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Talyn A Novel of Korre Holly Lisle 9780765348739 Books

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Talyn A Novel of Korre Holly Lisle 9780765348739 Books

My opinion of this book changed a lot as I read through it. This makes it rather difficult for me to decide upon a final score - it seems too good for a 3 star rating, but perhaps not good enough for a 4. I'd have given it a 3.5 if I could. But since Amazon doesn't allow me to give half a star, I feel that Talyn deserves more praise than it does complaint, so am going to go with giving it 4 stars.

My first impressions of this book was that I wasn't going to be able to finish it. I struggled to enjoy the prose, which can be quite wordy in places and isn't entirely an "easy read". At one point, I counted a sentence with over 70 words in it - requiring a lot of attention to be paid if anything is going to make sense.

Two other issues bothered me to begin with: The world felt massively detailed, but I felt that the prose was very "telling". I had a hard time at first absorbing the massive amount of detail the author put into her world. This problem faded in time, once things had been established and I was no longer bombarded with new information.

The other thing that jarred me slightly was the shift between the first person narrative by Talyn, to the third person narrative of Gair. At first, I couldn't see how their stories were meant to connect, and it bothered me that they seemed so disconnected.

To begin with, the story also felt very slow, and although I sensed that things were obviously going somewhere, the author sure took her time getting there! Considering the matter now that I've finished Talyn, I think this was necessary to allow the reader to become deeply immersed in the world, its characters, and their culture.

At around the 100 - 150 page point, I began to like the book more. I enjoyed the interactions between Talyn and the villain, and I was also enjoying the story-arc concerning Gair and his comrades.

Unfortunately, things with Talyn and the villain didn't go where I had thought they would. On first impressions, I had thought the villain to be an intelligent, manipulative and terribly dangerous man, with deep morals and goals that would make him and his ambitions a fascinating contrast to Talyn's own.

But then we learn the truth about this character, and the character suddenly becomes a very predictable and formulaic depiction of evil. "Ooooh, I am evil because I take pleasure in hurting people." etc, etc. I suppose he had some interesting viewpoints, but I wanted there to be something about this villain that I could sympathize with, and there really wasn't. He was simply evil.

I shall warn readers that this story is extremely dark. There are themes of sex, rape, torture, dominance, etc, etc. In defense of the book---a LOT of what goes on is implied, rather than shown. We only really see the aftermath of what is done to the victims of these cruelties - the rope marks, the burns, the cuts and bruises and broken bones---but it is still very dark and quite disturbing.

The good parts about this story are the characters Talyn and Gair. If they had not been as strong or interesting, I would have struggled to like this story as much. Talyn and Gair are both extremely likable characters, and I enjoyed their story-arc. How Talyn dealt with the ordeals she suffered were very believable and made my heart ache for her. Gair was simply a good and strong hero, and I found myself cheering for him as he faced every conflict.

I did find the magic system a bit complicated, and since the conflict and story in general use it heavily as part of its central storyline, I sometimes felt a little lost. There were a lot of strange names to keep track of, and although I still don't know if I got it all completely worked out, I understood more than enough to enjoy the story.

I was satisfied by the ending; it felt that when the final conflict came, there was a lot to do with few pages left, yet the author managed to resolve everything quite nicely.

On a slight technical note, my edition of this book had rather a lot of grammatical errors than I consider unacceptable in a published work. Some of them are very obvious, and I was surprised that the publisher/editor had failed to catch them prior to publication. This did not distract too much from my enjoyment of the book itself, but it was noticeable.

In conclusion then, I would not have considered this book as good if it were not for Talyn and Gair. Perhaps they were a little too "good" and "likable" at times - yes, they both carry their wounds, but I sometimes wondered if they were maybe a bit too "good". Talyn's ability with magic also left me a bit undecided about whether the author had maybe made her TOO powerful - she did seem to have her limits, but I felt that there were no rules that could not, eventually, be undone. This feeling that she had the potential to become a God, and only her "good heart" would keep her from using that power for evil, bothered me a little. It was a theme that Talyn herself did not seem to struggle with much, and perhaps this is an opportunity the author missed out on by not exploring it further.

But the characters of Talyn and Gair are good and likable. I did find the heavy reliance on sex and violence, torture and cruelty and sadism to be a bit too much at times. I was glad that the author did not detail these scenes as they occurred, or I would not have been able to finish this book. Although I do enjoy a dark read, Talyn tested my limits a lot.

My only disappointment with this book was that the villain was plain and simply evil, with no redeeming qualities or traits to allow the reader to sympathize with him in the slightest. Although I struggled with the first 100 or so pages of this book, the tone and style had led me to believe that I could expect characters with deeper motives than that.

Once I got past this though, I enjoyed the world building and the conflicts of both Talyn and Gair and their struggles to save their people.

A good book---but I really must stress that the dark themes will doubtlessly trouble a lot of readers. Avoid if you are at all disturbed by themes of sex, violence, torture, sadism, rape, etc.


Tags : Talyn: A Novel of Korre [Holly Lisle] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <div><div> In a world where technology is magic, and war is the only way of life, