 Deryni Rising: Classic high epic fantasy
 Katherine Kurtz is truly a mistress of fantasy — she's been writing high epic fantasy for 40 years and should be considered one of the post-Tolkien "parents" of our genre.
The setting of the Deryni saga is an alternate medieval Europe (clearly analogous to our medieval England and Wales) and the Deryni are a magical race who look just like, and can interbreed with, humans. They have been persecuted for years by the Church (clearly meant to be our medieval Catholic church) and most people with Deryni blood choose to hide and/or deny their lineage and magical powers.
The plot is simple: in the prologue, King Brion (King of Gwynned) is killed by the evil Deryni sorceress Charissa who wants his throne. Charissa plans to challenge Brion's 14-year old son (and heir) Kelson to a magical duel during Kelson's coronation. If she wins, no one can stop her from making herself ruler of Gwynned. Kelson and his friends must decode Brion's poetic message and find the objects and information required to unleash Kelson's magical powers before he has to face Charissa. Charissa has some minions to help her, including one who's highly placed in Kelson's regency council.
I've been meaning to read Deryni for years, and I wish I had started earlier because now I realize that I came to it too late. The beginning of this massive epic was published “before my time” and so I missed it when I'm sure it would have seemed fresh and new. Now, reading Deryni Rising as an adult, it just seems old-fashioned.
First of all, the writing is not particularly vivid in this first novel (I flipped through a later book and noticed that the writing was much more polished, as would be expected). The omniscient narrator jumps around from point-of-view to point-of-view, explaining everyone's thoughts and motives and leaving no room for mystery, suspense, or the chance for me to deduce something on my own. For a 12th century medieval setting, there was also some jarring modern word usage (and even a couple of Americanisms) in the dialogue: “itemizing,” “far-fetched,” “parameters,” “invalidated,” “interface,” “calculating,” “variables,” “capitalized.” I was mentally thrust out of the story every time I read one of those.
Secondly, while Kelson is quite likeable and Morgan, his Deryni advisor, is actually intriguing, most of the characters are two-dimensional.
The good guys are very good and the bad guys are very bad. There is no in-between.
These are minor complaints and I should temper them by saying that I am sure I would have liked Deryni Rising if I had read it when I was 14. The writing was clear, the characters likeable, and the adventure was interesting. Particularly thought-provoking was the idea that the Catholic church might be able to live side-by-side with “the Occult” if the Deryni used their God-given powers for good instead of evil. If further Deryni novels explore this idea (and I'll bet they do), I will be tempted to pick them up.
I recommend Deryni Rising for those who enjoy YA fantasy. I can't speak for how appropriate the sequels are, but Deryni Rising can act as a stand-alone novel since there is no cliff-hanger at the end (thank you for that, Mrs. Kurtz!). —Kat Hooper
 In the King's Service:
Not among her best, but still pretty strong
 In the King's Service is the beginning of a new trilogy which details the recent history of the kingdoms that led to the events of her original series focusing on King Kelson, Alaric, et. al. (beginning with Deryni Rising). Though I suppose it could be read independently, I certainly wouldn't recommend it and advise people new to this world to start with her first trilogy (or possibly go chronologically starting with the Camber series depending on taste).
For most of us long-time readers of Katherine Kurtz's series, this begins to fill in one of the more interesting gaps in its timeline. While we see a few minor familiar characters, the ones we are probably most desirous of seeing (Alaric, Duncan, Kelson) don't yet appear in this work, which is a generation earlier. Well, one does — but as a baby and not until the very end, and since his dialogue would pretty much be "uurp" and "bbbllhttt," it doesn't really count. Kelson's father appears as a young child and one looks forward to seeing how his relationship with Morgan evolves over the trilogy's action.
