Sara Douglass

The Wayfarer Redemption — (1995-1999) In some parts of the world, the first three books of this series is called The Axis Trilogy and the first book is titled Battleaxe.  Publisher: A millennia-old prophecy was given when the Forbidden Ones were driven from Achar. And now, the Acharites witness its manifestation: Achar is under attack by an evil lord from the North, Gorgreal-his ice demons strike from the sky and kill hundreds of brave warriors in the blink of an eye. All Acharites believe the end is near. One young woman, Faraday, betrothed of Duke Borneheld, learns that all she has been told about her people's history is untrue. While fleeing to safety from the dangerous land, Faraday, rides with Axis, legendary leader of the Axe-Wielders-and hated half-brother of Borneheld-and a man Faraday secretly loves although it would be death to admit it. She embarks on a journey, which will change her life forever, in search of the true nature of her people. This grand and heroic story tells the tale of one woman's plight to learn the truth of her people and change their hearts and their minds forever. She fights against oppressive forces to share this reality and will not desist until everyone knows... The truth of the Star Gate.

Novels set in the same world:

BattleAxe (aka The Wayfarer Redemption)

Note: Amanda, who reviews this novel, lives in the UK where this book is titled BattleAxe. In the US, the title is The Wayfarer Redemption.

A thousand years ago the people of Achar drove the Forbidden from their land in the War of the Axe. They pulled down huge swathes of woodland in their fear and now live by the Way of the Plough under the benign guidance of their deity Artor. But troubling rumours are brewing. Winter has come — and stayed. Icy wraiths are appearing from the mist and killing soldiers at the border stronghold before vanishing. They are believed to be the Forbidden, massing in order to invade Achar and kill the Acharites.

Borneheld, War Leader and heir to the throne of Achar (son of Searlas and Rivkah), is sent to the border with reinforcements to hold back the Forbidden. Axis, his illegitimate half-brother (born to Rivkah when she took a lover and disgraced herself), is the leader of the Axe-Wielders — the BattleAxe of the title. He has been sent by Jayme, the Seneschal of the Brotherhood (a sort of head priest figure, and Axis' foster father), to seek out more information about the Forbidden. Axis must also take Faraday, Borneheld's betrothed, a very beautiful and innocent young woman with whom Axis falls in love. During the journey, Axis finds out more about the nature of the Forbidden and the Sentinels, and learns of the Prophecy which will change the course of his life.

Sara Douglass has a fantastic imagination. In BattleAxe, she creates four completely different races and their shared history, a Prophecy, many mystical doings, and a family dispute that threatens to destroy the land and leave it open to Gorgrael, the foe. But despite this dense world-building, the pace is explosive, and the writing is simple and easy to follow. I whipped through this 600-page book in a couple of days, which (even though I’m currently trapped in my house by snow) is fast.

It’s just a shame that the plotting is so predictable, and the book so rife with clichés. As I was reading BattleAxe, I correctly guessed just about everything that happened, from Rivkah's “surprise” resurrection to Faraday turning out to be more than she seemed. Oh, and when Timozel is mentioned as resenting Axis within the first paragraph of introducing him, what's the betting he goes on and betrays Axis? What's that? No bet, you say? Some characters are self-consciously made out to be good, then (surprise, surprise!) turn out to be evil later on; the military men immediately take the Prophecy as complete truth without any skepticism … but it's just too easy to mock.

In addition, BattleAxe is in need of heavy editing. For instance, within the first 10 pages or so we encounter the word “perplexion.” Unless I'm completely wrong, Douglass is making up words here, and a decent edit should have picked this up. It would also have turfed out some of the excessive info-dumping which is clumsily done. Every time Douglass introduces a new race, or the history of a race, or the religion of a country, she does so by having it explained to a naïve wide-eyed character. This happens over and over. It is a lazy method, and some of the information seems unnecessary — more like she couldn’t bear to omit anything from her exhaustive world-building notes.

An edit would also have prevented some of the "oh, come on!" moments. For instance, at the end of chapter 51 we conveniently hear about the Charonites for the first time. Two chapters later, one of the characters suddenly says they need to seek the assistance of the Charonites. All it would have taken was a brief mention of this long-lost race during one of the many earlier info-dumps, and this scene would have been much smoother!

I also have to mention Douglass' cutesy names for her Icarii characters, and a naming convention she uses throughout BattleAxe. We have characters such as StarDrifter and GoldFeather (note the capital letter) and places such as the WildDog Plains. Axis is the BattleAxe. I hate it! Every time I read one of these names I roll my eyes. Naming conventions like these are common in fantasy (Douglass is far from the only offender), but this is the first time I've seen traditions of writing so cavalierly discarded.

