Rebel Fay

This series just gets better and better! To think, when reading the first book of The Noble Dead Saga I surmised that I had found a somewhat light-hearted adventure, with an unusual premise and full of interesting characters. But never once did I consider that such a convoluted, well-crafted weave of a tale would emerge from the pages of the following books, offering a unique, engrossing, and noteworthy, on-going chronicle.

Rebel Fay, the fifth book, now spills this dark fantasy into the realm of high fantasy when the company, under the blind, obsessive drive of Leesil to free his mother, gain access to the Elven Territories. The intrigue continues; as the four are rescued from their precarious journey over the snow-filled mountains and show more led into these lands by an unknown ally, three questions plague Chap: Aoishenis-Ahâre - Most Aged Father – and his persistence in waging war against humans; the Anmaglâhk and their role in creating Leesil to kill an unknown enemy; and his abandonment by his kin, the Fay. This book takes a side-path from the previous books in that the reader is now immersed in the world of the elves, and the machinations and politics of these are brought to the fore. Almost as an afterthought, with little concern for consequences, Magiere and Wynn are pulled into a land where humans are not tolerated, and used as a ploy to control Leesil, in a game being played between the leader of the Anmaglâhk assassin caste, Most Aged Father, and subversives of his clan. Throughout this Chap continues to seek the answers to his questions, protect his companions and adhere to his original plan.

And answers are forthcoming. Chap, with the help of the ‘touched’ guardians of the forest, the majay-hì and the crystal-eyed deer, determines his kins' silent schemes and their betrayal. Magiere is unable to control her dhampir nature and, once revealed, is brought to trial under the laws of the Elven Land, only to find kinship in the strangest of places. Leesil, intent on saving Magiere and gaining his mother's freedom, is manipulated into confronting his origins and thus finds his true name and purpose of being. And Wynn, whilst aiding her companions immeasurably, is a continuous and considerable nuisance - for an intelligent sage, in my opinion, she often displays an enormous lack of sense – but is invaluable as a conduit for her companions; and through her lessons, the reader also learns.

There are no ‘Noble Dead’ confrontations in this book; though Welstiel and Chane plod ominously along, aside, throughout the story. The book is more about revelations: the long-forgotten histories are now reappearing; the role Chap is now preparing to play; and the devastating basis for both Magiere’s and Leesil’s conception is becoming distressingly apparent. Again, the story is full of fascinating, vibrant characters in a scheme rich with a truly original design.

This rich design will be quite lost in the making if you read these books out of sequence, as each follows strictly from before; an investment in the whole series, in due order, is strongly advocated and highly recommended. This is a series, to my mind, well worth such an endeavour.
And those long black ominous coils – they never go away! I hope this orb is worth it; the suspense is killing me!

(Jul 19, 2008) show less

It seems I've been disappointed recently by multi-book series releasing a new title that has no plot development (Mistral's Kiss, anyone?) Not so here! The Noble Dead saga just keeps getting better, as does the writing and character development.

Magiere, Leesil, Chap and Wynn finally make it to the Elven Lands to discover the fate of Leesil's mother. During their "visit," the reader will discover more about the motives (or lack there of) of Chap's fay kin, why Leesil was trained as an assassin and the role Magiere is destined for. The ending wasn't a cliffhanger, but the story obviously will continue in the next book. I highly recommend this entire series!

Book 4 took me three weeks to read, this one I knocked off on the train this afternoon. And not entirely because they were both due back at the library. In fact this is easily the best book of the series.That said, Magiere is still grumpy (but actually making sensible decisions and not just being Miss Stubbornpants), Leesil is sullen and confused but sort of actually has a reason now, Wynn is still annoying but actually gets useful, Welstiel and Chane... meh, who cares about them.

Chap has a major part in this, which is always good. He learns a whole lot more about himself, and finally gets to actually have a life of his own, for at least a while. I love Chap, he's a great character.

And Wynn instead of flouncing about the place getting show more lost and needing to be rescued, flounces about the place, gets lost, needs to be rescued, but actually makes a useful breakthrough in the plot in the process. Well it had to happen eventually, right?

But the elves. Haughty, arrogant, insular, beautiful and deadly know-it-alls, everything we love about high fantasy since Tolkien elves. Ok, maybe that's just me. In fact they are magnificent bastards nearly to a one, except for maybe Sgäile's grandpa and Sgäile's niece (I'm not even going to attempt to spell their names.) And most especially the Most Aged Father.

