Customer Reviews

The Runes of War (The Runespell Trilogy, Book 1)

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

 

 

I have just finished this book (1 day ago) but I must admit, that there is no big surprise I have expected. May be I am overloaded with all those fantasy series (trilogy, pentalogy or X-logy... the more, the better). This one showing author's inklination to celtic mythology because hidden under main plot there is hidden battle between old-fashioned religion looking like celtic derivate (Mother Earth, warshipping trees, earth, water, land) and new religion which seems like Christian (cathedrals, one Lord no one has seen him ever). There is also dark power presented as dark god of Ice who now rules barbarian hordes through their shaman Morbak. So the basic plot is adventures of young Caspar, son of the Branwolf - lord of the Torra Alta stronghold (guarding so named mountain pass). Morbak with big army of barbarians moving to Torra Alta. Caspar is captured with his uncle Hal by barbarian scouts just after they have found powerful magical artifact (Moonstone) in the cavs under Tora Alta. They are moved toward Morbak when beautiful girl acompanied with wolverine appears and help them run away. Have I to continue? I have looked forward this book, but after reading I must say: "Just another ordinary fantasy series..."

Judging by the other reviews posted so far, I am in a minority here, but this book didn't grab me. It was well written, there were some really great ideas, the world seemed well conceived and quite real, it had all the elements of a classic fantasy.

But I found the characters so annoying that I didn't care enough about what happened to them. While I am quite willing to concede that Hal and Spar may well be realistic characters, they were just too obnoxious. Even Brid, who in principle was a character I really liked, in practice was almost equally obnoxious.

I also felt that parts of the action didn't seem to advance the story very much. It seemed as if the adventures were just there to fill in until the real story began, giving the whole book the feel of a prologue.

Actually for me the most annoying thing about this book is that right at the end it felt like the real story did begin and it was so interesting that I wanted to know what happened next. So I got the next book, and it had all the same problems, and I gave up halfway through.

This is an excellent debut book which gives a glimpse of the authors prodigous talent, which is later realised in the fourth book, 'The Lament Of Abalone". From the moment I first picked up The Runes Of War, I couldn't put it down. The colour and descriptiveness of the writing is extremely impressive - the opening scenes of a horse and cart struggling up a steep mountain path are so wonderfully written as to be indelibly imprinted on my memory.

Here we meet for the first time brash Hal - his arrogance refreshing from the normal 'all too humble' fantasy hero, and shy Casper, struggling to make an impact from the shadows of the stronger people around him. And Brid - a wonderfully modern, heroic woman that Mary Wolstencraft would have been proud of.

The story moves along at a good pace, all the while enjoyable and refreshing - the lines between good and evil become blurred as the 'heroes' are confronted by a people dying of starvation, acting purely on the will-to-live.

An impressive first effort from a truly gifted author.

Written as the first in a series of three novels comprising The Runespell Trilogy, this initial effort by Welch has the makings of an epic fantasy adventure. For centuries, the fortress Torre Alta has guarded the pass separating the vast northern wilderness from the civilized southern baronies. For generations, reputation alone has been sufficient to maintain the peace. But, times change and the residents of Torre Alta find themselves in the unenviable position of having to back up their reputation with action. Barbaric hordes from the north, the Vaalakans, are descending upon the rich and cultivated lands of Belbidia and focusing all their might upon breaking through Torre Alta's defenses.

As the novel opens, Baron Branwolf is preparing the fortress for the expected siege. Suspecting Vaalakan intruders in the labyrinths below the castle, Branwolf sends his younger half-brother, Hal, along with the search party but forbids his son, Caspar, to accompany them. Rashly, Spar defies his father and follows the group into the tunnels. When disaster separates the two boys from the group, they are forced to find their own way out. Instead, they find the Vaalakan spies and are taken captive, thus beginning a series of adventures with far-reaching consequences. Welch deftly uses many of the tools of traditional epics. Hal and Spar are both companions and rivals. Along the way they encounter friends and foes. What begins as a simple need to escape the enemy eventually becomes a long and intricate quest for the key to saving not just themselves, but Torre Alta and all of Belbidia from complete ruin. Treachery and betrayal, conflicting religious beliefs, inhuman evil and mysterious magic all play a role in this tale.

Welch is a vivid and descriptive author. Her characters are well drawn and finely detailed. They are also human, showing the faults and frailties we all possess. Welch even manages to make the enemy seem understandable at times. This is Welch's first published novel and it is quite good. It has some weak spots, but they did not detract from my overall enjoyment of the novel. However, it is important to remember that this is just the first installment in the trilogy. If you're looking for closure, you won't find it with this book. While some loose ends are wrapped up, most matters aren't truly resolved at the end; rather they just seem to pause for the next set of events. That's okay with me, I'm looking forward to the next book in the trilogy.

(...)

I bought this because I had the pleasure of meeting the author, an exceedingly nice woman, at a get-together in Cambridge. Sadly the book isn't as charming as the person, but it's interesting enough.

I'll keep the plot summary short- like so many fantasy trilogies, it's a quest, as the young heir of a beseiged fortress meets up with an old crone and a druid-priestess-in-training on a quest to restore contact with the Mother, a forgotten Goddess with the power to repel the barbarian invaders from the North. Along for the ride is the heir's only-slightly-older uncle, and they ride north to where they think the Mother is buried.

