Yeah, I’ve been one heck of a poor blogger lately. I’ve got a post about NaNo in my head…been there for about 2 weeks. I’ll write it down one of the days. But anyway…
Last night I finished Trudi Canavan’s Voice of the Gods, which completes her “Age of the Five” trilogy. If was good…actually it was really good, until the very end which stumbled a bit. And the foreshadowing was heavy enough that there were no real surprises at the end, which takes a little away from it, but still I have to call it a satisfying finish to a satisfying series. I definitely give the trilogy as a whole a thumbs up, with the caveat that some readers might find the first book a bit impersonal. Books 2 & 3 were much more character-driven.
As expected from the title, book three focuses a lot on the Pentadrians, who were the ‘bad guys’ of Book 1. But one of the wonderful things about these books is that neither side is really ‘the bad guys’. There are good and bad people on each side of the conflict, which gives the world a very realistic vibe. Auraya is still a major focus, but Canavan manages to keep the cast of characters broad enough that things never grow dull.
The book ended leaving me wanting for more. I’d grown to care about these characters, and there were cases where two individuals would be at odds due to misunderstandings, and I wanted Canavan to write more so they could all come to an understanding, but it was not meant to be. Ever been in that situation where you have two good friends, and you introduce them to each other and find they don’t like each other, and you just want to do whatever you can to help each of them realize what a great person the other is? Yeah, that was what I needed Canavan to do at the end of the trilogy.
Perhaps some day she’ll write more in this world and do that for me. Until then, I think I’ll be checking out her Black Magician Trilogy.
My thoughts exactly! The ending was a bit too telegraphed and I was so left hanging with a..” but, but.. they have to still be friends. Doesn’t he understand !” *hehe*. There were a few times when I was starting to think ” come on, wake up , don’t you realise what’s going on”, but not enough to spoil my overall enjoyment of the story. Certainly nowhere near as bad as can often be the case. Of course in those situations we do need to as readers step back a little and consider just what the character really knows. Especially taking into account their ingrained behaviour patterns, values and in this case a faith and basic trust.
Anyway, there is certainly enough opening for further stories here and I do hope some are forthcoming. At present though I know Trudi is working on further books the Black Magician Universe. A standalone prequel and a trilogy sequel. So it may be sometime coming. You can visit her website at http://www.trudicanavan.com/
Now I wish I had the UK covers for Age of the Five ! http://www.trudicanavan.com/aboutbooks.php?pg=books3
Ha! Too funny, I went as far as putting her Black Magician books into my shopping cart at amazon UK just because I like the UK covers so much better than the USA covers. Then my wallet sqawked at me. They’re really nice covers, aren’t they?