A bit bleak, but over all it was some fun (3.5 Stars)

books:

	• Sing the Four Quarters (Daw Book Collectors) Tanya Huff DAW, 1994 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 20 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

And the Heroine waddles forth across the land..

Yes, this is a fantasy story. It is a very excellent fantasy story. It has magic and betrayal and family turmoil. Oh, did I mention that the heroine is pregnant almost the entire book and basically marches (waddles) across the land to save her country ( between bathroom breaks )and clear the name of her babies father whom she doesn't get along with. This story is not like any other and was a shear delight to read. There are some great reminders in this book why it is not wise to mess with a mother-to-be especially when she's in labor.

Tanya Huff's Sing the Four Quarters

The book is like new from the publisher. I read it in like 2 days. It completes my collection of this series. Thanks.

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This one's a keeper!

Annice was born knowing that she was meant to be something other than the Queen her family was raising her to be. When her father lay on his deathbed she asked for only one boon, and that was to be allowed to train and study with the bards. From this point on her life was lived divided from all that she had grown up with. Her family disowned her, and her brother put her under penalty of death if she ever bore a child.

Annice has not only the power to call the kigh, ethereal spirits only visible to bards, but the power to call all four quarters of them: fire, earth, wind, and water. Though she is strongest in wind those kigh begin to shun and avoid her, and soon enough the cause of this odd behavior becomes apparent...she's with child.

Not only does this child's birth spell out treason, but after a nasty turn of events the child's father is falsely brought up on charges of treason himself. Oh, what will they do? *g*

While the tale of a princess turned commoner is, well, common, Tanya Huff has no problem weaving an engaging and suspenseful story within it's layers. Annice is the type of person I think everyone dreams to be. She's headstrong and has enough courage to do what she believes is right. And being a pregnant heroine can't be an easy job to tackle.

Once again Huff earns my respect for creating a world in which gender doesn't matter. She seamlessly integrates women into the military and men into the kitchens. Never once does a character seem out of place, though I did have to pick my own brain a few times when a character she was describing turned out to be a gender opposite from what I was picturing. In this book love has no gender definition, and she doesn't try to explain why she simply tells a story. It's truly beautiful.

I absolutely adore each character in this book, and that connection heightens my fear when they're in danger and my joy when they've succeeded. The kigh are an interesting take on what other fantasy books have always called faerie or even simply magic. I love the way the kigh intereact with the bards that call them. The whole magic/kigh system is very intricate and easy to get lost in at first, but immersion is the best way to learn about something.

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Light entertainment

This a readable fantasy novel, but one which is lacking in any complex human emotions. The main conflict of the story is quickly resolved, with little resistance on either side, and turns out anyway to have been little more than a misunderstanding. The protagonist's two lovers feel no jealousy of each other, and she seems to feel no particular passion for either of them (despite the rather juvenile banter between herself and the father of her child), nor any conflict about her relationships with them. Two of the major villains swiftly and conveniently dispatch themselves from the scene and the third is compassionately but unconvincingly rehabilitated, while the minor villains retreat to the background. The warriors have a very PC distaste for violence, and the only evidence of any prejudice throughout the book takes the form of superstition towards supernatural forces. An entertaining read, but not one that resonates with any greater meaning.

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A bit bleak, but over all it was some fun (3.5 Stars)

"Sing the Four Quarters" is pretty interesting as fantasy novels go. I don't means in terms of plot, because basically it concerns a cross country trek and several anti-climatic battle scenes, but because of the world it is set in. It's a fairly standard medieval world with several changes. One is that there are these little elemental spirits called the kigh can talk to certain people, who are the countries bards (the spirits respond to music.) The other, is that although some of the country is essentially terrified of these mostly invisible spirits and deem them to be religiously evil, the sexual morals of the world are completely up in the air. I happened to think this was an interesting contrast.

Other than that, this is about a cross country trek, a plot to tack over a country, some religious bigots, a bard who happens to be the disowned kings sister who got pregnant by the traitor in question (though he was apparently impossibly framed) even though she is a lesbian. Entertaining stuff, a bit bleak in writing style, but worth reading. I found it a bit slow in some parts, but essentially it ranks 3.5 stars. There are other books that take place in this world, but I think this can stand alone as a novel. I have to say though, I don't know now if I'm intrested in reading anything else by this author. I just wasn't that pulled in.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

Renouncing her royal heritage in order to pursue her gifts as a Bardic caller of elemental spirits, Princess Annice is forced to flee from her own people when she rescues the father of her child from an unwarranted death sentence. Original.

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