Dreaming The Serpent Spear (2006) - Plot & Excerpts
Brilliant and Mind Blowing!Wow what a journey Boudica goes through in raising a war host to fight against Rome. Even with many of the sacrifices to the gods and the dedication from the tribe warriors to include some of the Roman Soldiers who turned to Boudica's side the war was a brutal ending with great loss on each side.The story that the author weaves is brilliant. This is not a fast pace read, it is filled with lots of details and must be savored to get the full effect of the feelings towards war and why the lands were stripped away. However just know that the smooth writing captures your heart and mind and sweeps you into an amazing story of sacrifice and victory.The development of the characters and their emotions bleed from the pages right down into my own soul. I felt their pain and their victory of each kill. The action was intense and mind blowing in the brutal battles between the tribes and the Roman soldiers. It simply amazed me how these roman soldiers fought because they were told too, not because they wanted too - they had no choice but to fight or be killed by their own governor. At least the tribe warriors had a choice.The tribe rituals and how they worship their god's totally tripped me out but believable for that time frame. I loved the tribal characters and loved Boudica's family. I didn't want this story to end even though Boudica left her spirit for fight to carry on in her children and their future children. I loved the emotional drama between Corvus (Roman Perfect) and Ban (Valerus) - it was bitter sweet in the end.I think this is a more accurate account of how the men and women loved each other. I'm glad the author showed the females having female lovers and the male's having male lovers or even how the tribes had open relationships instead of being bound to marriage. It makes sense if you think about how long the men were left alone and away from their females - I am sure they would seek out some kind of comfort - what better way to do it than with your own battle buddy. I know this story is only fiction in most part concerning a lot of the characters but the reality that the Boudica and the war host she raised was in fact the truth and gives our current day actions examples of what happens when greed and hatred bleeds into everyday life. I see our history repeating itself and that is sad. I know the author's comment is that we can change our ways and thinking and try not to repeat the past but from the study of history it is unstoppable. Even now as we sit here and read, we have the Muslim Brotherhood trying to take over ever part of the word and are causing wars unnecessary.Thank you Manda Scott for writing Boudica's Dreaming and I hope for everyone's own sake that in our current lives that we have a better dreaming of a future that is not full of war.
No fiction has captured my imagination and occupied my mind, waking and dreaming, to the extent that these four books have, for a very long time. Which is why I have read all four straight off, without taking a break to read something else in between. I wrote about the first book, Dreaming the Eagle, some time back, so what I said there still stands. Scott has created a world of warriors and dreamers where to kill or to die in battle is the highest honour, for both men and women. It is her great achievement to draw us into it so completely that we abandon modern attitudes towards violence and accept her characters' values as our own.That being said, the books do require of us a 'willing suspension of disbelief'. This is a world where 'dreamers' can manipulate nature, calling up mists to confuse an enemy; where they can enter other minds to confuse and terrify; where they can communicate over great distances by the power of thought. Viewed from a rational position, some of the phenomena she describes as having been conjured up by the dreamers can be explained as natural occurrences. But much of the rest is not born out by common experience. And yet, we believe in it. The books are full of events and twists of fate that would be incredible in a modern story, but we accept them.Looked at from outside, Scott's Britons can be seen as the Romans saw them, as primitive tribes who feud amongst themselves, have no agreed system of law, paint their bodies and believe in a pantheon of strange gods – expect that she makes it clear that the 'rational' Romans' belief in many gods is every bit as strong. Viewed from inside, this is a society where oaths are sacred, the old are honoured and the ties of family and friendship are sacrosanct. It is also a society capable of creating beautiful objects, a fact born out by the archaeological evidence.It might be expected that one draw back of writing the story of the Boudica is the fact that we know how it ends. We know from the outset that her attempts to drive the Romans out of Briton are doomed to failure and the story must end with her death. Yet Scott keeps us turning the pages with bated breath to the very end. The final battle at the end of the last book is masterfully done. She has created such vivid characters and made us care about them so deeply that their ultimate fate is a matter for hopes and tears.I have only one quibble. I do not believe that Corvus and Valerius, life-long lovers, however imbued with the military code of their upbringing, would have fought each other to the death. I should have preferred to see the situation resolved in some other way. But that is a small point in the face of a truly remarkable feat of creative imagination.
What do You think about Dreaming The Serpent Spear (2006)?
I have that horrible feeling now the one you get when you've been rushing through a book to find out what happens and when you do and it all ends you realise you should have savoured it because this was the last in the series!An amazing end to a brilliant story. What more can I say? I highly recommend these books to anyone. The characters are so well created and I find myself nodding and grinning along with them, the plot is intricate and all though this wasn't the fastest paced book of the four it is not dull to say the least.The era fascinates me and although I am not knowledgeable on it it seems authentic to me and I have read other reviews saying that it is well researched so I shall trust their judgement on this one.
—Bethany
This is the fourth and last in a series about Breaca, warrior Queen of Roman-occupied Britain. A blend of well-researched historical fiction and (because let's face it, we don't know much) a healthy dose of mysticism and spiritual magic, this series has been intense, violent, emotional, and just out and out fabulous. It will plunge you into a very different world, where gods and the dead exist very closely with us and can be accessed by Dreamers or even by ordinary people in extraordinary situations. My only quarrel with the series is that everyone in the tribes seem to be either Warriors or Dreamers - but most people must have been farmers, with a sprinkling of hunters, woodsmen, smiths, leather workers, wheelwrights, and so on. Oh well, it makes for a damn good read.
—Eva Mitnick
In this the final novel in Manda Scott's Boudica series, the entire historical credibility of the novels falls apart for this reader. Scott seemingly abandons research in favour of complete immersion into lucid-dreaming and its alleged effects upon the physical world. Her portrayal of pre-pubescent Grainne, who was raped by half a century of Roman troops, goes beyond any hope of credibility. If the child lived after such brutality, it is highly likely she would have been so traumatized both physically and emotionally as to be incapable of functioning, yet Scott has Grainne discussing military tactics and strategy with her elders, a discussion a healthy, functioning child would be hard-pressed to conduct, let alone one as brutalized as Grainne.Scott further weaves the not very subtle threads for a possible Arthurian link here, which she admits in her author's epilogue, a literary device perfectly acceptable if one were writing fantasy, but certainly not for any kind of credible historical fiction. Character point of view looses any coherence in the final novel, so that within any chapter the reader might first be presented with Grainne's point of view, then switch to Breaca's, or Valerius', or any number of others. Where the editor was leaves me wondering.There is a substantial scene Scott has woven into the denouement which seems of little relevance to the story arc other than the author's own fascination with the Iron Age peat bog find of the Lindow Man. This scene completely arrests the tension and action, and again one has to wonder about the editor assigned to this novel.For me, a disappointing end to a middling series.
—Lorina Stephens
