Customer Reviews

The Ropemaker

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a startlingly good example of the kind of gems that can get hidden in the YA section of bookstores and libraries. The author proves himself very adept at word use, world-building and storytelling in an amazingly rich story.
The young female protagonist of this story lives in a peaceful valley that has remained sheilded for generations from the depredations of those who live on either side of the valley. But when the magical defenses begin to fail, it is up to Tilja, her grandmother and a young man and his grandfather (along with one ornery horse) to venture beyond the valley and seek the one person who might help them.
The bare bones plot is not new, but this author is a master--he handles the adventure of these four and brings the tale full circle with care and precision. The images are powerful and for anyone who recognizes the power of stories, the author's underlying message will ring true.
Being a YA book there is some limit to the adult reader who might desire an adult protagonist, or more mature themes explored that are not dealt with in this story. Beyond that, I highly reccomend this book to any fantasy reader as an example of high caliber story telling. Enjoy!

The Ropemaker will keep you involved and leave you wanting a sequel (which doesn't exist yet, unfortunately). Be prepared for the fact that there is a bit of a disconnect between the title and the actual main character. You won't meet the title character until well into the book (p. 142), and he turns out to be, although important to the outcome, tangential in terms of character development. The story line otherwise revolves around the main character, a teenage girl named Tilja, who is initially despondent about the fact that in a world of magic, where even her own little sister has the gift (horrors!), she is decidedly non-magical. Magic things lose their magic in her touch. But, wait, if there's bad magic out there, that's a good thing, right?! And there is the story. Tilja must risk everything in an attempt to protect her beloved home valley from military attack as well as from the forces of evil. The valley has been protected for 20 generations by a spell cast by a now-dead enchantress, and so Tilja and her companions must find a new magician to renew the spell. This quest in itself is an exciting story and well-written, with a lot of very creative and detailed development of this strange world and society. (For example, the emperor exercises the ultimate taxing authority by forcing people to pay in advance for permission to die of old age!) As Tilja and her companions pursue their life-or-death quest to save their homeland, we get a lot of build-up about how Tilja's "power" may elevate her to a position of prominence, but her potential is never reached or explored in this book. Likewise, the "good" magic of the Ropemaker is unique, with hints of power to come, which are not developed. I hope the cryptic Epilogue isn't a sign that no sequel is planned. This book is, nevertheless, a very good and engrossing read. My 12-year-old daughter loved it, too.

The Valley is the only passage between the horsemen of the plain and the Empire, which means that it is constantly under attack. The residents of the Valley can¡¦t withstand all these killing and raiding; therefore, they send some of their people on a long, difficult journey to find a magician powerful enough to get them some peace. Two people, Reyel Ortahlson and Dirna Urlasdaughter, found a powerful magician, Faheel, and he promised the people of the Valley peace for twenty generations. After twenty generations the magic wore off and the Valley fell again in turmoil. Tilja, Tahl, Meena, and Alnor decided that the must find the magician again to restore peace. With extraordinary luck and many breath-taking adventures, they found Faheel on an island. However, Faheel is too weak to do what they asked for, he is already on his deathbed. Before he passed away, Faheel gave them a magical ring and told them to give it to another powerful magician, the Ropemaker, who can restore peace in the Valley with the help of the ring.
I had a great time reading this book. Every book that has to do with magic has to have an explanation of how magic works. The explanation in this book is very reasonable and makes perfect sense. This makes the book a lot easier to understand and enjoy. The author tells of how magic is flowing everywhere, and only gifted people can make use of this magic. When a person is more gifted than others, he/she in turn can take control of larger amounts of magic at a time. Nevertheless, when a person is overwhelmed by the magic of another, he/she will lose their gift to use magic and can very possibly die at the same time.
My favorite part of this book is when Tilja realized the power she possesses. Before, she had thought that there were only two kinds of magicians: ones that remake the magic in the air before they use it and ones that simply use the magic in the air without remaking it. When magic is remade it becomes more powerful. On her journey to find Faheel, Tilja discovered that whatever remade magic makes contact with her is reversed into natural magic. With this power Tilja is able to protect herself from all remade magical attacks. Not only that, she can also suck away all the magic in any magician without getting hurt. Tilja decided that she must be the third kind of magician.

