Banewreaker

The Sundering, Book 1

By: Jacqueline Carey

Narrated by: Antony Ferguson

Once, the Seven Shapers dwelled in accord. First-born among them was Haomane, Lord-of-Thought and with his brother and sister gods, the Seven drew upon of the power of the Souma, claimed a race of beings for their own and began shaping the world to their will.

But Haomane saw the ways of this new world and was displeased. For in his younger brother Satoris, once called the Sower, Haomane thought too prideful and in his gift, the quickening of the flesh too freely to the races...and to that of Man in particular. Haomane asked Satoris to withdraw his Gift from Men but he refused. And so began the Shapers' War.

Eons have passed. The war that ensued sundered the very world. Haomane and his siblings lay to one end of a vast ocean unable to touch their creations, Satoris and the races of the world on the other. Satoris has been broken and left adrift among the peoples of the world and is reviled, with most of the races believing that it was he alone who caused the rift and depriving them of the balm of the Seven. He sits in Darkhaven, controlling his own dominion-seeking not victory but neither vengeance.

©2004 Jacqueline Carey (P)2017 Tantor

character development

The parties involved both see there actions as being moral in the right in their conflicts.

slow start but excellent characters.

I love the interactions between the characters and the fact that I'm still conflicted over the right and wrong.

What if Sauron got to tell his side of it?

An acknowledged homage to the Lord of the Rings, you'll find a lot of it sounding familiar. It starts slowly, but it is worth the effort to get engaged. I felt this way with Kushiel too, so if you've read those books, you'll understand what I'm saying.

This is the most conflicting high fantasy series I've 'read' because not only are the 'bad guys' sympathetic...but I can't even really tell if they ARE the bad guys. I think they do enough bad things that eventually it's clear...but still. Like in real life...people go to war for valid reasons, and in the end are mostly just trying to defend their homes and loved ones, or set right things that went wrong or are going wrong. It's good to be forced to examine this awful grey area, especially when it comes to war, since we as a species do it so much.

LotR was definitely white hat/black hat and this is SO hard to know who to root for because I want to fit into that comfortable binary...but she has made it so we cannot. It's definitely an underrated series. Well worth it.

great story, reading tempo is a bit rough

I love the story! but it is not a happy story and the reader reads a but slow, so it seems even more somber and drawn out

Good Grief

I'm not sure I've ever read anything so overwrought. I've not read anything else by this author, but this makes me unlikely to.

(Harumph.....)

Jacqueline Carey's "Kushiel" series (in print) is one of my all-time favorites. I love her world building and character development and in the "Kushiel" series, she introduced a hero and heroine like no other. I just never got into this book. Ever. I thought the narration was rather flat- and 2 weeks after finishing the book, I cannot even tell you what it was about. Not the most helpful review, I guess, but there it is.