Shapechanger's Song (Chronicles of the Cheysuli, Bk. 1: Shapechangers and Bk. 2: The Song of Homana) [Paperback]

Jennifer Roberson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 6, 2001

Long out of print, The Chronicles of Cheysuli is the fantasy epic that launched Jennifer Roberson's best-selling career. A sprawling saga of the exiles-and return-of a warrior race of shapechangers, the magical odyssey begins in these two novels, together for the first time in one volume.

Product Details

• Paperback: 624 pages
• Publisher: DAW (March 6, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0886779766
• ISBN-13: 978-0886779764
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #652,818 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lots of potential, August 2, 2004

By 

Angie (Boulder, CO USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Shapechanger's Song (Chronicles of the Cheysuli, Bk. 1: Shapechangers and Bk. 2: The Song of Homana) (Paperback)

First of all, I'd like to say that I hate when reviewers tell others to ignore those reviews that disagree with them, as if only their own opinion is valid. I hope any who reads these reviews in order to decide whether it is a book they want to read will look at them all with an open mind. That said...

I loved the intricacy of the world, and became infatuated with the Cheysuli as a race. I had a bit of a love/hate relationship with the characters, however. The only characters I consistently liked were the Lir. Reasons: I got really tired of Alix's hypocrisy very quickly. Her cries against racial prejudice while possessing the same got old fast. I was relieved when she finally seemed to get over it, but I would have appreciated it never having been there to begin with, since it was an inconsistency in her character.

I also had a few problems with the Cheysuli. Their attitude toward women rather surprised me coming from a female author. They seem to place a woman's value ENTIRELY on her ability to bring children into the world. As if that isn't enough, Finn (who for some reason some reviewers are in love with) admits that he's willing to commit rape in order to try to replenish their dwindling numbers. I see no shame from him about this fact, and it wouldn't bother me if he was a villain. But Finn is a character I am expected to like. I am expected to like an unrepentant would-be rapist.

The author has an unhealthy love of adverbs as well. Candles should flicker, not glow flickeringly. People frown at other people. Don't stare frowningly, that sounds ridiculous. Her editor should be slapped for allowing such abuse of grammar. It comes across as incredibly unprofessional.

I will continue reading this series because the world has a lot of promise, and I'm going to hold onto some hope that these problems might be worked out and it might be improved upon. I'll cross my fingers.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars If you enjoy watching trainwrecks, this book is for you!, January 17, 2010

By 

Smart Little Magpie (Somerville, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shapechanger's Song (Chronicles of the Cheysuli, Bk. 1: Shapechangers and Bk. 2: The Song of Homana) (Paperback)

I'm sure you can find better reading on shapeshifters, if you like the idea. I hadn't read any books on this particular fantasy concept before, so I read this whole volume (containing the first 2 books in this series) when a friend gave it to me. I don't know how I got through both books; maybe for the same reason I can watch one or two episodes of a Bravo show when I'm really, really bored and want to watch some heavy-handed made-for-TV epic interpersonal interaction failures. But at least that takes less time!

Pros of this book:
- makes you feel good about your own amateur writing skill
- I actually liked the phonetics of most of Roberson's race and place names and of her created language
- the intro is hilarious; the author basically brags about her "success" when in actuality, she tells us about how much she has always sucked

Cons:
- Astounding levels of traditional sexism. Roberson says in her intro that male readers wrote to her about how another story she wrote "opened their eyes to women as people," so I was expecting to see some strong female characters here as well. However, for all that Alix has special powers, her real value in the story lies in her womb. Her "strong will" is just pig-headed stubbornness, which leads to stupid decisions that magically work out due to her main-character glow. The potential for her to defy expectations, break down gender roles, and become a powerful player in her own right, comes to nothing by the end of the first book, at which point it dies because the second book is about Carillon. So in sum, Alix is only special because of her racial heritage, not because of her personality or actions.

In fact, the only female characters are Alix, Electra, and Carillon's sister and mother, and those last three get nearly no air-time nor development. Throughout the two books, gender roles are fixed (highly in favor of men) and never change, so not only does this make the female characters themselves disappointing, but it makes it hard to like the male characters who have the power to change it but don't. Every male main character (Duncan, Carillon, and Finn) is at some point given the option to think differently about women and their abilities or their rights, and every single time, they stick to their patriarchal myopia.