And I'm not sure I am supposed to laugh at some of the sections I chortled at. Every time Axis and his Axe-Wielders leave a place, they go through the following ritual:

"Axe-Wielders, are you ready?"
"We follow your voice and are ready, BattleAxe!"
"Then let us ride!"

I suspect that this is supposed to sound stirring and majestic, but it just made me giggle, especially when they perform the ritual while they are supposed to be silently approaching an enemy in order to surprise them!

BattleAxe is the first in the Axis Trilogy. On the one hand, I don't want to read any more of the books because there’s so much clichéd nonsense; on the other hand I am compelled to find out what happens next! So I award BattleAxe three stars; the two-dimensional characters and bad writing on one side balance out the fantastic pacing and imagination to make this a distinctly average fantasy novel.
—Amanda Rutter

Enchanter

Enchanter is book two of the Axis Trilogy of The Wayfarer Redemption saga and follows the same path as many middle novels in trilogies: lots of events occur, but the main focus is getting all the main players into place for the big wrap-up in book three. In Enchanter, Axis is trying to bring the Prophecy to fruition — seeking to unite the Acharites with the Avar and the Icarii against opposition from his half-brother Borneheld and, ultimately, Gorgrael. We learn more about the mysterious ninth Talon and finally discover Azhure's heritage.

I've awarded Enchanter three stars because, despite its many faults, I felt compelled to constantly read just one more chapter. Sara Douglass whips through events at a mind-boggling pace and delivers these events with a smooth narrative.

However, I don't quite know why I wanted to keep reading! The book is cliché-ridden, from the fact that there is a Prophecy guiding the steps of the main protagonists to the Ravensbundmen, a nomadic horse tribe with bells chiming in their hair and tattoos covering their faces.

In addition to this, I also found it hard to like any of the characters. Axis is cruel in how he treats Faraday, and I find him a little too smug and arrogant. Faraday is a complete martyr; her doormat tendencies at the end of the book are incredibly frustrating. And Azhure! Where to start with her? She is just so AMAZING (to the other characters, not to me) all the time. Everyone loves her or lusts after her; she is a village girl who ends up being given squads to train and has remarkable leadership qualities; she looks after the supply needs for a garrison of 3000 men. All this on top of being remarkably beautiful and perceptive. And intelligent. And compassionate. You get the picture. I ended up reading with complete disbelief all the myriad capabilities of this woman and it quickly became very tired.

On the plus side, while the characters are often unsympathetic, Douglass develops them well. Even the secondary characters are fleshed out and given strong visual descriptions, and some of them are almost as memorable as the main characters. The only area where she fails in this is the SunSoar family and their attendants (and by the way, the random capital letters are annoying). I found most of the Icarii completely interchangeable. Only StarDrifter stands out properly from the rest, but this is possibly due to revulsion at his vow to woo his granddaughter.

My final negative point is that everything seems to come too easily to these characters. Axis needs everyone to hear the Prophecy, so it is made magically memorable; Axis needs food at Sigholt for his new army, so the lake miraculously makes vegetables grow quicker. The Icarii are accepted by the Acharites, despite eons of hate and enmity. Both the Icarii and Acharites just accept Axis' leadership once Borneheld is out of the way. Characters often make bizarre leaps of logic to serve the plot. The result is that the reader feels little tension or fear for the characters.

Enchanter, for me, was the literary equivalent of the color “beige.” I read it quickly, but there were enough exasperating elements that I don't rate the Axis Trilogy as a must-read for anyone.
—Amanda Rutter

StarMan

StarMan is the third in the Axis Trilogy by Sara Douglass. In this book the final battle between Axis and his half brother Gorgrael will take place, the identity of the Lover is revealed, and, finally, WolfStar shows his true colours. StarMan is absolutely packed with events, as the first two books were, and it positively glitters with the force of Douglass' very vivid imagination.

Sara Douglass has managed to churn out a fairly effective fantasy trilogy. The world building is top-notch, and the character development has been vigorous — especially when thinking back to the first book. These characters have definitely come a long way! I was unable to resist finding out what happened to Axis, Azhure, and Faraday, which I guess is most of what can be asked from a novel.

But while I felt compelled to finish this trilogy, I am not desperate to read the next trilogy which is also set in the world of Tencendor. In fact, I could manage if I never picked up another of this fairly prolific author's work because the writing is clumsy (e.g, those cloying and sickly names such as Dear Man, Friend, and sweet boy — Ack!), some of the characters are walking clichés, and I found some key scenes rather funny — even though I knew I shouldn't be laughing. The dialogue follows a tiresome 'he said, she said' formula, and most of it was extremely melodramatic (along the lines of “I can't live without you,” etc).

