I picked Aurian up at a garage sale when I was in college. I figured it looked like a great summer read--and I'm glad to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. I've re-read it several times since, and even when you know exactly what's going to happen, it's still a wonderful story.And you'll be familiar with the basic plot--girl discovers that she has wondrous powers and abilities (not a surprise, since both her parents are mages), is trained in physical combat (because a girl can't rely on magic to get her out of every scrape), and of course get wrapped up in a twisted kind of love/lust triangle. And amongst the hierarchy and class struggles between the mages and the non-magical people (who I really want to call muggles), Aurian saves the city and then has to flee because she upset the grand plan of the head mage--and all that in the first third of the book.
When I finished Aurian the first time, I was completely dismayed to find I'd hooked myself on yet another trilogy. So I ordered the next two books (and found that there was actually a fourth book about to be released).
Unfortunately, I found the rest of the books to be less enjoyable. It felt like it should've been a whole saga, but instead it was forced into four books. (The last one, especially, the story felt crammed between the covers.)
Still, I find myself wanting to reread Aurian, even knowing that the books to follow can't live up to what I want them to be. And maybe next time I'll just be able to call it quits after reading just the first book in the trilogy+1.
3 comments:
Sounds like a very interesting book. It's too bad that the rest of the series didn't live up to expectations though. I hate it when that happens. I am going to put this on my summer reading list. Thanks!
I first read Aurian when I was around 17 years old and it still remains one of my favorite stories to this day (I'm now 31). I have reread the saga a few times throughout the years and still marvel at how captivating it is in it's passion, scope and imagery. My only true disappointment was the ending of Dhiammara. It was to dry and abrupt for the way things were going on in the story in general. I confess that, for a few years after that, I kept hoping there would be a fifth book to close this all-encompassing story. It really felt like there was a chapter missing at the end of book four. Maybe she just ran out of ideas and just stopped writing... who knows.
Oh and your comment with the "muggles" bit was very funny!
^_^
AlexS--that is exactly what I thought about the fourth book--except that I didn't think she ran out of ideas; I thought her publisher told her she had to wrap it up in one more book because initially it was only supposed to be a trilogy and they didn't want her to turn it into some huge series like R. Jordan's The Wheel of Time. (And I waited for a fifth book, too--something that would make up for the sense of rushing in the fourth book.)
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