Consorts of Heaven

Damaru is one of the 'skytouched', one of the few who can affect reality and change matter by their thoughts. One day he finds a man in the swamp outside their village; the man has no idea who he is and is totally naked. Damaru's mother Kerin takes him in to care for him. She calls him Sais, or stranger.

As a 'skytouched', Damaru must travel to the City of Light to be tested by the Beloved Daughter, where if he is worthy, he will become a Consort. Sais is well enough to travel, but still has no idea who he is, and him and Kerin accompany Damaru to the journey. One of the priests on the way their helps Sias start to recover his memories, and as he realises what he was, he comes to learn that all is not what it seems on this world.

Thought show more that this was really good overall. Fenn has managed to mesh effectively a low technology world and religious system with a high technology race that act as gods to these people. The characters are engaging and the whole plot is well thought through. I like the way that she has picked up the themes from the first book in the series, even though it is on a different world. Looking forward to the next book now. show less

At first I was a bit afraid that this was going to be quite boring but really as the story develops the strange society that Sais finds himself in is developed and explained. Although it could have been a fairly standard romance with science fiction elements in but Fenn manages to mix the science fiction in with a fine twist on the romance angle so that the plot and story fill out the background it's built into. Although this particular story is set on a low tech world, the rest of the galaxy seems to be quite high tech as humanity builds a civilisation built on stolen technology.

Lacks all of the splendour from the first book whilst carrying on the story only slightly. The first 120 pages or so are interesting solely to find out how on earth this connects with the previous book. Thereafter it's just a matter of waiting for the thing to be tied up and moved onto the next.

Someone is found in the mire of a pesant village in a backwoods frontier world. No technology at all, and plenty of superstitution. This someone doens't even knw the most basic signs for appeasing the gods. Our benevelant heroine however consents to care for him, as her sky touched son doesn't seem to mind too much.
Eventually he regains some few portions of his memories, including the name Nual. But this is ony with the aid of the priest who has show more come to take her son to Ascend to heavon if her proves worthy. It is a dully long trek to get to the city.

ANd that's about it. Once at the cioty things go pretty much as expected. The basic idea fits in well with what we learnt about the Sidhe previously. But as a novel it fails in so many ways compared to the previous one. The world is dull dull dull. Peasant villages make useful beginnings for pig-boy fantasies. They are boring in SF especially when the hero doesn't know any better. Quests, ditto. And then the ending was far too easy. the son in particular was a poorr character, sky-touched crazy but sensible just when the plot needed him to be so. Our heroine was little better, far too accomodating of blasphamy and technology than anyone raised her entire lief in a village had any right to be.

As inerludes in an ongong saga this would have been a useful source of information. But for a novel even as part of a series it is boring. show less