I'll get the bad out of the way first. Early on, the book sets up a conflict between the old druid/pagan religion and the New Faith, a thinly veiled Christianity. However the conflict is rendered in extremely simplistic terms, often seeming like little more than "paganism good, Christianity bad", as the crone character takes continual digs at the New Faith with none of its adherents offering any sort of defense. The simplistic ideology picks on aspects of the New Faith (referring to God as He instead of She, persecution by its practictioners) that really aren't inherent to the belief system, and one line about the "insipid god of peace" just seems downright silly (historical evidence would show that people who worship "gods of peace" don't seem to be particularly handicapped in times of war- and in the setting itself, surely the persecution wouldn't have been so successful if the god of peace was that weak). In short it overlooks any kind of nuanced debate, though in Welch's defense it's not like she had room for such a thing in the traditional quest format. The book steps into an issue that it doesn't have the time to deal with intelligently or thoroughly. Maybe in subsequent installments the issue becomes more complex, but as a work in itself RUNES OF WAR has clearly bitten off more than it can chew.

But it's not a bad book, and if you're not turned off by the badly-rendered debate the actual action itself is fun. Make no mistake, Welch is a talented writer and the quest gets off to an interesting start, and the world- harsh, icy, and savage- does stand out in the mind. The setting description may well be the best part of the book, bringing the environment to life while avoiding mimickry of Tolkien's familiar geographical prose. The characters are broad but memorable for the most part, and the actual villains, the Valaakan barbarians (and their troll-mounts) are effective- threatening most of the time, occasionally amusing but never in a forced, comic-relief manner. There's also a dragon who manages to complicate matters well enough.

So, overall, THE RUNES OF WAR is an entertaining read, but the restraints of the trilogy format make it only a taste of what may follow. I hope next time Welch chooses an issue she has the space to deal with.

I was hooked on this series from the moment I opened this book. Meet Caspar, Hal and Brid, as alone they undertake a difficult quest to save a kingdom. It sounds unoriginal but these books are very gripping as the reader can really relate to the three main characters, each with their different personalities. Jane Welch has created a fantastical world that will prove absorbing to any reader. This a strong beginning to a wonderful trilogy, so don't stop here - read them all!

This is a first effort, and in many ways reads like one. The author displays strong descriptive skills--the book's greatest strength---but in essence the story is centered around a rather rambling journey that in large part serves as a prop for a series of mostly miscellaneous adventures loosely strung together under the pretext of a quest. While the convention of the quest has become almost de rigueur in high fantasy, its continued use has become worn and tired, especially when its serves, as here, as the over-riding plot device necessary to propel the story along. After a time, the reader becomes as tired and travel-worn as the narrative's participants. In this book, the plot focus becomes as wandering as its protagonists, and, as noted by an earlier reviewer, just as the narrative appears to attain a focus outside the plodding footsteps of its characters, the action instead turns into a springboard for further journies to follow in the second book.

Another problem present is the repetitive characterizations of the main protagonists. Again and again the reader is forced into examinations of both Spar's and Branwolf's guilt, as well as regaled with episodes of Hal's naive arroganace, without these episodes once advancing the development of the characters. The former remain frozen in their original self-recrimination and doubt, whereas Hal repeatedly mouths the same assertive platitudes. Further, the author tends to use the same descriptive and inelegant identification over and over again: Hal identified as the raven-haired youth, Branwolf as the raven-haired nobleman, and Spar as the auburn-haired youth. After the twentieth or thirtieth time each description has been used, one wants to cry: "Enough; is this their only attribute, besides guilt and arrogance! " And, the author's invention of language, compared to authors such as Tolkien, Kerr, or Jordan, seem inelegant and a hodgepodge drawn from various sources, Belbidian in particular unfortunate.

Contrivances abound here, such as Spar's repeated clumsiness that loosens a rock or causes him to trip over a guywire, alerting the enemy to their presence and setting off a chase, or the abrupt appearance of secondary characters that leaven the journey with momentary adventure, only just as suddenly to be discarded once they have served their purpose. And, the story lacks the rich and tight plotting of better practitioners of the genre (Comparisons to Tolkien and Jordan are preposterous).

Despite the criticism, and rather average and conventional storyline, there is evidence of promise here, both in the strength of descriptive passages, as well as certain imaginitive elements. There was enough spark here to lead me to continue with the second book, though, having already read fifty pages in, it appears, as mentioned by an earlier reviewer, that the second book contains many of the flaws of the first. But this is a first book, deserving of some consideration, and if the author can free herself of the confines of simplistic plot conventions, as well as learn how to develope her characters, the essential writing skills seem present here to allow the author to rise above the level of this work.

I was bored one night and decided to read. I picked this book up and was amazed. This book kept me going for ages. I stayed up till 5am to see what would happen to Spar, Hal, Brid and Bradwolf, as they travelled to find the runes of war to protect Torra Alta from the beastly Vaalkans. This is a wonderful book that a young teenager would enjoy a lot. I gave this book an instant five. The bad thing about the runespell trilogy is it's availablity in Australia.

Put it down? Not a chance! This was a book that literally kept me up all night. Epic fantasy to rival the leaders of the genre. Great plot, imagery and writing pull you through the page into the land of Spar and co, where you're trapped until the final page releases you to wait in eager anticipation for the next book.

The story takes place in a mythical land at the dawning of Christian times, and a barbaric tribe is threatening an invasion on Torra Alta, a barony in the northern mountains. The heir to the barony, Caspar, goes on a search for a pagan moonstone, aided by his uncle and a beautiful young pagan priestess. Once you have started reading the book, you won't want to put it down! It deals with prejudice against religion, love between a family and is jammed packed with magick, myth and action.