I enjoyed this book quite a bit. It's an alternative history of the Christian Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem during the reign of Baldwin IV and several years prior to Saladin's defeat of the Crusaders (between the Second and Third Crusades).[return][return]The tale follows Prince Aiden who arrives in Jerusalem to learn his nephew has been slain by an Assassin. He vows to find and kill the Assassin and his master, the Old Man of the Mountain. Along the way he travels to Damascus and Aleppo and learns more about Muslim culture and traditions and even manages to meet Saladin. He also meets the Assassin who, much to his surprise, is a woman. What adds a different twist to the tale is that both Aiden and Morgiana, the Assassin, are faerie folk or ifrits(as they are called in Islamic areas). They are immortal (or close to it) and are very attracted to each other.[return][return]Tarr does a wonderful job of capturing the essence of what living in that time must have been like. The determination of the Europeans to protect and preserve their holy places sits side by side with their arrogance and disdain for Muslims. The Muslims, in some respects, come off as more tolerant and open-minded. They tend to view Christians as misguided in their religion rather than as "heathens". The pervasiveness of Christianity into every aspect of their lives was also somewhat eye-opening. It's hard for someone like me to imagine the Church holding sway over every aspect of its followers lives. [return][return]I also didn't know that Baldwin IV was a leper. It made him a tragic and heroic figure. His skills and talents are presently so clearly as well as his isolation. His inevitable death at too early an age made me mourn his loss. This book was a great read and I'd recommend it to any fans of alternative history and fantasy.
At the time of the Crusades, a half-human Christian knight named Aidan travels to the Holy Land to see his nephew; his nephew, more mortal, has just been killed in his sleep by a female Assassin named Morgiana. She, it turns out, is also more than human, and eventually the two are fated (as Cole Porter would put it) to be mated. In the meantime, though, Aidan has a brief affair with Joanna, step-daughter to his late nephew and a married woman. By the end of the book, Joanna is bearing his child, but has returned to her husband. (We are clearly being set up for a sequel here). Aidan, meanwhile, has been kidnapped by Morgiana, and has made a bargain with her: he will "satisfy" her if in turn she helps him take revenge on her former master, who ordered the killing of his nephew (and his nephew's son). Naturally, in Morgiana's view, it takes more than one night, however swoony, to satisfy, and she turns up very publicly just as Aidan is swearing his oath of allegiance to the (Christian) King of Jerusalem, and claims him in marriage. All this is wrapped up in some rather good story-telling and some rather impressive local historical detail; half fantasy/half historical, and rather fun. In contrast to the only other Tarr I've read (A Fall of Princes), there's relatively little in the way of homoerotic overtones in this book. [These notes were made in 1991:].
What do You think about Alamut (1989)?
This is a wonderful book. Sort of a magical telling of the time of the crusades. With the original assassins and genies thrown in. Good jumping off point for learning about history. I looked a lot of stuff up after I read it to find out the real story.The best part of this story however is the language. Reading this book is like reading poetry. Judith Tarr presents the English language in all its beauty without beating you over the head with how clever she is. You can tell a story or you can tell a story with words that evoke images as brilliant as a stained glass window.
—Jacqueline
