The Wayfarer Redemption, Book 1 (Hardcover)

by Sara Douglass (Author) "The speckled blue eagle floated high in the sky above the hopes and works of mankind..." (more)
Key Phrases: ara pouglass, farflight scouts, ice spears, Earth Tree, Star Gate, Talon Spike (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Setting her first American-published fantasy in a world where mankind reveres the plough and the axe and fears the forest, talented Australian Douglass delivers an initially beguiling story of human struggle to put aside its age-old enmity for two other races and join in battle against a deadly invasion. Axis the BattleAxe, bastard nephew of the king and leader of the Axe-Wielders, marches his crack troops north to help his despised half brother and the king's heir to repel winter-strengthened wraiths poised to decimate the land. A prophecy unearthed in a monastery explodes Axis's beliefs about man's ancient battle against the Forbidden--two hated races driven into exile, both of whom, according to the prophecy, must ally with man to defeat the wraiths. Axis's own part in the prophecy, as well as that of his half brother's betrothed, grows clearer with every stride closer to the northern menace. Invoking most of a conventional epic's elements, Douglass sets her hero on a path that reveals his hidden parentage and key role in the reuniting of the three races. Strongest at the beginning while exploring the plough-based traditions of man and its fear of the Forbidden races, this first volume soon loses dramatic tension: the prophecy is so straightforward that the continuing books will play connect-the-dots unless Douglass introduces twists to lift her orthodox, well-written series up to originality. (Mar. 26)Forecast: This novel carries bright blurbs from David Drake and Elizabeth Haydon, among others, and the publisher is pushing it as "an epic fantasy in the tradition of David Eddings and Terry Goodkind." But both Douglass, who is a bestseller in Australia, and Tor will have to work hard to bring Douglass up to the sort of numbers enjoyed by Eddings/Goodkind--or Drake and Haydon, for that matter.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
When a plague of monsters threatens the realm of Achar, a military commander and a noblewoman find themselves part of a Prophecy that leads them to question what they once believed true about the history of their world. Australian fantasy author Douglass's American debut features an exotic world peopled with complex characters whose motivations and desires often conflict with their duties and loyalties. Epic storytelling on a par with Terry Goodkind and Robert Jordan make this a solid selection for most fantasy collections. Highly recommended.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1 edition (February 24, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031287717X
• ISBN-13: 978-0312877170
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (173 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #647,986 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I Can't Believe This Got Published in the States, November 23, 2002

By	Mark Erikson (Australia) - See all my reviews

Poorly written, ridiculous plot, utterly unbelievable characters. As an Australian, I picked this series up and read the whole lot - only because they were the only books I had with me on a camping trip - because I wanted to see what Australian authors had to offer the fantasy genre.

What I got was a horrible mess of half formed ideas and crummy one dimensional characters. Sara Douglass' idea of 'gritty' is to make the characters heartless and amoral beyond any reason in one moment, and yet noble and true the next. All the while, every character speaks like an English professor, from the lowest horse-handler to the highest lord. The characters are all so similar and poorly conceived that they barely remain in the memory after the book is closed.

The plot is terrible. A baddie who can only be described as that: a baddie. He belongs in a child's cartoon - a bad one - not an epic fantasy series. Most of the decisions made make very little sense, nobody important dies, and Sara Douglass even manages to incorporate some flying saucers with shiny, flashy lights.

I cannot believe these books sell at all, and I really cannot believe they sell in America. If you want real fantasy, read George RR Martin, or Steven Erikson, or Robert Jordan. If you like easy-reading fantasy, even Eddings is better than Sara Douglass.

Please, don't waste your money.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Award winning!, October 19, 2005

By	SA_Ron "happilyreading" (WV Panhandle) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Wayfarer Redemption, Book 1 (Hardcover)

The awards would be...

Honorable mention for bad/lame plot.

Honorable mention for bad writing. I'm assuming that this is the writer's first attempt at it?

First Place for bad characters. "Axis SunSoar"????? Becomes "Starman"??? This is the hero. A hero you wouldn't want to leave alone with your teenage daughter. The hero who thinks with what's between his legs. No conscience about it either.

First Place for worst series I almost read. I'm sorry. I REALLY wanted to like this book, but it's horrible. If the plot was even half-way engaging, I could at least give this 3 stars. I'm still looking for minus-stars, but one is as low as I can go.

After the first book, I had hopes that maybe the story would be redeemed (pardon the pun) in the second. Nope. It got worse. I couldn't even finish the second. It should make good kindling for this winter, however.
Faraday is almost likeable. Not the brightest light in the candle shop, but you feel sorry for her after a bit.
Axis, as I said, thinks with parts of his anatomy that weren't meant for thinking. In the real world, we call people like this slimeballs. In this story he's a hero.
Duke Borneheld is the stereotypical bad guy/brute.
There are other characters, but they are written even worse.

Having said all that, give the first book a shot (library only, don't buy it). If you like it, you'll like the rest. If you don't, drop it, because it doesn't get better.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars if you like wellcrafted fantasy, avoid this one, September 15, 2003

By	M. B. Grove (USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Wayfarer Redemption (The Axis Trilogy, Bk 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

Sara Douglass is one of a growing number of new fantasy authors who seem to feel that constructing a character means opening a psychiatry textbook, picking out a group of neuroses, and then giving them a person's name.

Much of Ms. Douglass' writing in this book consists of explaining her characters to the reader by telling us all about their childhood traumas in typically leaden and clumsy style:
"Yet of all the hatreds Borneheld bore Axis, it was the fact that they shared the same mother that he resented most. Even though Rivkah had betrayed both her husband and her elder son in conceiving and giving birth to a lover's child, Borneheld still revered her memory. And Axis had killed her. Axis had taken Rivkah away from Borneheld. Borneheld daily cursed Axis for causing his mother's death..."

Ms. Douglass' insistence that her characters be completely controlled by their neuroses does not serve her or the reader. Her characters are stilted, one-dimensional, very crudely drawn caricatures, incapable of developing true maturity or believable relationships with one another--a flaw that completely undermines her plot.

Douglass also seems completely unwilling to trust her reader or her story. She spends too much time telling us how we are supposed to feel about particular characters, rather than telling us their story and allowing us to form our own response. For example, other characters are constantly calling the heroine, Faraday, such things as 'lovely lady,' 'dear child,' 'dear one,' and 'sweet child,' and they act as though she's the most incredible person they've ever met--and yet, what Douglass shows us of Faraday doesn't justify anything like that kind of unmixed adulation.

If you like good fantasy, try some other author.