In the King's Service doesn't reach the higher levels of the Deryni works, an admittedly quite high standard, but it doesn't fall far below. Probably the biggest reason for its falling short is its time setting and structure. Unlike many of her other novels, which focused in sharp, vivid detail on a lot of characters over a relatively brief period of time; In the King's Service keeps the plethora of characters but stretches out the events over years and years. Unfortunately this lessens the overall emotional impact of many of the scenes as we quickly move on to more action, sometimes months or years later. It is also difficult to really get to know most of the characters because we move so freely and widely in time and space and number of characters. Some of them have potential were they to be carried into the next book, but as many readers will know, Ms. Kurtz is not leery of killing off major characters and she does so several times here, though she does tuck a few away for safekeeping until the next book.
Alyce Corwyn, who will be Morgan's mother (as fans will know — so nothing given away here), stands out as the strongest and most vividly realized character, though still not in the vein of earlier Deryni inhabitants; her appearance in the next book may raise her to that level however.
Other characters remain a bit shadowy and tenuous. One character in particular stands out as a bit two-dimensional, seemingly brought on stage only for a needed major plot point, making her appearance and actions seem a bit forced. King Donal is portrayed as a man torn between his desire for justice and right and his desire to protect his kingdom and especially his heir. Here again, the characterization falls a bit shallow; it would have been nice to have seen his torment more often and more fully. As it is presented, it reads a bit hollow since it occurs so quickly.
The various plot lines will seem familiar to fans: Mearan rebels, Torenthi incursions, church antipathy toward Deryni, a king trying to protect his lineage, various coming-of-age stories. Their familiarity bleeds them a bit of intensity, as does the fact that Kurtz is showing the earliest stages of many of these problems which lead to the full blow-up of most of them in Kelson's time. But if they pale somewhat in intensity and originality, they still retain the ability to compel interest and at times move the reader. I can't say I avidly and breathlessly turned every page, but I still wanted to and enjoyed reading it in a single setting. A few plot points felt forced and I have to say the closing scene involving Brion I found utterly implausible which, coming at the end, left a little of a bad taste. But she manages to mostly avoid the pitfall of many prequels — the sense you sometimes get that writer is simply working mechanically backward filling in the blanks to come. As always, she is a master of ritualistic detail, which some will revel in and others probably skim through.
The frequent, lengthy, and important delineation of bloodlines can get a bit overwhelming; the opening chapter is especially taxing in this regard but if you can fight your way through that discussion, you'll do fine the rest of the way.
Mostly one gets the sense that this book is in fact more necessary prequel than a full-fledged Deryni novel. The sweep of years and characters has cleared the historical table, so to speak, and managed to put the reader at the point where Alyce, Morgan, Duncan, Brion, etc. will be able to take more full stage in the next book while setting the trendlines in place for the actions we know as fans are to come. In that regard, In the King's Service does its job and if it isn't a top tier Deryni novel, it has ambitions for being more than just serviceable exposition, ambitions that it mostly achieves. One of the ways it goes beyond simple exposition is the way she drops references to seemingly important people and groups and magic systems that are not at all familiar and that will clearly be explained in the next book. So rather than just give the reader comforting background information, she offers up tasty hints of things to come leaving the reader wanting more information.
Recommended with a strong sense that book two will be much better and in that top level.
—Bill Capossere
 The Bishop's Heir: Splendid
 It's hard to think of an author who has done a better job than Katherine Kurtz of creating a world that is as meticulously researched, historically accurate, and heartbreakingly tragic. The Bishop's Heir is splendid as it depicts the reign of a young King, newly come to power, and his struggles to become who he wishes to be and not what others would have him be.
Kurtz writes with such expertise in depicting the world and conditions that the characters live in, that you feel like you are truly there. It's gritty and dark and entirely realistic. The characters are flawed, but that is the beauty of the craftsmanship because they are all the better for being something other than the infallible heroes that so often bedeck epic fantasy.
Kurtz's depiction of the role of Church, politics, and intrigue are perfectly intertwined. The very title of this book is controversial enough to pique the interest of any student of human history. I really enjoyed that Kutz so closely emulates what really happened, but still blends in the fantastic and sets it some place other than our world.