- epic interpersonal interaction failures! No one ever listens to anyone else. Each character just has their own strong opinions or preconceptions, and if they're ever proven wrong, it takes _forever_. It's not "realistic," it's just frustrating.

- the characters are all pretty static. Some surface things change; Alix mostly accepts her heritage, Carillon grows older and becomes king, etc., but no one ever fundamentally changes. Oh, except Finn, who by the second book _finally stops trying to rape Alix_. (What a terrible character! Even after she becomes wife of the clan leader (his own brother), he continues to call her the Cheysuli equivalent of "whore," all the time, to her face. _And we are supposed to LIKE him_.)

- very few characters; very myopic view of the world. For example, we have two main locations in these books - the Cheysuli Keep and the Homanan palace. Both are places where the main characters _live_ and _spend a lot of time_ but somehow we don't know anyone else who lives there. Not only do we not know their names, but they're barely even mentioned as being _present_. It's almost Twilight-Zone-esque - "where _is_ everybody?" Roberson has some okay physical descriptions of people's looks, clothes, and immediate surroundings, but she doesn't seem to know how to look around and describe the _world_ and its people besides her few main characters.

- and the clincher - none of these characters are very likable. Alix is irritating: stubborn as sin, kind of dumb, and super naive. Duncan is sexist, unyielding, and boring. Finn is a perpetual teenage would-be rapist, until he stops, and then he's just kind of mopey since he has no one to bang. Carillon is bland and dumb. Rowan and Lachlan are actually okay, if still also caricatures.

- Now apply everything I said about characters to the cultures of this world. We're supposed to like the Cheysuli, but they aren't developed beyond being "great warriors" (because of their shapechanging abilities and fighting techniques, I assume, since it's never explicitly explained), who (males only!) bond with special animals called lir, are intensely patriarchal, and all follow this ancient prophecy that determines how every individual will live their life. Also, as Finn explains in the first book, it's totally okay with them to rape non-Cheysuli women in order to produce more Cheysuli babies, since the race has become endangered. Now there's a big WTF.

And does blindly following some ancient prophecy really give you the right to sound all wise when you make proclamations about it? No, it doesn't, because we have no sense of where this prophecy came from or whether their gods are real, or what. Their magic is real, sure, but their factual history is so poorly illuminated that it makes the prophecy stuff hard to accept, or to really "get" as being so important and unchangeable. The "wisdom" in this book is "you don't get to make your own choices, you have to follow the prophecy and play your role. OR ELSE."

And we never see any other cultures. Why should I think the Cheysuli are especially cool when A) they suck and B) I don't know anything about the other cultures? Who _are_ the Homanans, the Atvians, the Solindish? We don't get to know. "Boring white people," I guess.

There is even more beyond these things, but these are the biggies. I hope you wasted 5 minutes reading this or other reviews, instead of wasting the hours it will take you to read the books.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Shapechangers-Chronicles of the Cheysuli:book one, April 16, 2001

By 

stephanie (Lomita, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shapechanger's Song (Chronicles of the Cheysuli, Bk. 1: Shapechangers and Bk. 2: The Song of Homana) (Paperback)

This first book in a set of eight draws you into a world of magic and intrigue. It starts with Alix, a croft girl infatuated with the prince of her homeland, when both are kidnapped by a Cheysuli Shapechanger they are forced to acknowledge their own personal beliefs about the treatment of the exiled Cheysuli. Alix must come to accept her true (Cheysuli) heritage and ultimately her place in the prophecy that governs this magically race. The entire set is so well written a person gets lost in the story and will find herself reading for hours, so intranced, she feels she is part of its happenings and eager to find out what will happen next. The Chronicles span nearly 100 years and the intertwining of Cheysuli and four other races to complete the prophecy. There is danger and mystery, love and loss and enough emotion to move even the hardest of hearts. Ms. Roberson makes a person feel as if each emotion is her own. I have had the complete set for years and find myself re-reading it over and over again just to relive it all. I just hope that Jennifer Roberson will see fit to add to the collection and epic so we can all go back to Homana and the power of the Cheysuli.