Sisters of the Raven

Hambly is very good at sticking her characters into terrible, hopeless, horrific situations before she allows the first glimpse of a solution - a talent clearly displayed here. I was seriously slogging through the first half or more of the book, as person after person ran into truly horrific events - some mostly physical, some mostly not (dreams, but dreams they were sure were true). The dark magic attacking them was actually less awful, because less pervasive, than the perfectly normal men acting perfectly normally (for that society) and beating their wives or daughters, belittling or attacking other women...ugh. But I slogged through, the dark magic became more clearly the enemy, and they did finally figure out who and what it was. show more Happy ending...And possibly the society will become able to encompass the concept of "women who do magic". I doubt it's happened yet, though some of the opponents have figured out reality. I do want to read the next book(s?), but not soon - I need something light, after this.
Oh, one annoying thing - my ebook edition (Open Media) was clearly scanned in, and no one went through and cleaned it up. Lots of scannos - hound for bound, lo for to...some were words and would have required actually reading the book, but just a spellchecker pass would have greatly reduced the errors. "hullyboys" is not a word, though it made me stop and try to decide that - threw me out of the story until I translated it to "bullyboys" (one example of many). show less

Set in a drought-stricken, patriarchal city where the traditional male magic is failing, the world faces collapse. The women unexpectedly gain magical powers, leading to persecution by men and mysterious kidnappings of the new, gifted female magic-makers.

The Yellow City, reminiscent of a pre-Islamic, desert civilization, is dying from a prolonged drought. The Sun Mages, who traditionally call the rains, have lost their power.

Magic emerges in women, including Raeshaldis, the first female student of magic, who is denied training by the desperate male mages. Other abused wives and concubines develop skills to survive.

With the patriarchal society fracturing, the women must manage a deadly political game against a religious prophet, corrupt show more leaders, and an unknown, powerful force killing them. show less

In a fantastical kingdom in the desert, wizards (who have always been male) are losing their magic—and women are gaining it. Before, women having power was so unthinkable that there wasn’t even a word for women who can do magic. Now they can, and many are being brutally murdered. The king’s concubine and the one woman accepted into the Sun Mage academy join forces to stop the murders. All this set against a tale of religions, classes, and personalities struggling for control as society itself changes. happyelfling and I like King Oryn and Summerchild the best, and in fact, we wish the novel could have focused on them instead of dividing itself into so many disparate characters. There were just too many plot points and characters, show more and it slowed down the mystery. show less

Why do I have to give a book at least one star for it to be considered rated? 0 is a rating!I put this book on the "read" shelf just so I won't forget that I tried it and didn't like it. Hambly's writing is excellent, as usual, but I wasn't in the mood for dystopia and I just didn't care much about the characters after the first 100 pages or so. I figure my time is much better spent elsewhere.

I really enjoyed the world building in this one. I thought at first the naming scheme would be off-putting, but it added to my understanding of the society and the enormity of what the Raven sisters were up against. Definitely an interesting read if you are looking for some solid fantasy.

When magic starts changing from being in the hands of men to the hands of women this effects the world people are living in. Some of the women start asking why this is happening and their investigation brings up more questions and more deaths. It's a very well crafted interesting read.

Fairly slow, but good reading. This one did nothing to shock me, even though it was about the turning of magic from only men to only women and how it affected the world. I could predict most of it as it happened, but still, I like her style.