The Valley had always been a wonderful place to live, a peaceful place, but then the Empire came. Greedy tax collectors forced the farmers to pay back taxes for all the years that they didn't pay and the horse warriors on the plains raided, raped and murdered the people. Desperate, the Valley sent out a small group of people to seek aid from a powerful sorceress. Two of them found the sorceress, but she was dying and so sent them on to the great wizard Faheel. Faheel heard their plea and accepted the gift that they bore and set up protection for the people in the Valley. To the man, he gave a flask of crystal water and instructed him to empty it into the stream high in the mountains of the Valley and sing the song it told him. To the woman, he gave a loaf of barley and instructed her to plant a small field of barley every year and to feed the cedars in the forest of the Valley and sing the song that they told her. The man and the woman returned to the Valley and every generation there was an Ortahlson who sang to the stream and an Urlasdaughter who sang to the cedars. The Valley became impenetrable to the Empire's soldiers and tax collectors as there was a strange sickness in the forest that made men dizzy, ill, and knocked them out and then killed them. High in the mountains, there was a glacier that blocked the pass that the horse warriors used. As time passed, the people of the Valley told the story for entertainment for they knew it wasn't real, but the Ortahlsons and the Urlasdaughters kept singing...

Generation followed generation until twenty has passed since the original adventurers found the wizard Faheel. The unthinkable began to happen as the glacier started to melt and the trees stopped singing and producing their sickness. The people of the Valley knew it was only a matter of time until the Empire would come and enslave them again or they would be killed by the horse warriors. However, the people still refused to believe that the story was true, so it was up to the Ortahlsons and the Urlasdaughters to save their homes.

Tilja Urlasdaughter was still grieving over the loss of her beloved Woodbourne when she escorted her grandmother to the gathering. Tilja could not hear the song of the cedars, but her younger sister, Anja, could and so she would inherit the farm of the Urlasdaughters. Indeed, Tilja seemed to have no magic at all and so was stunned when the cedars told Anja that Tilja needed to go with her grandmother and two Ortahlsons to find the wizard Faheel and renew the spell on the Valley. Tilja didn't know what she could do to help, but she was determined to do her best to save her world. However, as the small party journeys slowly through the treacherous Empire, Tilja finds that she may be the only one was has the power to save the Valley simply because she doesn't have any magic...

The Ropemaker is an enchanting tale of a girl who is simply ordinary, but in an extraordinary way. Tilja was very likeable and I found myself identifying with her right away. The other characters are also fun to get to know, but Tilja is definitely the focus of the book. As far as the plot goes, this book is more a journey of self discovery than a story with a beginning and an end. If you enjoy journeys with exotic locales and interesting peoples then you will enjoy this tale. Not the most thrilling of books, but nonetheless entertaining and solidly written with little surprises around every corner. It is written simply enough for older children to enjoy, but there is enough detail and intrigue to entertain adults and older readers.

Almost two years ago my boyfriend started an obsession with used book stores. As I perused the shelves with him I started thinking back on all my favorite books from my childhood. I read a book, possibly called "The Dream Weaver's Tale", it made a strong impression on my imagination when I was about 12, and I really wanted to read that book again. I was wandering through Barns and Noble and "The Ropemaker" caught my eye. The look of the book, and introduction reminded me enough of my childhood book, so I bought "The Ropemaker." I was beyond impressed with the story, enough so to start collecting all of Peter Dickinson's works. I have highly recomended this to friends as a well written tale, not just for children, but for anyone with an imagination and an intrest in magical worlds. I love the story, and secretly wish it was longer, or had a part two in the works telling of the future when Tilja returns to the empire. . .

Ropemaker is the mainly the story of Tilja and her family, who for generations have carried out a ritual supposed to keep their valley in peace- the only proof they have of this coming from a story from long, long ago.

There is no magic in the valley, and what magic there is belongs to Tilja and Tahl's familys. Their ability to listen to the waters and trees has been in them for generations, only Tilja discovers that the ability seems to have skipped her.

But when something goes wrong in the valley, she and her grandmother are the ones that are sent to travel to an unknown place in search of help, along with Tahl and his grandfather.

