I read these years and years ago and generally liked them. I had a chance to pick up the first book on super discount and swiped my querido's copy of the second, so now I have the set in my library. The only other Donaldson I've read is Daughter of Regals. According to my querido, those three books are the only ones worth reading. Of course the Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever books were all over the bookstores for decades, but they never looked interesting enough to actually read.

Anyway, this is the story of Terisa and Geraden. She's in a meaningless life in New York living in an apartment full of mirrors (to reassure her of her own existence) when Geraden arrives through the mirror to ask her to help save his world. He comes from Mordant where mirrors are magical portals, but unknown enemies threaten the kingdom and the old king is ineffective and his chief advisor is insane. It's a classic fantasy adventure with plots, counterplots, plot twists, swordfights, chases, secret passages and secret plans, seduction and romance, magical attacks, and more.

I think the story is quite imaginative and character driven. It explores the morality of magic and power to some degree, and the nature of human relationships. Most of the characters are quite likeable in their separate ways: the king, the princesses, several of the Imagers (who make and use the mirrors), Geraden's family, the prince from the neighboring kingdom, guardsmen. But sometimes I just wanted to kick Terisa for her stupid existential angst and her stupidity in trusting the wrong people in the face of accumulating evidence. I understand why the author developed her the way he did--it was essential to the story--but couldn't he have done it without so much internal monologue, which made the story drag in places? Most of that was in the first book where Terisa is trying to understand what is happening and what her role is. At the end of it she has figured things out and declared herself. The second book is just a straightforward quest to defeat the enemies now revealed as the myriad characters who have a role in the outcome come together. They even have the chance to revisit New York so that she can confront her past (a childhood of neglect and emotional abuse) and put it to bed before getting on with her new, fulfilled, adult life as a survivor. And of course the traits that display her apparent weakness and victimhood turn into her strengths by the end. Certainly it is a story with many positive messages and it all works out in the end. What more can you ask for in a fantasy? ( )

Link to a review on my personal website. ( )

Its been a while since I read, and re-read this book, but I do remember that it was a good conclusion to the series. Like The Land, this is a very small world, but still an interesting one. ( )

Timid nonentity saves besieged medieval kingdom with her special mirror magic abilities. ( )

Mirror battles.

A somewhat tedious end to what at least is only a duology, as the good guys and bad guys at least from the point of our protagonist run around with their plotting and killing.

At least until they actually come to grips, anyway. Certainly not the equal, storywise, of the other series he has produced.

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2008/04... ( )