Hmm.. I am conflicted as to how to rate this book. I picked it up multiple times to try to read it and only recently was I able to finish the book. As soon as I had gotten started, I was hooked. The world of this book was, as one reviewer noted on Wikipedia, "not meaty but creative." Nine types of songs and singers! A different skill for each song! One song is silent! The types of singers/songs are given fairly early on; note to readers: bookmark that page. Calwyn lives high in the icy mountains in a snowy convent filled with singers of ice (meaning she can create ice from singing). She meets Darrow, a singer of iron (but also of earth?), who can make things fly (hmm...that's a bit weird, but I went along with it). The beginning of the book, how Calwyn learns of the different songs and her friendship with the injured-and-doomed-to-be-sacrificed Darrow is excellent. In fact, the first half of the book was riveting! I simultaneously read and searched for spoilers for fear of becoming overexcited! Yes, I read the wikipedia blurb on this book while I was reading it, which ruined it not at all for me.Calwyn has a plan to defeat Darrow's nemesis/childhood friend (Samis) who has been thwarted in his rise to throne by his father the Emperor picking another son to be heir. As he was rather talented in iron-chanting, he decided he could pick up other chantments as well, and so become "singer of all songs" and take over the world (a planet called Tremaris). It's a race to the finish line as Calwyn comes up with a plan to collect different "singers" and have a sing-down with Samis. It took me a while to realize that this was what was happening because Darrow, Mr. Sulky, pooh-poohed Calwyn's idea in lieu of frowning and moping. After Trout (from the land of fire, chantments that have been totally lost) and Mica (wind-singer), the story sort of went downhill. They keep on sailing and find Halasaa, a Tree-person who has the song of "Becoming" (healing), and somehow he can communicate with the prehistoric dinosaur birds (song of beasts)?? The Becoming song is completely silent so he telepathically talks to all of them?? And then he is hinted at being Calwyn's brother?????????????? And the Tree People didn't like Calwyn + company landing in their midst, so then Halasaa travels with them to their destination?? (Halasaa coming with them was a huge stretch to me, unlike Trout and Mica's tagging along for the ride.)Then Samis tells them that the singer of all songs doesn't need to sing all the songs but request such songs be sung. Okay, I get that. But then we're all counting down the songs being sung, and Tonno seeing his brother in the forest is...Samis singing the Seeming (taking on another's appearance) or who was it floating through the forest as Tonno's brother? Samis blowing on the trumpet of song of fire...is him learning/having the power of this song (so, if you got an instrument of chantment, that works too????)? And...what did Halasaa do? And where did the Song of Beasts come into play? What? And how did Samis even die? Was it because of Calwyn singing the ice-song or Trout not being able to hear any songs (being partially deaf and perhaps blind as well) and aiming a rock at the floating magical orb?? What?? WTH just happened???Yes, the ending was a giant question mark for me. It felt rushed as though the writer ran out of momentum and decided to end the book quickly. And suddenly Darrow, who's spent the entirety of the book sulking and not talking to people, is enamored of Calwyn and wants a future with her? What? (I get Calwyn having a crush on him. C'mon, the girl lived in a convent up in the mountains and was instrumental in saving this foreign-looking youngish brooding guy. If she didn't have a crush on him, that'd be weird.)I am giving this book 3 stars and not 2, just because the idea was pretty awesome and the first half of the book was captivating and fast-paced. The second half, as some reviewers noted, suddenly took place in a dystopic abandoned high-tech city. Oh yes, the fact that they're on a planet called Tremaris could also have been made a lot clearer earlier on.
This book is more like 4 and a half star, but there was something that bothered in the end. Here goes the riview. I had high hopes for this series. The author is Austrailian and it was a first for me. (it might be odd to be intrigued by a nationality but, come on! it is quite amazing!)It wasn't about vampire, warewolf or any kind magic I've heard of before. It's about people with gifts, chanting the words like a song to bring out the power that they were learned to do from a very young age. I have this image in my head where people will sing beautiful tunes in order to save the world. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Because I believe that a song, when sang with a soul, is more powerful than spoken words itself. When reading this book, author often writes sentences like "even now she wouldn't forget the scream from that night" (not her exact words) but those phrases made me feel like I was reading some sort of a fairy tale or a folk lore. Also, I was amazed how much excitment was stuffedd into such a small book without the stories being underdevelopped.It was very fast paced and sometimes time flew by with a blink of an eye. But it was more or less very reasonable. The heroine was, strange at times for me. Needless to say she was my least favorite character. But rest assure, there are plenty of interesting characters that you want to engage in. At the end of the book, there was a part where I got confused of who the speaker was. I felt like it got side tracked for few pages. And the ending was.. well, not surprising. But all in all, it was a great book. Filled with fellowship, love, magic and a bit of sorrow. I'm very glad to have stumbled onto this book and can't wait for the second and the third book to be delivered !!
