Holly Lisle: Fire in the Mist (1992)

Edition: Baen, 2001 (available for download from http://www.baen.com/library/hlisle.htm)
Review number: 1050

When shepherdess Faia returns to her home to find that the whole village has been wiped out by plague, she uses one of the spells taught her by her mother to turn it into a pool of lava as part of her response to her grief. This turns out to be a hugely powerful spell, and commands the attention of mages (female) and sages (male) from the town which houses the university in which magicians are trained. An untrained, strong talent is very dangerous, both to its owner and to those around them, so Faia is more or less forced to accompany them back to the Oxbridge style setting of Ariss. Unable to fit in with the generally aristocratic pupils, Faia is stunned when the age old war between the sexes - carefully segregated in the misty city - threatens to break out again.

Even in her early novels like this one, Lisle's concern to promote the role of women in the fantasy genre is apparent. (It is never allowed to affect the interest of her story, however.) Fire in the Mist is an excellent light fantasy novel, with more to it than most, an apprenticeship for the later and more challenging Secret Texts trilogy.

Marion Zimmer Bradley & Holly Lisle: Glenraven (1996)

Edition: Baen Books, 1997
Review number: 1016

One of the perennial difficulties for the fantasy novelist who wants to involve earthly characters is how to take them to the scene of the action. (Once there, they pay the author back by requiring explanations of what is around them, making exposition easier and seemingly more natural.) I don't recall the precise device used in Glenraven occurring anywhere else, however, and it is always nice to see something new.

When Jayjay's marriage breaks up, she finds a travel guide to the tiny European country of Glenraven in a bookstore. She has never heard of it, but it sounds enchanting; she and a friend go there together. In fact, Glenraven is a magical kingdom, and Jayjay and Sophie have been summoned as the heroes to save it from an evil ruler who is destroying it. That means that the two of them are not going to have quite the holiday they expected...

In recent fantasy, the most similar scenario to that of Glenraven is that of Terry Brooks' Magic Kingdom For Sale - Sold. Glenraven is not as lightweight as that novel, and doesn't exploit its subject for humorous purposes. (It does make a dig at much of the fantasy genre for minimising the squalor and misery inherent in the medieval setting.) The novels draws on the strengths of both writers, as a collaboration should, Bradley softening the brutality sometimes present in Lisle's work while gaining more of an edge. Glenraven also has a feminist agenda; it is in the still unusual position of having female heroes (and the cover picture interestingly suggests that this is not the case). This is an enjoyable novel which deserves to be better known.

Holly Lisle: The Courage of Falcons (2000)

Edition: Gollancz, 2001
Review number: 1010

The culmination of Lisle's Secret Texts fantasy trilogy is really rather predictable. The major events of the novel have been extensively prepared in the first two volumes, and she sticks to the conventions of the genre more than before, so that there are no eleventh hour surprises.

Much of the effort Lisle has put into the series has gone into setting up the situation in the first two novels, particularly into the atmospheric Diplomacy of Wolves, so that the unwinding of the plot is not a major disappointment.

Holly Lisle: Vengeance of Dragons (1999)

Edition: Millennium, 2000 (Buy from Amazon)
Review number: 969

Lisle manages to avoid the main pitfall common to mid-trilogy fantasy novels in the second of her Secret Texts series. Instead of being just a continuation of the first novel in which nothing new or surprising happens, there are interesting developments in the plot and we learn a great deal about her world and the various systems of magic which give the titles of the three novels (as practised by those nicknamed wolves, dragons, and falcons).

The story continues to revolve around the Mirror of Souls, key to releasing the souls of the dragons from the Veil (limbo) where they have been imprisoned for thousands of years since the Magicians' Wars. By deceiving living people, they manoeuvre the Mirror to the centre of the city of Calimekka, where it can restore them to bodies from which the rightful souls have been banished.

The major characters that we are meant to sympathise with, Kait Galweigh in particular, are very well drawn, their opponents somewhat less so. The background is unusual and interesting, and I look forward to reading the conclusion of this excellent trilogy.

Holly Lisle: Diplomacy of Wolves (1998)

Edition: Gollancz, 1999
Review number: 863

For the Secret Texts series, which this novel begins, Holly Lile has combined a fairly standard fantasy quest with a background drawn straight from post-apocalyptic science fiction. There are many similarities to, say, A Canticle for Liebowitz, with the major difference that the world destroying war was not nuclear but fought with magical weapons producing effects similar to fallout, persistent radiation and mutations.

One of the mutations, still occurring unpredictably, produces a being called a Karnee, a werewolf. Kait Galweigh is one of these, hidden by her immediate family - even though the Galweighs are one of the five clans known as the Families which rule the world, this won't save her from the priests' checks for impurity. Brought up to become a Family ambassador, she is acting as a chaperone for a cousin before her marriage when she overhears a plot to destroy the clan during the wedding, by using her heightened Karnee senses.

There are plots within plots, a great deal of complex manipulation and confrontation in this novel, and it is not all completely successfully depicted. Lisle is better at individual relationships, like the strange bond between Kait and a fellow Karnee from the enemy Sabir family than at the political machinations. There are nasty characters and unpleasant actions in the story, and again, Lisle is not quite up to making the psychological impact of these on the other characters believably disturbing. Nevertheless, this is an interesting novel and I want to read the rest of the series.