Customer Reviews

The Tainted (Isles of glory)

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So here we have the conclusion to Larke's 'Isles of Glory' series, which we in Australia have had in our hot little hands for a while now.

This is a great trilogy. Please do not be misled by the unfortunate cover art, which does not reflect the nature of the work. Larke's work is fresh and wondrous, with a truly original fantasy setting handled with the deftest of worldbuilding touches. She writes great characters, throws thorny problems at them, and stands back to let them get on with it.

If you enjoy intelligent, well-crafted and beautifully executed fantasy novels that challenge and delight, you will doubtless enjoy Glenda Larke's series.

It is not often I have left a book well satified. This trilogy has been a pleasure from first to last book. Please be aware that you must read them in order or you will have no clue as to what is going on. The order is The Aware, Gilfeather, The Tainted.

First off, I loved the fact that the small inner story changed character. In the two previous books, we read the letters of a researcher who is interviewing elderly Blaze and Gilfeather for research papers he is sending back to his uncle. In this book, several chapters are bracketed instead by journal entries from the old love interest of said researcher, who is a much open-minded character, to say the least. In the larger story, Larke takes on the narration of Blaze, Gilfeather, Ruarth, and new character whose name I can't remember. Ruarth is now a man trapped on the boat Flame escaped on, only now Flame is tainted with Dun and is becoming more evil by the day. Regardless, he sticks by her side and looks for some sort of way to help her. Gilfeather and Tor join together to find a cure for Dun. Blaze and the kid she picked up on book two are on a rescue mission to stop and capture Flame.

Let me tell you, the action does not stop in these books. I actually begin reading book one while home sick with the flu. In five days I had all three read. I've been very impressed with this author and look forward to reading more by her.

The final book of this series brought a tear to my eye. A fine conclusion, with all the central charcters living full lives afterward. Though it does leave room for a sequal, which I hope to see one day.

I read the first two Stormlord books and got very caught up in them. Since the next book in the trilogy (series?) is not due out for a while, I thought I'd see if there were any other books by the same author available. I discovered the Isles of Glory trilogy and was delighted to find that it lacked the clunkiness you sometimes find with earlier works by relatively new authors. Larke has a knack for creating an archeological and ecological backdrop for her stories that include cultures and species that are made-up and yet feel like they could easily have existed in our own world. I don't want to spoil the story for anyone so I will stay away from specifics, but one thing I like about Larke's characters and societies is that they are mixed bags in the same way real people and societies throughout history have been mixed bags. Evil definitely exists in her stories, but a lot of things that tend to be portrayed in terms of black and white (use of magic, religion, violence as a means of resolving conflict) in fantasy stories are not so cut and dried in hers. She does not "lead" you with regards to how you should feel about the belief systems of the various characters nor about the decisions they make. She takes an unusual tack in this book (and in the second of the trilogy) by having the story related in first person but by several different people. The way she does this works well and is satisfying, as is the back story that is being told about the person to whom the tale is being related years later. Some questions are left unanswered at the end of the story in the way some questions are always left unanswered in real life, but the conclusion is nonetheless satisfying and poignant.