At times I wanted to slap certain characters — Azhure chief amongst them. Yep, I still can't get past the whole 'village girl makes good' theme. At other times I rolled my eyes at plot devices — here the gems with souls (chitter, chatter!) were a lowlight. I'm just baffled by the extreme consistency of Douglass' writing.

And yet Douglass presents us with the Icarii — a proud race of winged people, angelically beautiful, who use the power of the Star Dance to perform their enchantments; a race whose children are awakened in the womb and then sung through birth to ease their panic. These ideas leap off the page and led to the one really interesting subplot with DragonStar and RiverStar, the twins of Azhure and Axis. I love how these children are made out to be indifferent — even hateful — to their parents because of events they felt while still in the womb. It was incredibly unusual to see children written about in a negative fashion, and all the more intriguing for it.

I leave you with a quote from the book which can very effectively sum up both StarMan and the preceding two volumes: "It was a sadly anticlimactic end to what had been a sometimes grand but often tragic campaign." —Amanda Rutter

The Crucible Trilogy — (2000-2002) Historical Fantasy. Publisher: The Black Plague. The Pestilence. Disease and death haunt every town and village across 14th century Europe and none are immune from its evil. Some see the devastation of their world as a sign from God for Man's wickedness.But Brother Thomas Neville sees this swath of death as something much more. Neville is a man beset by demons. Or is it angels? He has had a visitation from none other than the Archangel Michael, who commands Thomas to a mission. This mission will take Neville across the length and breath of the continent in a desperate bid to find the means to stop the minions of Satan who have found a doorway out of Hell and are preparing to venture forth, to try and seize this world in preparation for an assault on Heaven itself. As Thomas Neville encounters angels and demons, saints and witches, he comes to realize that the armies of God and Satan are arraying themselves for the final battle... and that his soul is to be the battleground.The question is, has Neville picked the truly good side?

The Nameless Day

The Nameless Day is a difficult book to review as there was so much I didn't like about it. To begin with, the main character is extremely unlikeable, which isn't an automatic mark against a book, but when the character stays so consistently unlikeable for such a long time, it does get a bit wearying. We see some slight glimpses of a better man here and there more towards the end, but following Thomas Neville through several hundred pages can seem a bit of a chore. Worse for me were the many inconsistencies within the book of plot and character. Just to give one example, at one point Thomas is berated and mocked by a small group for having traipsed around much of Europe due to some visions from St. Michael. Then only a few pages later, the same group listens as Thomas tells them of demons and his visions and they all believe him wholeheartedly because according to the author, they had been trained from birth to do so. The two seem pretty mutually exclusive to me and I still can't reconcile the disparate actions beyond the author's need to have the plot go in certain directions so she has characters act any way necessary. One more example — once this group does wholeheartedly believe in the demons and Thomas' vision, they seem surprisingly passive with regard to them. This sort of inconsistency runs throughout the book and is infuriating in places.

Yet somehow, once I got past the first 100 pages, during which I several times considered just stopping, the book did get hold of me somehow, even though I kept marking its flaws. Part of it was an interest in whether Thomas would grow in character. Another was an interest in the God/Angels vs. Demons and which was good which was bad plot. And to be honest, much, if not even most, was when characters I've always been interested in such as Prince Hal and Hotspur and Richard etc. started to make regular appearance. I can't say if those not in the English teacher-Shakespeare reader mold that I come from would find the book as interesting.

The strengths of The Nameless Day, besides picking some interesting historical/dramatic characters, are its historical setting/detail and its ability to keep the reader guessing a bit with regard to character motivations, with a lot of unclear or shifting alliances and desires. The weaknesses are the aforementioned inconsistencies, the almost unrelenting negativity of the main character, and some hard to swallow plot points/premises. I'll read the second book, as it continues to move into a period of history I enjoy, but I hope it's better constructed. As for this one, recommended but barely, with a lot of misgiving. —Bill Capossere

The Nameless Day: Loved the setting, hated the characters

Thirty years ago, an elderly monk died of the plague before he could perform a ritual that would keep a portal to Hell closed, or pass on his knowledge to a successor. Now, thirty years later, Brother Thomas Neville is chosen by St. Michael to reseal the portal. To do that, he needs to find the old monk's book.

Thomas is a man with demons of his own; a member of one of England's most prominent families, he forsook secular life for the priesthood after his mistress's death, which was a result of his own desertion of her. Returning to England to search for the book, he finds himself drawn to his old friends among the nobility, to worldly life, and to his uncle's former mistress, Margaret, whom Thomas magically impregnated while sleeping with a pregnant peasant woman. (Don't ask.) He is attracted to Margaret, but also considers her an abomination and suspects she is in league with the demons.

I was sucked into this story for two reasons: one, because I can't wait to find out who's really "good" and who's really "evil" in this cosmology. Right now, the angels and the demons both look pretty bad. Two, because I loved the real-history sections of the plot. Douglass has set her story during a tumultuous and fascinating period.

