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Cargando... The One-Armed Queen (Books of Great Alta) (1998 original; edición 1999)por Jane Yolen
Información de la obraThe One-Armed Queen por Jane Yolen (1998)
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Inscríbete en LibraryThing para averiguar si este libro te gustará. Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro. I picked it up and thought the style was interesting with all the breaks in the story but really it was just incredibly annoying. They took me out of the story and I could hardly read them after a while. The story itself was all right but the ending was so weak. :/ I enjoyed reading it except for what I've just said but it was hard going. For the whole series: These books are fascinatingly written. The frame story is that there are legends, songs, and tales about the women of Great Alta, and that historians fight constantly about the meanings of these legends. Each chapter includes some “history”, some “legend” and then the “true story” of what really happened. The women of Great Alta (and their shadow sisters) have a complex and magical way of life, which is brought to life all the more fully through the layered way Yolen constructs the books. The books are a great commentary on what we do or do not know about past cultures. A better book than the second, but a lesser book than the first, The One-Armed Queen is still solidly entertaining. It benefits from a new cast of characters (it focuses primarily on Jenna's children), but sufferings from now living in a more traditional fantasy setting and story than the first book of the trilogy. This story is the end of the circle, and as such it means the end of a great many things that I loved in the first book, which makes it intensely bittersweet. Otherwise it is a fairly standard fantasy romp through war and crowns and kings, set apart only by the continually-delightful histories, myths, legends, and songs. One thread through the histories is a dismissal of Jenna (and her children) as a real historical figure, of the magic and mysteries as superstitious nonsense, and of everything from their customs to their native wildlife as 'unprovable'. Since a thread of the /legends/ holds that Jenna did not die, but instead went under the hill to wait until the Dales needed her again, I found myself longing for /that/ book - the book when Jenna returns to a world which seems quite modern (it includes cinema, at least), and in which these Dale historians are simultaneously incredibly important (for surely knowledge about the Dales would be needed for some reason) and incredibly erroneous (trust me, you want these men to meet the Warrior Queen and her dark sister. Badly.) I'm so sad that there doesn't appear to be such a book. sin reseñas | añadir una reseña
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Internal jealousy, obstinacy, and treachery threaten the royal house of a great queen and the future of her matriarchal land in the concluding volume of the acclaimed Great Alta high fantasy series Decades have passed since White Jenna fulfilled the ancient prophecy, becoming queen of the Dales after defeating the king of Garun and driving the cruel occupiers back to their homeland. Since then, a fragile peace has been maintained through an exchange of royal hostages. Jenna's eldest son, Jemson, travels across the ocean to live with the enemy while the queen, in the way of the Dales, prepares her adopted daughter, Scillia, to eventually rule. A frail, one-armed child discovered abandoned on the battlefield, Scillia is thirteen now. She is confused and conflicted, resentful of her mother's teachings and the pressures of ascendance. But even more troubling is her brother's resentment. Jemson was corrupted in his thinking by his time among the patriarchal Garunians and is now determined to rule. The dangerous storms brewing in the royal house of Queen Jenna and the dying King Carum could have devastating consequences for all the people of the Dales: A powerful enemy over the waters is watching for any sign of weakness and instability, eager to reignite the terrible fires of the Gender Wars. Multiple award-winning fantasist Jane Yolen brings her acclaimed saga to a breathtaking conclusion with The One-Armed Queen, ingeniously blending story, myth, poetry, and song to create a truly unforgettable culture and fantasy world. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — Cargando... GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999Clasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio:
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Anyway, the book commences when their adopted daughter Scilia is thirteen and a total and annoying brat, doing stupid things and generally being an idiot. Jenna's angst is added to by having to send her oldest son Jem abroad to an enemy country in exchange for a royal son of theirs to ensure peace. Finally Jenna manages to patch things up with her daughter and the action then moves to years later when Jem returns, having been indoctrinated in the other land's mysogny and Corum is dying. The situation is then set up for Jem's usurpation of the throne and subsequent atrocities.
I'm afraid I couldn't take this story seriously because of the way Jem descends into what you could call carpet chewing madness
This is not helped by the usual interruptions by a scholar years later who casts doubt on the whole story we are reading as in the other volumes, though ironically the doubter's child has now taken over and seems to be accepting Jenna's historical reality rather than thinking her a mythical figure (the tack taken in these interludes in the previous books) while still getting just about everything else wrong. They serve again to jar the reader out of the story which, frankly, needs all the help it can get with maintaining suspension of disbelief, so that is the final straw. Consequently, this is another 2 star just OK read. ( )