Monday, April 20, 2009

Guardian of the Balance by Irene Radford


I am new to Irene Radford. This is the firs book of hers I have read. I have read more Arthurian tales than I can recall and am always amazed at how the same story can be told in so many entertaining ways. One review said this book was upbeat. Hmm, my take was more gritty. Merlin’s daughter, Wren, spends the entire book agonizing over her own behavior and every other characters behavior. She, herself, suffers a variety of travails. The overall theme as noted in the title is to maintain balance. This means that the bad guys win almost as often as the good guys. Sadly that is more realistic than most novels. I enjoyed the story and look forward to reading the rest of the trilogy.

Body of work of Irene Radford

Review: http://www.owldaughter.org/articles/radford.html


2 comments:

bloggeratf said...

What exactly is arthurian fantasy. What's your best pick in the genre, I'll give it a gander.

http://onlythebestscifi.blogspot.com/

ibpurpledragon said...

From my limited perspective an Arthurian fantasy is a fantasy based of the legends surrounding King Arthur. Mary Stewart's series including the "Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills and The Last Enchantment" are, in my opinion, among the best of that genre. Molly Cochran and Warren Murphy also qualify, if perhaps loosely, with "The Broken Sword, The Forever King and The Third Magic". Either of these trilogies will provide hours of good reading.