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UK Authors - Sci-fi & fantasy |
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The Songster |
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 The Songster:Book Two of the Whiteblade Saga by Adam Nichols Millennium (Victor Gollancz) 488 pages, 1999 ISBN: 1857985729 Reviewed by our UK Editor Rachel A. Hyde Young Ziftkin has just lost his beloved mother, his flute and his home. His relations don’t want him, as he appears so strange and unlike their own stolid selves. So they have forced him to leave. He knows that his father is one of the Fey. Soon, he encounters this airy being who gives him another flute. But this one is magic and is capable, Pied Piper fashion, in forcing others to do the bidding of the player. Ziftkin falls in love with the evil Iryn Jagga, leader of the Brotherhood and sworn enemy of Elinor Whiteblade, she of the shining sword and heroine of the first novel. She is living with her Humanimal friend Gyver and soon realises that her beloved furry friends are in danger from a new lot of evil humans - and from the old lot as well! Can she save everybody from their bloody fate? Nichols can tell a story, and this one reads well as a good lively tale with plenty of incident. If you don’t like cute talking animals, then it won’t appeal. But the cuteness is balanced with plenty of gore as the book nears to a close, so it isn’t all Disney-like. There is a feminist message in here as well . Nichols’ goodies have a tendency to be female and her baddies male – even Ziftkin is a curiously feminine character. These observances aside, I will be eager to find out what happens next. It’s no easy feat to write a tubby fantasy novel and fill it with as much incident and action as this novel. |
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