What do You think about The Outstretched Shadow (2003)?
I adore high fantasy. Sadly, very few books match up to my wishes. The last significant one I read was the Green Rider series, and I absolutely loved the first book, but then the rest of them plummeted thereafter in terms of quality. And I'm always looking for replacements, and so far, this rather fits the bill.In this story, we meet Kellen, son of an archmage, who starts feeling the consequences of his restricted city life, the pressures put on him, and the strict rules and codes the town's inhabitants live under. Not to mention the questionable magic he has to study. He starts to question the rigid laws, the careful control and the ethics of the ruling mages. So, when he finds some very illegal books on a very different type of magic in the market, he starts studying them. The magic of the three books will seal his fate however, bringing him to people who, like him, question the absolute authority of the mages, making him delve deeper into the secrets of the mages, until finally, he is banished from his home and hunted down. ...and that's only the beginning. From there comes a marvelous adventure of finding one's lost past, finding one's talents, and deciding what's really important in life.This is a very full fantasy world, rich in detail, and with no shortcuts, like I like. The society and environment are both believable.There is one thing that's a bit jarring, however. As Kellen leaves his city for the unknown outer world, he suddenly encounters a lot (a lot) of magical creatures in a very short span of time, and they, only being background characters, are not as well crafted as the rest of the world. True, they're not a big part of the whole, but you notice the, for lack of a better word, sloppiness. Makes me wonder if one of the writers did the world construction and the other the creatures. Also, all of the bestiary entering the story at the same time is a bit overwhelming, with so many new things to take in all at once.The story itself, however, makes up for small things like this. It's always engaging and moves at a quick pace, through many well-crafted environments, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, and will be reading the next installment.
—Janne Varvára
This book was surprisingly good! I shouldn't be so surprised, because I generally adore Mercedes Lackey's work, espescially her Valdemar series. But this was a different type of story, so I wasn't sure what to expect. It was long, and it took a little while to get started, so you need to go into it with some patience. In fact, it felt like 65% of the book was exposition. Personally, I enjoyed its slower pace because the world building in this book was nothing short of amazing. The details in this fantasy world were described so painstakingly, they felt so vivid and real. And this book really does have a little bit of everything; magic, elves, unicorns, fighting, romance, etc... I highly recommend this book if you love well-crafted fantasy stories.
—Branwen *Blaidd Drwg*
I liked the story and the characters very much; and I loved the concept of wild magic in this book. But so much of the book was taken up by the mental anguish of its main character, Kellen Tavadon, that it began to feel like filler -- something added to make the book thicker.Granted Kellen has been torn from his insular urban existence and thrown into the wide world of wild magic, and his struggles to find the truth between these conflicting worlds are important to the story. But I have enough of a problem dealing with my own monkey mind without the additional trauma of being told in excruciating detail every doubt, thought, and emotion in the mind of a seventeen year old boy whenever something new happens to him. Not to mention that floating in timelessness feeling I get when authors stop in the middle of a life and death struggle to give me a 15 minute description of what must have passed through the character's mind in a instant.Happily the next two books in this series are unavailable in audio so I don't have to decide whether or not to continue on to book #2.
—Susan
