Despite the fact that C. J. Cherryh is one of my favorite authors, I just couldn't get into this series. I gave it a go for four volumes, but it just didn't grab me. I may give it a break, reread the first one and see if I can figure out why I'm not happy with it. ( )

http://www.amazon.com/review/R20EIXOH... ( )

First of the series. Tristen is conjoured into being by an old old magician, desperate against an ancient foe. His nerve fails him an Tristen is less than he hoped or needed, enthralled by the pattern of raindrops or beat of a butterfly. Tristen escapes and finds his way to the kings court with the mage's magic still unfolding.....

After re-read

One of Cherryh's pure fantasy works, and again a masterful telling of what it takes to be human, in a well crafted an easily understandable fantasy world. Full of the traditional themes of fantasy bu managaing to avoid all the cliches and make a genuinally new and original telling.

Tristain the Shaping, student at best from the ancient wizard Mauryl arrives at Hensamef, innocent and unknowing of the perils of being human. The prince and heir to the throne Cefwyn is doing his best to contain the local politics and rivalries rife in this old province, never the most stable of the new realm. Incursions and threats - and offers - from the neighbouring Elwynem make life tricky. Then the ever suspicious king heres word of Cefwyn's dealings and decends in secret, and insufficient force.

A gripping tale, the innocence of tristain is wonderfully portrayed, as is difference between inate magic and that hard studied. A very enjoyable read, dense and thrilling, avoiding the hack and slash details but with a close attention to people and politics, which is alwas Cherry's strongest point. ( )

A wizard resurrects a powerful being from the past in order to fight another ancient, evil wizard who is once again trying to take over the world. The resurrection is somewhat flawed, and his creation, Tristan, must slowly gather knowledge of the world and learn about his powers. Tristan gradually starts to find a place in the world through his friendship with a prince of the country he was reborn in. People being thrust into a new situation and learning to deal with it is a common Cherryh plot, and that is the focus of this book. It has some exciting scenes, but overall it can be quite slow. It also suffers from the fantasy flaw of using umlauts and apostrophes to create unpronounceable names for characters and places. Overall a decent read, but not spectacular. ( )

C.J. Cherryh is a well established sf/fantasy writer with a clutch of Hugos and such.
The variety of her work is unusual in a field that s becoming more and more pigeonholed.
Her books are neariy always badly copyedited.Which is odd. I used to hang around the same forums as her in my compuserve days and her posts were frequent and error free. but once she is typeset things change.
this edition an ebook from umm,Simon&Schuster if my memory serves. was appalling worse than any anything other than a pre word-processingeditionof a fanzine.
the plot between my pauses to disentangle the prose was not very special.

Having said that she is varied writer I must admit that coming of age/maturing are comon themes in her books. What is that fancy german term?
In this one the protagonist is shaped, pulled into existance by a magic user. This innocent is then thrust into a confusing world and the role of hero.
The main problem is there are no limits set on the hero's power not even he knows what he can do. nothing suprises us.each event is accepted as just another example of deus ex mechanica ( )