MC- Slaves, Monsters and Bards

Well I’ve been meaning to review this book for a fair while (like since I started reviewing on here). I got the first book when my sister picked it out for me while I was ill. After 24 hours I had finished it and was demanding the next in the series.

Alison Croggon, an Australian poet had this book published in Australia in 2002, and followed it with The Riddle, The Crow and The Singing. This is a fantasy epic spanning four substantial novels. This feminist story takes place in a lost civilization called Edil-Amarandh, and mostly set in the country of Annar.

The story follows Maerad, who is introduced to us as a slave in an isolated walled community of men, where abuse is commonplace, and expected against the women. She has grown up in this way, knowing nothing about her own country beyond the mountains, until she finds Cadvan, a wandering Bard who has recently escaped from a mysterious power he won't discuss.

He eventually decides to help her escape the tyranny of her owners, after hearing she was born to Milana, who was the head Bard at the School of Pellinor, which was burned to the ground years ago, killing everyone inside. Maerad eventually gets used to the idea of women being equal to men, and gains confidence as she becomes a skilled, independent woman.

Here, I'll clarify that in Edil-Amarandh Bards are the learned who have The Gift, the ability to cast spells etc. The Schools are the places where Bards live a life of peace and learning. The loss of Pellinor, which was meant to be one of the most beautiful Schools since the first.

The books of Pellinor transport the reader into another world more thoroughly than any other book I've ever read. It mixes run-of-the-mill fantasy ideas with things I've never really heard of before. Maerad is taken in as a Bard and under Cadvan's tutelage comes into her own as a Bard.

After it becomes apparent that dark Bards are out to get Maerad for an unknown reason, the pair set out to find out more about a lost prophesy and Maerad's heritage.

The storyline gets complex, and the language is beyond what some younger readers can deal with, as Croggon's skills as a poet translate into her novels, and the detail into which Croggon develops the back story of the characters and the complexity of the history of Edil-Amarandh actually had me completely engrossed. It is difficult to start, but once you get used to the language you can't put it down.

I mean I actually kind of began to understand The Speech, which is the language with which Bards can only speak the truth, and cast magic. I got a tad obsessed with these.

The Appendices at the back of each book in the series talks the reader through a detailed history of Edil-Amarandh and in a very non-fiction way discusses how Croggon translated the original legends into English through extensive study and research.

For about two hours after first reading the book, I was checking the Appendices and internally debating the possibility of a lost civilization which produced legends about Bards.

Of course, then I checked the internet.

Turns out it's a fiction novel.

But a very engaging and kind of persuasive novel. It's not that I'm stupid or gullible... but it was a couple of years ago. And I kind of wanted Maerad and Cadvan to be real. :)

MC out.