The Peninsula of the Palm has been split between two conquering sorcerer-Tyrants, who jealously guard their power, sometimes going to absurd excess in punishing rebellion. Now, a small group of people are determined to bring down both Tyrants and restore the peninsula to what it once was.

This turned out to be a mostly excellent read. The use of a multi-person viewpoint makes this a much more complex book than its otherwise straightforward plot would normally allow. There is much to say about memory and vengeance, and how differently they work in different people, depending on their surroundings and interactions. The writing is also captivating: I read this pretty quickly and couldn't help but pick it up whenever I had a bit of time to kill.

I greatly preferred the Dianora parts to reading about Devin's group. The latter was mostly typical epic fantasy hero stuff, with only occasional glimpses of more complex matters surfacing. But Dianora and her relationship with Brandin was, to me, what made this book such a complex and fascinating piece of work. Alessan is just a silver-tongued monomaniac whose plans never go astray, but Dianora feels the most like an actual human being, with her doubts and eventual behavior. I prefer to have some ambiguity about how a fantasy story is going to turn out, and without seeing Brandin through the eyes of Dianora, there would have been very little of that. As more evidence of this, Alberico is pretty much the stereotypical tyrannical ruler, with only one or two instances of acting like he had complex motivations.

I wavered a bit on whether to give this book 8 or 9 stars, but there were a bit too many ‘convenient’ events, especially towards the end of the book, familiar from much poorer fantasy stories, to let me give it 9.

I got this book from Jaakko196 at the Finnish BCers' summer convention in Suomenlinna, Helsinki today. Thanks so much - this was on my wish list, and I'm really looking forward to reading it!

Update (September 24, 2009): I've been postponing reading this and another brick of a fantasy epic until I get my PhD thesis submitted... That's still going to be a while yet, so when polenka recently announced that she wanted this type of book to read, I promised it on a loan to her. The book is in her hands now, I'll see what my situation is when she's done with it (around Christmastime perhaps).

Thanks for this brick too! I need some epic adventures in my life now :)

Back in my hands, apparently polenka couldn't find time to read this one.

Humph. A SF geek of a friend recommended this one to me as a wonderful fantasy epic. It made nice enough reading for my summer vacation, but on the whole I wasn’t awfully impressed.

On the positive side, I like the tinge of Italy in this novel – the names in particular had clearly been thought up with Italy in mind, and to some degree the whole Palm as such was probably modeled after the historical Italian peninsula. I came to quite like many of the characters, and Dianora and her dilemma made a nice, heart-wrenching twist to the whole thing. Also rather liked the idea of riselkas.

On the negative, I only came to worry at pretty much one point that the Good Guys might not pull this one off after all, and of course I need not have worried at all; there only ever was one way this story could end. The tiresome clichés of the genre were nearly all there (well, outside of elves and dwarves and orcses), and there was no real attempt to do something different with them. And if there were a Bad Sex in Fantasy Award, I’d nominate this book for each of those scenes. Jeez.

Update (August 11): I took the book to a BC meet-up here in Joensuu last night and it was taken again by polenka, who's hoping to actually read it this time, I believe. :-)

Yep, it's me again! :D This time I will read this for sure. I don't think I have read any fantasy since the last time Niora gave me some fantasy books.

Lol, here I am after all this years, not having read this. I haven't find time or interest to to read epic fantasy and now that I'm moving houses, I'll put this to AVL-shelf ready to find a more keen reader.

Looks very interesting, thank you Polenka!

Interesting story, though here and there I had difficulties in understanding the language. Thank you for sharing this book!

Ala-aulan vaihtohyllyssä. Hyviä lukuhetkiä löytäjälle!