A dream of kinship

The second book in the Kinship sequence is stronger than most second books in trilogies, but with an oddly sagging middle. There's three fairly distinct parts. The first is focused on the Magpie and Jane, and a fairly desperate adventure to save her and her child, Thomas. While Thomas' central role to the dream of Kinship is obvious to the reader, it's less clear to the characters. The shorter middle section is almost all politics, following some of the lords of this future Britain and their on-again, off-again relationships with the militant Church and the heretical Kinsman. There's a lot of info-dumping and analysis of how the Church's own actions are its undoing. It's interesting to see the primary villain of the sequence dispatched show more so cavalierly in such a way in the very middle of the saga, but it's neither engrossing reading, nor in keeping with the other two parts of the book. The final section returns to form as it tells how Thomas comes into his powers. He himself is not at all convinced that this will turn out well. The time-traveling out of body experience theme of the first book is briefly mentioned but not repeated, which is all to the good, in my opinion.

Recommended, but read The Road to Corlay first. show less

Set in the distant future, Cowper resumes his series following Road to Corlay. In ADoK, we first meet The Magpie in his search to find the future mother of Tom, a boy destined for greatness, in part due to his parentage, particularly that of his authority-challenging father.

Given the gift of a pipe from The Magpie and the gift of prophecy (heush) from his mother, he trains himself to be an expert piper, even able to control men's minds with his music. He uses this power to fight the authoritarians and defend the innocent.

However, Tom must come to grips between who he is and what he's expected to be, and he struggles with this dichotomy. He fears the darkness he sees within him as it is the same darkness he sees within evil men, and Tom show more must learn self-control unless he too ends up like them. show less

The Timescape (US paperback) edition of this book only hints that this is part of a series and makes it look more like a fantasy novel than a romance of a changed, post-apocalyptic future. It is actually a direct sequel to 'The road to Corlay'. If I had not known this series from its start (having read the original short story, 'Piper at the gates of dawn' in F&SF in the late 1970s), I would not otherwise have picked this book up.

Même sans avoir lu le volume précédent, La Moisson de Corlay est un volume intéressant. C'est en fait plus une espèce de fresque historique néomédiévale plus qu'un roman de science-fiction. Les élément spéculatif sont très présent sous la forme d'une histoire parallèle omniprésente et un mysticisme plutôt incongru: on en parle constamment, mais les base de la foi au centre de ces romans ne sont jamais précisé dans celui-ci, ce qui est plutôt déconcertant. Un roman plus intéressant pour ses aspects historiques que pour l'histoires de ces personnages centraux, mais intéressant malgré tout. dommage qu'il soit si difficile de dénicher la traduction française des deux autres volumes.