Prepare to be entertained and educated by The Bishop's Heir. This is what we all hope to read and so seldom find.
—John Hulet
 Childe Morgan
 Katherine Kurtz’s first Deryni series introducing the land of Gwynneth and its young, just-made King Kelson and his advisor Alaric Morgan is a justifiably acclaimed fantasy classic. Since that first trilogy, Kurtz has given us several series of books dipping into
Gwynneth’s far history as well as Kelson’s near future. While, as
is true of just about any such multi-volume fantasy series, there have been some stumbles here and there, for the most part Kurtz has maintained the high level of quality set by that first trilogy, especially with regard to the Camber of Culdi series set in the distant past.
Childe Morgan is the second in the series that falls right before that first trilogy when King Kelson takes his place as ruler, helped by Alaric Morgan and others. Like the first book in this grouping, In the King’s Service, Childe Morgan suffers from a feeling of it being a “fill-in-the-gap” novel, one whose plot and characters are pre-determined by previous novels. As such, it lacks much of the passion and excitement of King Kelson’s earlier books or the Culdi series (which was set so far in the past that only broad strokes of plot had to be accommodated).
The first book suffered from trying to “catch up” the reader on many, many years, so we were hurled through decades and the emotional impact of that novel was stunted by the short shrift given to any particular event or character. Childe Morgan, on the other hand, is much more focused in terms of many fewer years covered (only a
couple) and many fewer characters involved. Unfortunately, though, it still feels more like one wandered into a theater a few hours early — the stage is being set, props are put into their needed places, lights shift from place to place quickly practicing where they’ll be focusing later, characters pop on and off stage practicing their entrances for later important scenes, cue lines are rehearsed that will eventually lead into moving dialogue. But not here, not yet.
As if often the case with prequel storylines, the book also suffers a bit from been-there-done-that. If you’ve read the previous Deryni novels, and while this series stands independent it would be a mistake to read it alone or first, you’ve already seen the scenes involving a king frustrated by his inability to deal with a recalcitrant clergy, an interrupted ceremony of power, the death of a child, the assassination attempt on a king, the death of a major
character, a young boy with a preternatural sense of bearing, etc.
They aren’t done badly here, not at all, but they feel like shadows of what has come before — less substantive, less moving. It also doesn’t help that the major characters her fans will be most interested in (Alaric, King Brion — Kelson’s father) are too young to do much through most of the book — Brion reaching only 14 and Alaric remaining a toddler.
There is also, as one has to expect by now, a lot of ritual. In fact, the rituals structure the novel as we move in time through various knighting rituals, coming-of-age rituals, marriages, births, oaths of fealty, raising of a new archbishop, etc. Nobody does ritual like Kurtz, but I’d be lying if I said I read every single word of every single ritual.
While this sounds like a pretty negative review, Childe Morgan actually was an enjoyable and quick read (ok, more quick since I didn’t read every ritual litany). The pacing is even and moves along quickly, dotted as it is by slow rituals. There are exciting moments and moving moments. It isn’t at all a bad book or even a mediocre one;
it pales mostly in comparison to its strong relatives. But it does
feel like a placeholder book; I’m not sure it will rivet anyone or move them fully, though fans of her work will be stirred not by the action itself but by what it portends. When we read of early Deryni burnings or watch clerics plotting, what excites us more than these particular events is what we know they lead to.
For that reason, and because it does fill in some interesting gaps of knowledge, I recommend Childe Morgan for any Kurtz fans. It doesn’t reach the level of many of her previous works, but it will tide you over nicely and whet your appetite for the closer-to-home and more exciting events that are just waiting in the wings — Brion’s battles with the church and the Torenthi, the soon-to-come purges of the Deryni, Morgan’s ascension into power, along with his cousin. I’m certainly looking forward to the next book. For people who haven’t read Kurtz yet, this is not the place to start. Pick up book one of her first trilogy (Deryni Rising) and be prepared to read many more; you won’t want to stop.
—Bill Capossere
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