. I can understand how many people, who have inundated themselves in modern fantasy, would dislike this change in style; it creates a broader "world view," the multiple sides being shown not being classified (as most fantasy authors, even some of the best, tend to do) as good and evil, white and black, right and wrong -- something distinctly different from those used to a vast majority of modern fantasy writers, and even a few not-so-modern ones. It is an admittedly complicated story politically -- but I don't see how people can say it is predictable! The fans of the Exiles series, as a whole, are still left entirely puzzled about key issues in the book (and sadly, will likely have to wait until 2001 for Captal's Tower (Exiles III) to come out). As well, I have noted fans of the Exiles series tend to be distinctly different than her Dragon Prince/Dragon Star novels. While both works are excellent examples of prose fantasy, and beautiful in their own right, they fall somewhat more into the mold of traditional fantasy; the plot is, while not entirely predictable, fairly linear and the characters fitting standard fantasy standards. With Exiles, though Rawn has not entirely broken the mold of modern fantasy, she is taking definite, emphatic, and excellently done steps in a new direction -- the effect is rather like comparing any biography to a Tuchman-esque work.

The Ruins of Ambrai is the first in what is supposed to be a 3-book series about a futuristic, matriarchal society on Lenfell, a planet colonized by those who had fled prejudice and persecution in the old world (Earth, I'm assuming, or that's how I thought of it). On Lenfell society is divided into classes called Tiers, and at the top of the heap are the Names, or Bloods, extensive family webs headed by women. Those who are born with magick are Mageborn, and as this story begins, Mageborns are slowly being obliterated by their own - a faction of magickal borns who use their magick for ill and known as the dreaded Malerrisi.

The story's protagonists are three Mageborn sisters - Glenin, Sarra and Cailet - who are separated early in childhood by the destruction of their home, Ambrai, and the tearing apart of their family. All three have had Wards put on them to lock their memories so that they don't know who they really are or that they even have sisters, but these blocks soon break down as the last of the dwindling Mageborns and their supporters face down the Malerissi. Glenin, who was taken by her father after the destruction of Ambrai, has had her magic twisted by hate and lust for power. Sarra and Cailet grow up ignorant of who they really are - Sarra, the First Daughter of Maichen Ambrai, and Cailet, the most powerful mageborn in centuries. As the sisters become young women, the escalating violence swirling around them inadvertently brings them face to face, and it's a showdown that sets all three on their individual paths. It's obvious that the sisters each have a destiny to fulfill in their changing world, and at the end of Ruins the reader is left with a feeling of excitement and anticipation at what's to come.

There is a sequel, The Mageborn Traitor, which I plan to read in the next few months. However, the third and final in the series, The Captal's Tower, hasn't yet been written, even though the title has been set for years and even has an ISBN # on Amazon. The author's publisher, DAW, is still waiting for it, as are the fans. Since The Mageborn Traitor was written in 1997, it's now been ten long years and I for one despair of her ever finishing it. I'll stay hopeful, though.

An interesting, though not exactly original plot runs through this story, holding the characters together in a way other books fail to do. The characters are individual and well developed, each having a background. The four main characters are displayed at the beginning, and their backgrounds are explored and explained before the main story of the book really begins, though this isn't just a boring run-through as many other authours would write.
This book, aside from being a wonderful book for any fantasy reader, is also an interesting mirror through which to view this world. It takes the traditional roles played by men and women and flips them, creating a sometimes ridiculous seeming world where women are in charge and men are subordinated and sold off as husbands. While this seems strange and sometimes barbaric it throws into contrast that this is just the way the world really works, though it is usually the men who are in charge.

The Ruins of Ambrai is an expertly woven tapestry, as neatly worked as any the Malerissi dream of. Three mageborn sisters of the Ambrai Blood take sides in a civil war between the Mage Guardians, who believe in the freedom of the individual, and the Malerissi, who believe that the mageborn should have complete control of the government, and the lives of every citizen in every Shir. The three Ambrais each have their own sphere of power, Sarra 'Liwellan' weilds political clout as First Daughter of a powerful Blood, her magic Warded so well none suspect its existance, esential as mageborn cannot hold government office. Cailet 'Rille' must grow from an unremarkable young Waster (e.g.of the Waste, the northern part of Lenfall) to the Mage Captal, leader of the Mage Guardians, almost literally overnight. Meanwhile, Glenin 'Feiran' has risen rapidly in Ryka Court, she is the daughter-in-law of the First Counciller, and more secretly, an ambitious Lady of Maleris. Cailet and Sarra will support the Rising, an underground resistance opposed to the First Counciller, and Malerissi whom she represents while Glenin poses as loyal to the First Counciler, her true loyalty lieing only with the Malerissi. The sisters are symbols, but so much more, in one of the best fantasy epics I've read in a long time. The seemingly controversial feminist theme actually fit quite well, as explained in Book 2, after the Waste War, a woman's ability to bear healthy children gave her power, and so it remained. And considering the rough era in our history Lenfall corresponds with, sexism would be more likely than a nice equal oppertunity society. But quibbles aside, The Ruins Of Ambrai will continue to hold a deserved spot on my list of favorites. I highly recomend this book, and its sequel.