Subject: Reichert: Child of Thunder

From: [email-masked] (Dani Zweig)
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1993 05:51:17 GMT

"Child of Thunder" is the third book in Reichert's Last-of-the-Renshai 
trilogy.  Like her "Bifrost Guardians" series, its roots are in Norse
mythology.

The first book in the trilogy, "The Last of the Renshai", introduces us
to the Renshai -- a tribe of single-minded superwarriors that finally
irritates its neighbors enough to get them to unite to exterminate them.
All but one, at any rate -- that one being pivotal to a prophecy.  We
are also introduced to the four wizards, whose job it is to see to the
*fulfillment* of prophecies.  It's also their job to champion certain
ethical positions:  The wizard of the north champions the good, the
wizard of the south champions evil, and the other two are the neutrals --
except that the eastern wizard is the weakest of the four and the
western wizard has disappeared.  When a wizard dies, after however many
years or centuries, his or her memories are passed on to an apprentice.

At the end of the second book, "The Western Wizard", the western wizard is 
dead with a most unexpected successor -- and without having passed on his 
memories.  This book differs from the first in that the wizards, who were
mostly in the background in the first book, are much more active in this one.

"Child of Thunder" focuses almost exclusively upon the wizards, who are
now highly active.  Which is too bad for all concerned, because highly
active wizardry brings the risk of triggering Ragnarok.

I didn't much care for this book.

I've never liked "Oedipus Rex":  The prospect of people's very virtues
carrying them ever closer to their dooms isn't tragic, so much as offensive.
Even less do I like books in which the major plot decisions rely on the
characters behaving irrationally, insisting on misunderstanding each other,
and generally doing their best to do prevent matters from being settled
peacefully.  This book combines the two.

(To be fair, Reichert *does* set up a *cause* for much of the unreasonable
behavior.  It stems from a major decision on the part of one of the 
characters.  She even gives the reader fair hints -- which I missed -- as to 
what that cause is.  The only problem is that most of the trouble might have
been avoided had the person making the decision bothered to explain it to the
others, when there was no reason not to.)

It wasn't a bad trilogy, but it was way too long for the story it told,
and the story wasn't told with enough skill to justify that length.

-----
Dani Zweig
[email-masked]

   'T is with our judgements as our watches, none
   Go alike, yet each believes his own
		--Alexander Pope