The Hendee's tendency to over-describe is not so bad when the environment is new to everyone, and everything is alien and fascinating, and they are reacting to that. But still, there's endless pages in the first third or so devoted to some thieving rodent thing, and it just keeps on coming up. I figured after about the fifth time, there had to be a point, it was going to be important later. But no, at some point someone says "oh that thieving rat thing hasn't been around stealing things lately, I guess we left it at the last village... ha-ha-ha, sucks to be them". Seriously, do these guys just not have an editor any more? Does it matter that the unnamed barge captain wears his goatskin vest without a shirt and fur side in? Or that Wynn saw a mushroom and two birds and a tree and another tree and....

Anyway, as I said, although they do go on a bit, it's much more readable here, because we're also seeing Leesil feeling alien in a place that should be his home, Wynn being fascinated by evvvvvverything, and Magiere being cranky (because, Magiere), and Chap feeling totally at home, and having a wonderful time. Also, I think I have a small reader-crush on Sgäile. Because I can. I have a thing for blondes, and he seems to be the only character in the whole book series who just says what's going on. (Oh and I'm on to you Hendees, nicking gaelic words and substituting random nordic letters and apostrophes, does not a new language make.)

But now we're all set up for the final book in this particular arc. Which is where I'm stopping, because even useful Wynn still sets my teeth on edge, so I'm just not going to read a whole new series about her and Chane. show less

This is a hard book to review. There is a lot of intrigue as several factions of elves reveal various hidden agendas under stress. There is relatively action though, and as some of the other movers in the bigger story comment this story is very much an offshoot, a tangent to the main quest and it feels like it too.

Leesil, driven to rescue his mother, has dragged Chap, Wynn and Magiere into Elven lands and the elves, for large parts of the story, come across as laudably not human. They end in faction politics that grows organically from the story, but seems rather human in its drive - but that might be my feeling that they don't write intrigue so well coming through.

The thing that does work amazingly well, and in a fashion that makes me show more hope they're not writing from their personal experience for their sakes, is being on the brunt of prejudice - and there's no other term for it. There are elves who hate for a reason (you may think hatred is a bad emotion, but you understand why they feel that way), but there is an amazing level of impersonally directed hatred at the "evil humans" and "vile half-bloods" as well. It's perhaps a terrible reason to like a book, but I'd use it start a discussion about prejudice any day. show less

Rebel Fay, by Barb and J. C. Hendee, is the 5th book in the Noble Dead series. With each book better than the last, this is definitely one of my favorites series. And there’s a spin-off series in the works, so I won’t have to wait an entire year between each novel.

Rebel Fay begins with Magiere, Leesil, Wynn, and Chap continuing on their journey into Elf territory in order to find and rescue Leesil’s mother. Unsure of whom to trust, they must be on guard at all times in a land where they are the enemy. And worst of all, they have to put themselves in the hands of the caste of assassins in order to find Leesil’s mother.

But there are two sides of an old war at work. Both sides have their plans for Magiere (a dhampir: half-human, show more half-vampire) and Leesil (half-human, half-elf). And the shocking truth is finally revealed.

The Hendees continue to shape this story and their characters in an epic fashion. While this story is almost entirely centered in the elven lands, it never gets slow and never lacks suspense. Every character is unique and described in such a way that you feel that you know them.

Unlike most that I read, this series must be read in order, as things that happen in one book would spoil the previous one. And the endings of each leave you craving the next. If you like medieval fantasy with plenty of action or vampire-slayer novels, this series is a must. show less

The group goes into Elven land to find Leesil's mom. They give up their weapons and trust" the elves, who are really bent on destroying them. [Kind of like the U.N. and the United States.]

So basically everybody acts like a complete idiot and nobody even tries to think. They rescue his mom and then leave. Chap finds out his memory has been selectively sliced, at birth, by the Fay, so he is just a tool. It was just too much with everybody reacting like they were on hair-triggers instead of actually trying to think.

And Leesil needs a good beatdown to get rid of his attitude."

This book series is always a bit of a weird one for me. I actually openly despise certain characters, and yet even through that I'm still drawn to others and this series just continues to keep my interest. This one kept the theme of the previous novels and furthered the over-arcing plot. And the relationship between Leesil and Magiere just continues to become more intriguing.