Song in the Silence by Elizabeth Kerner is a bardic high fantasy about a young woman believing in legends and finding much more than she ever hoped possible, including adventure, demons, dragons and love of an unexpected varietyThis was a Guest Post over at Once Upon A Time and I’m reposting just in case you missed it :)When I was at the library a few months ago I saw a pamphlet celebrating Dragon Week and squeed with delight. OMG all I LOVE dragons :D. So I decided to look for one of the titles that I hadn’t read (not very many, ha) that looked interesting: Song in the Silence by Elizabeth Kerner. And so began an adventure of bardic proportions! GoodreadsTitle: Song in the SilenceAuthor: Elizabeth KernerPages: 416Genre-ish: High Fantasy through and throughRating: ★★★★☆ - Interesting story, slow paceSetting: Song in the Silence is set in a fantasy world where large but dumb reptiles are called dragons, but legends tell of an island full of riches beyond imagining, and more importantly, intelligent and beautiful True Dragons.Premise: Lanen is a young woman who has just lost her uncle (who raised her from a babe) and has found herself comfortably provided for by his horse business. She finally has the opportunity to follow her dreams and find out if the True Dragons really exist, though of course the journey to get there involves crossing a sea which no ship has made it across in about a hundred years….Strengths:Very interesting and unexpected spin on the romance elementStrong and beautifully imperfect female lead (Lanen is rather plain and taller than many men, awesome!)Seeing as this is listed as #1 of a series, the lore foundation that is laid is really promising and I will definitely find the second book to continue the larger plot that was startedAn authentic bardic style telling, with archaic phrasing and a slower pace, very classic fantasy styleWeaknesses:That last strength (which I was honestly impressed by) also becomes a weakness if you aren’t in the mood for a slow pace, since this book definitely relaxes more than compelsThe main plot of the book wasn’t clear for a chunk of the beginning, which leaves the reader feeling a bit lost, but hang in there!The same authentic bardic feel includes phrasing and some vocabulary that is a little difficult to understand if you are reading fast. I found myself going back over sentences here and there, but it was worth it :)Summary:I really enjoyed the story and absolutely LOVED the characters of Song in the Silence and really look forward to reading more from Elizabeth Kerner, but this book is definitely more of a project book than something to take on a trip. It will likely take you a little bit of time but it really is worth it to push through the slower parts. Kerner’s style reminded me heavily of Tolkien’s at various points, though with less large descriptive chunks ;-).
This book is a total fluff book. And I love it to pieces. As a young teen, I scoured the library for every fantasy book involving dragons. I loved dragon fantasies like some other people like werewolves or vampires (I'm looking at you, Twilight fans!). And some of these books were very silly and fluffy. But they usually didn't have too much romance, because I thought romance was altogether too gooey and distracted too much from the much more important business of fighting monsters and having adventures. This book, however, is a gooey dragon romance story, exactly the thing I hated, and somehow it manages to be awesome anyway. Along with "The Last Dragonlord" it was the mainstay of my fantasy romance comfort books. Let me explain.The story centers around Lanen Kaelar, (who actually turns out to have a couple other last names, but Kaelar is her Awesome Adventuring Name she picked for herself) who is in her mid-late 20's, unmarried, and has spent her whole life stuck on a farm, dreaming of adventure. When her father dies she takes her money and her skills with a blade (she was trained in the dead of night by her father-figure the stablehand, of course) and sets off for her dream adventure to the Dragon Isle, which can only be reached every 100 years because the storms wreck the ships otherwise.Once there, she ends up in a plot with a demon-lord bargaining for her life (who may or may not be her real father), meeting and eventually falling in love with a dragon, who is in fact the King of the dragons (and the only one of the dragons who is silver). There is gooey romance and also a lot of pretty epic fight scenes, spies and former thieves and badass old people. The plot of this book sounds like the worst kind of Mary Sue wish-fulfilling fanfic fluff, but it succeeds because it treats its characters as real and sensible people. People who, in fact, shout at the plot, "WTF is going on, this situation is ridiculous!" (Notably the heroine and the dragon, who both acknowledge it's insane to fall in love with someone completely the wrong species.) The gods answer back, "Shut up, we know what we're doing." But at least the characters wonder. It's a really nice book and offers some nice explanation for typical dragon mythos (like why dragons really sleep on gold) and offers an impressive look at dragons as an actual society with its own culture. In addition to totally fluffy romance. Fantastic.
