The Naming: The First Book of Pellinor (Pellinor Series) (original 2002; edition 2006)

I love Alison Croggon's "Pellinor" series. The characters are deep, multi-faceted and memorable, and the story carries you avidly wherever she wishes to take you. I've read "The Naming" twice and intend to read the others in the series again, as well. ( )

(Note to self): I think I read this one before. Don't think it grabbed me.

THE NAMING begins as Maerad, a slave girl from a tiny northern village where even the local lord lives a hard-scrabble life, is plucked from a life of hopeless drudgery by a traveling Bard. The Bards are magicians, and also the ruling elite. They make the laws, collect the taxes, and in return use their abilities to help the land and its people flourish. The traveler, Carvan, realizes immediately that Maerad is also a Bard - and he realizes soon after that she may be much more than that. He is honor bound to rescue her from enslavement, and find her a new and more welcoming home.

The rest of THE NAMING recounts the very long journey that Carvan and Maerad make to the capital of the realm. There are stops along the way, and a few adventures, but equal space is devoted to their endless plodding through rough wilderness.

Maerad is young, and she seems young. While slavery has accustomed her to hardship, it hasn't made her any more mature than the average sixteen year old. She is naive and temperamental. She is also, to be frank, rather boring.

Cadvan walks a fine line traveling alone for months with a pretty young girl who is entirely in his power, and perhaps that is why he is always calm, upbeat, and distant. He spends months alone with Maerad, but they don't talk very much - Cadvan lectures her on history, on Barding, on his worries for the future. Almost any other kind of behavior would have been creepy, but it was...boring. And left a lot of space for endless descriptions of the passing landscape.

What irritated me perhaps most of all was Croggon's handling of magic in this fantasy world - called "the Light," and manipulated by way of "the Speech." The Speech cannot be learned - it comes to you one day, resulting in instant fluency. Maerad's use of magic is chaotic and uncontrolled at first, but after a certain point she starts performing complex spells without any instruction or preparation. It's all too easy - and that makes it harder to like Maerad, who has such incredible gifts but never really seems special.

THE NAMING has all of the characteristics of a gripping adventure novel, but I was never sucked in, never desperate to turn the pages, never afraid that things would go badly for our heroine, never thrilled by acts of heroism. It was disappointing. ( )

I'm pretty sure I enjoyed this book. My hesitation is not so much the fault of the plot as an inherent irritation with characters that make their own life complicated for no reason. I can't remember how many times Maerad for what seemed to be no reason suddenly started getting angry, defensive, or began panicking. Now half the time I inferred that the setting in which they were in affected them, but the author never comes out and says so. (And here I will compare it to the Lord of the Rings, as Tolkien is very dedicated in letting the reader know when the location is affecting the protagonists.) Overall however a good novel, and I would read the following books in the series. ( )

The first of a quadrology - here starts an epic tale - having completed the first title I have every intention of pushing forward and enjoying the journey. As with all true epics, the going is difficult and only becomes more so. Not all decisions have options that are good, for at times one must choose between bad and worse. The underlying structure appears at times to be a little weak but that could be due to the constraints placed on writing a title for a younger audience. ( )