Though at times confusing, Ropemaker is beautifully written with exciting turns of the plot. Tilja becomes more important than she ever could have realized, and her grandmother undergoes a transformation that makes Tilja realize how precious youth is.

Any fan of fantasy will thoroughly enjoy this book.

A Valley in an Empire where magic swirls around is threatened by outside barbarians and the soldiers send to defend them. the inhabitants ask for the help of a powerful magicians, who seals the Valley both from the Empire and the barbarians. twenty generations later, the magic is wearing out, and four people from the Valley set out to find the magician and restore the spell. They travel through an Empire that is far more restrictive and lacking in freedom than their own native land, but a land far richer in magic than their home.
The book starts off well, and I was rather pleased by the initial idea of having your land sealed off by magic. On top of that, Pullman, who is one my favorites, praises the book. But - and it is a big one - the minute descriptions of ordinary actions started getting on my nerves after a while. I understand why it's done - as a contrast to magic, to ground the universe of the book with something that's familiar to the reader, that breathes reality through its pedestrian nature. But it's boring. Then, later on, you realize that not much is said about magic. Magic is as magic does, I guess, but that's the problem. I think that Pullman was fooled by the apparent similarities with his own story - the girl protagonist who becomes the unlikely hero, the sealing and breaching of worlds that seem separated - but the difference between this and the Golden Compass is like the difference between the magical candy in Harry Potter and daemons. Ropemaker reaches deep at first, but then goes back to the surface and stays there, in the end dissolving into magical duels and simplistic resolutions.

I highly recommend this book. Once I started reading this book I was unable to put it down. This book centers on several characters Tilja the granddaughter of Meena, Tahl the grandson of Alnor, along with Meena and Alnor. And their quest to save their valley, which had been, tucked away form the outside world for many generations. This valley had been kept safe through powerful magic, which was now starting to disappear. The task to leave the valley and search for a magician powerful enough to save them falls to Tilja, Tahl, Meena and Alnor. As they travel on their journey Tilja learns that she posses the powers to save her valley with the help of the Ropemaker. The Ropemaker is the only magician in the empire who is able to reverse the evils of the empire and with Tilja's help save her valley. I found the way, which the story was written to be captivating. I recommend this book for any teenage student male or female. The story is on of courage and discovery something that I feel appeals to both male and female students.

First off, the two editorial reviews that head up this Amazon review page, (from Publishers Weekly and School Library Journal), do an admirable job of summarizing this book and directing you to its strengths. (That just surprises me because so many times those reviews are pretty snotty and dismissive, or just over-the-top lavish.)

Note that this is a long book, with a great deal of character building and world building up front. Once we have set up the four main characters and the nature of their quest, the quest itself moves along at a good pace, but it is a long and complicated journey. I point that out because this is not a "quick read". It is very well done and very rewarding, but it will take a certain amount of commitment from your young reader to keep going.

That may be why the book has sort of fallen through the cracks. Too young for adults, too demanding for earlier readers. This is the kind of book that a reader might start and then return to later when her tastes, reading skills, or patience have developed.

But, congratulations on having found it. Well worth a try.

"Time is a great rope."

Well I'm at the end of mine.

Why am I at the end of my rope? Because this book was a mess. If you have a lot of time to read a book. Don't read this one.

I'm not saying that the story wasn't good. It was. But the first 150 pages or so were confusing, frustrating, haphazard and occasionally boring. I found myself trudging through them with a kind of duty. I very rarely start a book and then not finish. It took me almost a week to read the first 150 pages. I read the last 250 today.

The story did pick up, but it didn't get any less frustrating. I got confused easily as the author jumped from thing to thing. I couldn't follow the dialogue and had to read large parts of it again and again. I was able to read the last 100 pages with more ease. Only having to repeat segments occasionally. But the ending was dissatisfying.

The epilogue was just like the beginning. I could hardly understand anything. Most of the holes in the story I had to fill with guess work, and that left me unhappy. Imagination is one thing, guess work is another.

So while the story was very interesting, the writing was not very good. Who knows? Maybe one of you will read it and absolutely love it. It's just not my kind of book I guess. I don't regret reading it though. Well, hopefully my next one will be a little faster paced