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THE RING OF FIVE
DRAGONS by Eric Van Lustbader Reviewed by Rachel
A Hyde, MyShelf.com The name of Eric Van Lustbader needs no introduction and here has dished up a large helping of fiction that crosses fantasy with SF. One hundred and one years ago the peaceful planet of Kundala was invaded by the technologically-advanced V'ornn and its native people have lived as their slaves ever since, apart from the inevitable resistance cells. Even before that the status quo that had held out for countless years had crumbled after some rebellious priests killed the Mother, a benevolent earthly representative of the Goddess. But now the ancient prophecy is coming true as the Dar Sala-at had been reborn and will save everybody from extinction. Trouble is although she looks like a beautiful young Kundalan girl called Riane half of her personality is that of the deposed V'ornn Regent's son Annon Ashera, joined to her at the point of his death. And she has amnesia of who she is herself. If you like space opera and the sort of fantasies that abound in prophecies and temples ie most of them) then this ought to be up your street. Blending the two is highly imaginative and not original but still a good idea. However, there isn't perhaps enough of the stuff that makes a good fantasy to really make this one sing and not enough of the technological "sense of wonder" that makes fine SF either. SF usually has far fewer pages than fantasy and Van Lustbader would have done well to edit this drastically as there is rather a lot of repetition and I found myself wanting to know more about everything. Some of the ideas in it are well portrayed and there are certainly some original twists that do keep the pages turning. It will be interesting to see where he takes this story in the second part. |
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