What do You think about The Singer Of All Songs (2005)?
Life in Antaris is good for priestess-in-training Calwyn; especially as she is due to soon be raised to full priestess and has found her niche within the great walls of the country as beekeeper. However, she is still restless and when the Outlander, a sorcerer named Darrow, appears, questions of Calwyn's own past and eagerness to see the outside world increase. Darrow didn't stumble blindly over the sister's wall though, he comes with a warning; another sorcerer, named Samis, wishes to rule the world through chantment, the magical singing of Antaris and all Tremaris, and means to do so by becoming the Singer of All Songs. Thus begins Calwyn and Darrow's quest to save the world. There are plenty of unique elements to make this solidly Kate Constable's own world, but it did remind me of several other series, most of which I found more interesting. That isn't to say it was a bad book or weak world building, I think perhaps the biggest flaw was mediocre characters. The aren't forgettable, they are just.. ordinary (which isn't usual for the fantasy realm), and considering the surprising powers they have isn't really a positive for the series. (Superpowered people that still come off as kinda blah? Problematic.) So I'm just gonna divide the book into parts by book or series it reminded me of: intro- The Tombs of Atuan ~Ursula Le Guin; characters- The Books of Pelinor ~Alison Croggon (yes, I know it came out a year latter, but Croggon made similar characters much more interesting!); throw in a dash of Tamora Pierce like magic use and A Series of Unfortunate Events type villain that always seems to win, and you pretty much have the book. Now that I have the negative out of the way, be assured it wasn't as bad as the above paragraph makes it sound (hence the three stars instead of two or one), but it isn't a light-hearted story either, as there is little humor and a lot of harshness (between a mis-managed world that is starting to die and the antagonism to magic, life outside the wall is far from easy), so don't go in expecting a DWJ or Jasper Fforde type YA fantasy romp. Content notes: No language issues. Some sensuality in that the Priestess' are allowed to take on casual lovers and Calwyn is soon to be a full priestess with that option, so some of the other initiates talk about guys they are interested in, but it doesn't go beyond that. Also, Calwyn is attracted to one of the characters and he is attracted to her, but they put of discussion of this to a later date. Violence is of the wizard-dual type, with magical pushes and flying objects, usually only causing grievous injury (that isn't described beyond that), but does cause the death of a major character.
—Lydia
If you get the strange feeling that you've already read Kate Constable's first installment of the Tremaris trilogy, it's probably because you've read Garth Nix's Lirael. There is very little original or imaginative in Calwyn's episodic journey to destroy yet another one-dimensional Basic Evil Guy: this novel is not novel. Calwyn, a cloistered novice who has spent her first seventeen years behind a magically maintained ice-wall, plays the gawking spectator on what is basically a tour of Constable's made-up world. But because not enough time was spent establishing Calwyn's world-view, and because most of us have read any number of books set in magical fantasy worlds, we are not surprised when Calwyn is surprised, not filled with wonder along with her. We're left out. For example, very early-on in the book Calwyn finds a Sorceror on the wrong side of the wall. This causes much consternation inside the book, but not out here in the real world because we were not given to understand that it was not widely known inside the wall that men, or even anyone outside the wall, could work magic. That kind of sloppiness permeates the entire book. If it's available, and you're one of those people who just needs to be reading, don't hesitate to pick it up. It's not as bad as a withdrawal headache. Just don't bother seeking it out. There are other books much more worth the effort.
—Jamio
I have experienced another case of "supporting characters steal the show". I did enjoy the main character, especially later in the book. The world-building and introduction played out like many a fantasy story, it seemed, which is to say I didn't mind it at all but wasn't "zomgz shocked!!" by anything revealed. I adored the writing style: very poetic and descriptive. I fall head-over for elemental/craft magic and for songs, so the combination was lovely. I enjoyed the way the romance built with a bit of subtlety--weaving threads into the plot but not Taking Over the way it so often does and without smacking me in the face with a frying pan. I was not overly fond of the main male character (involved in the romance); I found him a bit too angsty and aloof and unpredictable for my tastes, although I did appreciate the odd cute scene here and there.But again, for me, it was all about these supporting characters that I came to love. I'm a Mica fangirl. The others, too.
—Kiwi
