Convergence

An interesting story about some very powerful elemental magicians in a world where everyone has some connection to one of the five elements, Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Spirit. While the magicians fight to advance in this competition to be part of the leadership of this world people die while failing to control the powerful forces of their element. Meanwhile five of these challengers find themselves becoming closer and forming bonds, but will the bonds survive the stress of the compeition and will they all survive? There are also echoes of some plots within plots.

An amusing read, nothing spectacular but it engaged my attention enough for me to want to read more.

I rather liked this book. It is a bit repetitive at times, since it follows five people, who undergo similar events. There are 3 or 4 times when the same thing happens to all of them, and it is repeated five times in each of their accounts. It is not too annoying, though, and the characters are nice with nice interactions. I particularly like how they come to each other's rescue when needed. I'd say the book is not brilliant, but it's very satisfying.

(Alistair) I thought it was time for some fun light fantasy, so I picked up this series, and indeed was not disappointed. In the universe of this series (The Blending, followed by The Blending Enthroned), most people have some slight degree of magical talent in one of the five elemental areas - the traditional Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Spirit. So far, this all sounds pretty standard, which indeed it is, but in this universe high-level talents in each of these areas can combine their abilities in a Blending. Most importantly, the government routinely drafts any potentially high-level talents and puts them through a series of challenges to produce such a Blending, which is then enthroned and rules for 25 years...

...because the Four, show more ancient tyrants that were defeated by the first Blending, keep sending challenges that the ruling Blending has to defeat, on about that cycle, of course. And eventually, they will return, and a prophecy indicates that a special Blending will defeat them when they do.

Of course, in this, the first book of the series, that's all a long way in the future. What makes this book a fun read is less the world, the magical system - although she does a much better job of integrating the magic into society than most - or the big picture so much as the characters, who are well-drawn within fantasy-world-archetype parameters, and all of whom have problems of their own - which, when it turns out that the people running the draft-and-challenge system appear to be remarkably corrupt, makes them ideal to be put in the position to play the fall guys. This book only brings the characters together, introduces them, and takes us up to the beginning of the actual competitions, which are to appear in the next book, Competitions, one presumes.

That being said, it's something of a slow starter, and while I can appreciate the necessity and for that matter stylistic choice to show very similar challenges being faced by each of the five characters and met in subtly different ways, each of their own Aspect, it does get somewhat repetitive.

That in turn being said, it's a light, fast read, and was certainly at least as entertaining as I demand from light fantasy. I'll be picking up the next one - actually already, as this was my trip-book, and on returning home in the evening didn't feel all that much like choosing from my Very Big Shelf of To Be Read, so we'll see how Competitions is before too long...
( http://weblog.siliconcerebrate.com/cerebrate/2008/01/convergence-sharon-green.ht... ) show less

Be warned, for the first 150 pages you are rereading the same story over and over and over from five different viewpoints. Once you got past that the story moved much faster since the events were not repeated. The reader still had the benefit of different viewpoints, but it is not tedious after that point. This book was okay. I will probably pick up the second book from the library at some point. As it stands I would not recommend this book, but if you just need something to fill your time, it's not bad.

I really enjoyed this book. Somehow it was exactly what I wanted to read. But, that said, I understand those who only gave it one star. Since I rate books solely on personal enjoyment, this whole series got high marks. But, to give it such high marks I did have to forgive the same glaring problems that those who did not enjoy the books. I was willing to do this, and those who enjoy intriguing magic systems and interesting (if sometimes infuriatingly dense) characters, and are willing to forgive the problems will likely enjoy the book.

I admit that I did skip over the sections from the bad guy's perspective, but I tend to do that in most books.

Somewhat tame introduction to a multi-volume series about 5 magic workers who come together to compete for the throne of the kingdom in a "blending" This story introduced the 5 and takes them through qualifying for the competition and their initial introductions to each other.
Parts of this are repetitive and the narrated sections are annoyingly teasing.

library book read 7/6/2025

This is one of my all time favorite series. I love the relationships and politics through out the whole story.

I wish she would do more - The Blending the first year etc...