What do You think about Song In The Silence (1998)?
I originally read this in high school, and reread it recently. This book series features some fantastic MOTHERLOVING DRAGONS, but is inundated with the kind of overly-flowery language that tends to show up in teenager's first fanfic attempts and fantasy genre authors who just really really want to be Tolkien.I love the plot premise and the issues of a cross-species Epic Love for people who aren't Jack Harkness (this relationship totally passes the Jack Harkness rules of "Can we get it on?" - everyone's capable of consent, sentient, and an adult according to their native culture). If you can watch the first half of The Labyrinth without rolling your eyes at Sarah so hard they almost fall out, then you will devour this book and search for the sequel (like I did back in high school). If you get horrific second-hand embarrassment burns from teenagers being LARPy teenagers, then you'll probably put this book down around page 50.
—Sadie Mason-Smith
Song in the Silence is a straightforward pursuing-a-dream journey story that avoids the chest-thumping conventions of typical epic fantasy capital-Q Quests. Kerner's heroine has feminine goals and strengths, rather than succeeding like a male hero would. Perhaps when writing this story in the early 1990s, Kerner was sick of fantasy women warriors who, no matter how skilled, were still inevitably portrayed as busty sex goddesses in leather lingerie, and wanted to create a different kind of female fantasy hero. (The novel's cover art sadly still has a midriff baring and breast-baring peekaboo top, but Lanen's picture is the closest to pratical travel wear of any woman on an epic fantasy cover I'd seen by 1996). Kerner's commitment to feminine strength goes beyond the overarching theme of Lanen questing to talk to and understand dragons rather than wanting to slay them and claim their treasure. Along the way Kerner highlights Lanen's courageous compassion, her honesty with herself and her awareness of the feelings of others, her bravery in venturing beyond her comfort zone and her willingness to learn, her ability to detect and avoid being manipulated, and her ability to convince, not simply confront, her opponents. Although she starts her journey naive from a sheltered life, Lanen learns quickly and makes a number of reasoned, intelligent decisions that avoid typical quest story traps, both the male (ego) and female (emotionality). I rarely have seen so thoughtful and answer to the question what would it be like to be on the hero's journey as a woman?Now don't worry, the story isn't too feminine. There are plenty of foundering ships and hulking dragons and other adventures, even some gruesome gore. You spend plenty of time in the story reading the perspective of the dragons, the villians, and others. Kerner's storytelling is smooth despire the frequent changes in point of view, probably because Kerner doesn't overuse the pov-switch cliffhanger.The main detractor for some readers will be the central male dragon - human woman relationship. Remember that the story was published in 1996, well before the Twilight era. At the time paranormal romance was a section of the used bookstore to giggle over, not a blockbuster YA market with its own shelf at B&N. The relevant comparison at the time was dragon-loving vs. dragonslaying, not to all the other kinds of yearing for the impossible couples (girl & vampire, girl & werewolf, etc., etc.,)that we have today. But if the very idea of one more story featuring 'the impossible Other' soulmates makes you want to chuck the book, this story is not for you! I hear you, I'm sick of that trope too, but even despite it this story has won a lasting place on my bookshelves. Recommended for fans of Mercedes Lackey, Anne McCaffrey and Andre Norton.
—Janet
I picked up this book second hand from a charity shop. I picked it up, examined it, put it down and walked away from it. But I kept thinking about about, so I went back and bought it. It's magic was already working on me. What magic? Something about the title, the cover, the map, the beginning of the story, the voice of Lanen. They all spoke to me from the beginning, and I was spellbound.On page 76 came my Great Criticism. I had soaked Lanen into me, and for 76 pages we had followed her, in her voice alone, and then, suddenly, there came another voice, and then another! Half pages each, startling, jarring, and disturbing. I hadn't seen this perspective change coming, and it shook me. But later, as such changes became expected, and frequent, I adapted.Lanen was born at Hadronsstead, a horse farm in the northwest of the Kingdom of Ilsa, which is the farthest west of the Four Kingdoms of Kolmar.Lanen has a hidden history, a dangerous future, and a dream. A dream of Dragons. And this is the beginning of her tale. It is a tale well worth reading.
—Neil