What I didn't like: I know he's meant to be that way, but Thomas is a loathsome character. Thankfully, he develops just a little toward the end of the novel, but not enough; he's still prone to making me want to slap him. Meanwhile, Margaret is rather spineless, becoming hysterical over her lover deciding not to marry her even though that was the agreement from the start, then imprinting on Thomas almost instantly. I can't figure out why she loves him so unrelentingly. It reminds me a lot of Hades' Daughter, with a self-righteous "hero" sleeping with, but treating like dirt, a clinging-vine "heroine." Ugh.
—Kelly Lasiter

The Wounded Hawk: Carries some of same flaws but better than first

Set amid the drama and cast of the 100 Years War (though more parallel than true history), this sequel to The Nameless Day continues the story of Thomas Neville, former cleric returned to his noble life, as he tries to complete the quest given him by archangel Michael — to retrieve a mysterious casket that will allow him to send back to hell the demons that now roam the world. As readers of the first book know (and only readers of the first one should read this), Thomas himself has become unsure of just which side is the "good" one in the battle between the demons and angels and his uncertainty continues throughout this book, though not quite as pronounced.

Though plagued by some of the same flaws as The Nameless Day (some character inconsistencies, some surprisingly careless writing), The Wounded Hawk manages to easily avoid the "middle book" syndrome. Instead of acting simply as a weaker bridge book to the trilogy's conclusion, Wounded Hawk expands and deepens both the characters and the story, improving on its predecessor in all ways.

Some of the improvement occurs because the character/plot inconsistencies, while not completely evaded, are much reduced. Some of the improvement occurs because the main character of Thomas recaptures some humanity and thus is a much more palatable character with whom to spend hundreds of pages. Improvement also lies in the book's tighter focus, mostly centering around a few personal relationships and the royal politics of England, specifically the battle between Richard II and Hal of Bolingbroke. It's also a better paced book, with scenes moving quickly and (usually) smoothly from one to the other, with no sense of being bogged down. The plot, while still containing some twists and turns, some shifts of allegiance, is crisper and cleaner, less of a muddle than in book one. The characters are all much more interesting and are captured much more fully, even the secondary ones.

The book's flaws are pretty much the same as in Nameless Day, though as mentioned they are greatly reduced. There are still annoying (though not infuriating) inconsistencies in character thoughts/actions and in points of view. Douglass has a tendency to tell us too much rather than allowing us to infer from actions or dialogue. Some actions seem a bit implausible. And some shifts in characters' beliefs seem to move all too quickly. Noticeable as these are, however, the book's strengths outweigh its flaws and I found myself pretty swept along in what was happening even as I found myself occasionally annoyed by how it was being presented. Certainly if you've read book one and enjoyed it, continue the series. If like me you had mixed feelings about book one, I'd strongly recommend giving the sequel a chance as it's so much better. And if you really didn't like book one at all, then you're not reading this anyway so blah blah blah. Recommended. —Bill Capossere

The Wounded Hawk: Better than the first, but not without flaws

The middle book of the Crucible trilogy is better than the first, but not without its flaws.

Thomas Neville, our protagonist, is slightly more bearable this time around, having shaken off some of his old vows and old prejudices. It's a beautiful thing watching him come to love his wife Margaret, and reexamine some of his beliefs.

Meanwhile, Richard II is ruling cruelly and ineptly, Thomas's boyhood friend Bolingbroke is beginning to make his play for the throne, and in France, Joan of Arc urges a reluctant king to act against the English. Sara Douglass has taken some liberties with chronology, but it doesn't matter much, as her timeline works for the story and she explains in a foreword that she has used some creative license, so it doesn't jar at all.

What does jar a bit is the head-hopping; we seem to bounce from POV to POV several times per scene. Also, the scheme that Bolingbroke and Margaret execute, with traumatic results for Margaret, just doesn't quite make sense. I feel like I was supposed to either find it reprehensible or decide it was worth the eventual outcome, but instead? It just doesn't make sense. I can't figure out why these characters would have chosen that route.

On the positive side: Douglass builds to a big bang here. The secret that Thomas discovers is as shocking as it needs to be, and raises many questions about what will happen in the third book.

Finally, one more quibble. When Douglass sets her mind to it, she can write gorier scenes than many writers of outright horror. (I'm thinking of the miscarriage from Hades' Daughter.) I got almost to the end of The Wounded Hawk and was pleased to think that she'd kind of toned down the gross-out.

Then I read the epilogue. Let's just say that Douglass reassigns Edward II's gruesome death to another figure — and describes it. In detail. In excruciating detail. Yes, the guy was a vicious character. But I don't want to read about that happening to anyone. —Kelly Lasiter