Wizard of the Grove (Daw Book Collectors) [Paperback]

Tanya Huff (Author)

Book Description

Series: Daw Book Collectors | Publication Date: January 1, 1999

Now available in one volume, the novels which began Tanya Huff's career. "Child of the Grove" and "The Last Wizard" form a powerful fantasy duology about the last wizard ever to be born into the world. It is the saga of Crystal, a daughter of Power whose destiny is to put an end to the war between wizards and the mortal world.

Product Details

• Paperback: 576 pages
• Publisher: DAW (January 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0886778190
• ISBN-13: 978-0886778194
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #554,010 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An emerald-eyed wizard with an attitude, August 28, 2002

By 

E. A. Lovitt "starmoth" (Gladwin, MI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Wizard of the Grove (Daw Book Collectors) (Paperback)

"In the Beginning there was Darkness and out of the Darkness came the Mother."--If you like a fantasy that starts out by creating its own theory of evolution, "Wizard of the Grove" is for you. By the time this book (actually two books in one: "Child of the Grove" and "The Last Wizard") begins, the Age of Mortals is in full swing and humans are running the show. Although a few hamadryads, centaurs, dwarves, and what-have-yous are left over from the creation of the Elder Races, they usually avoid humanity. There are a few important exceptions, including a hamadryad who bears the son of a human king, and a very bad wizard who has survived from a time when the wizards slew the gods, and dragons slew the wizards.

A lengthy prequel pits Rael, son of the hamadryad against the evil wizard, Kraydak. Rael survives to beget a line of kings who are part Elder Race. Eventually Crystal, the true heroine of this duology is born.

Kraydak, the wizard also survives. He has been waiting through many boring thousands of years for the birth of Crystal, the only human who might give him a magical run for his continuing existence. Meanwhile he amuses himself by building towers with human blood as mortar, torturing various walk-ons, etc.--even in this early novel, Tanya Huff writes zingy, attention-getting prose about evil--you gotta hate her bad guys, even though they're often her most interesting characters.

Presumably the good guys should be interesting, too. My only problem with Crystal is that she doesn't have room to grow. She starts out as a total knock-out with emerald eyes and silver hair, is born into the royal family, and is the world's most powerful wizard, except for Kraydak. The Centaurs educate Crystal offstage, which is too bad as this might have been the most appealing part of the book. As it is written, she enters the spotlight as a slightly sulky, sex-crazed teen-ager who happens to be a gorgeous princess-wizard.

In Book I, "Child of the Grove," Crystal battles Kraydak, the wizard who killed a god. Book II, "The Last Wizard" follows Crystal's adventures as she attempts to clean up a dead wizard's castle. Her quests are standard fantasy fare, but there's a strong cast of eccentric supporting characters, and even early Huff reads better than half the sword and sorcery stuff that's currently on the market

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Flat as paper, February 9, 2007

By 

L. Nichols - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Wizard of the Grove (Daw Book Collectors) (Paperback)

I am not impressed with this book. Much as I like Tanya Huff's other works this one has a weak and unfinished feel to it. The Heroine of the story is two-dimensional and we really don't spend enough time with her to learn who she is personally. Important portions of her training are glossed over but the begetting that occurred to make her took up the first half of the book. The plot itself moves along in a jerky pace until we get to the "ultimate weapon" discovered by Crystal to save everyone. The final battle lasts less than 3 pages and is pretty anticlimactic.

Most of the characters in this story are just plain boring and unfleshed out. The story basically reads like a rough plot that has just been expanded on a little. We don't know anything about her powers only that she can do nearly anything she wants, we don't know enough about the history of the world other than "wizards bad", and the oh so powerful elder races pop in say cryptic things and pop out.

The author also goes off in weird tangents involving minor characters from the beginning of the book then never resolves what happens with them. That is very annoying. If you aren't going to resolve it then don't bring it up I would rather not have a weird little tidbit about someone whose on scene a whole 5 pages then disappears to far off countries only to go back to her for a paragraph before never returning to her again. It breaks up the flow of the story. Honestly the first book of this omnibus is a rather sophomoric attempt. Huff can do amazing things when she writes but this one just doesn't cut it. It was not worth buying.

As for the second portion of this book, I am still unimpressed. While the characters are more believable this time through as well as more fleshed out the entire story plays out like some bizzare teenaged romance story. The brothers are childish and unimportant other than one of them has a romantic involvement with the lead. Death is whiney, though I must admit he is the most interesting character of the book. The story builds like some sort of dungeon crawl to the climax and that poofs out like some sort mystical author hand waving. In fact the ending is so vague the reader is left wondering what the heck happened. This is never truly resolved even in the epilogue. The entire tale plays out like a D&D game run by an inexperienced dungeon master. "Let's find treasure..........Lets go through this forest.....fight some baddies....Oh look a maze......We're in trouble now...... Oh yay the mystical whatzits has saved us." Honestly this is not what I expected when I got this book. An author such as this one should not have released such a poorly written manuscript. This whole omnibus was a complete dissapointment.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Love it, December 7, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Wizard of the Grove (Daw Book Collectors) (Paperback)

Some books I hate, others I love. I think it has to do with characters and what authors do to them. So many try to force the character to do something that they want, and when you read the passage, it just doesn't feel right. Not with this book, I like the fact that the author let the character be who she was. It was believable; she had faults as well as perfections. So for those who are looking for a story about a hero, but what a true hero that they can relate to, I highly recommend this book.