Daggerspell (Deverry, #1) in Beyond Reality

Feb 01, 2020 John rated it it was amazing

Jotting down some thoughts before this gets too not-so-fresh in my memory...

Given when these were written, it would have certainly been possible for me to have come across them in my youth when I was consuming fantasy and science fiction at a prodigious rate, but somehow I didn't, though I certainly feel like I'd heard of them. Now, the works that I did read in the 80s, when I was a young lad and the genre was young in its own way, have been a mixed bag when I've gone back and visited them. Some Jotting down some thoughts before this gets too not-so-fresh in my memory...

Given when these were written, it would have certainly been possible for me to have come across them in my youth when I was consuming fantasy and science fiction at a prodigious rate, but somehow I didn't, though I certainly feel like I'd heard of them. Now, the works that I did read in the 80s, when I was a young lad and the genre was young in its own way, have been a mixed bag when I've gone back and visited them. Some few have stood up to adult scrutiny and many have not. The overall baseline quality of writing has just gotten better in the (oh my god) thirty-plus years since this was written.

Still, I thought this was quite good. There were some few things that I gave it a pass on because it was so old, but largely I felt like it stood on its own merits and stood quite well.

I did find it a bit jarring when, just a little way into getting to know our characters we were shunted back in time some few hundred years to a whole other set of characters, and it was maybe particularly jarring because I was listening to the audiobook and I couldn't easily flip back to the beginning chapters to remember when THAT was set. But ultimately, I appreciated these excursions back in time. Kerr is writing a world where reincarnation is a real thing, and this was valuable not only to get to know the souls of the characters in the present narrative but also to give the reader the flavor of the story, which in its way reminded me of Tolkien's The Silmarillion, not so much in its specifics (very different!) but in the tone of looming tragedy.

There's an overarching narrative here that goes back to this earliest story, of souls whose destinies are entwined, and the perhaps-immortal character whose destiny is bound up in trying to redeem these souls in some future life. And, as we're seeing through these older stories, redemption doesn't come easily--hence the tragic nature of these stories.

It's also important for us to read these stories because they help us understand what reincarnation means in this world--not the slavish repetition of past lives but these souls which are--somehow--the same and yet embodied in individuals and webs of connection that are very different from each past life.

Anyway, I quite enjoyed this first volume of the series, and look forward to getting to know Kerr's work more thoroughly. ...more

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May 24, 2013 Kerry rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: reread, fantasy, ebooks, 10-out-of-10, 2013

I loved rereading this. I'd forgotten just what an amazing series this is. I've bought a copy of the next one and I'm trying to decide if I wait on Aidan and Kate's reread of it or rush on and keep going. I'm reading some non-fiction now while I try to decide, but I suspect I will succumb to temptation and keep reading. ...more

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Mar 10, 2015 Christine rated it it was amazing

A great fantasy world I missed when it came out in the 80s; I was a bit confused by the timeline and some of the words, but have already ordered the next book in the series

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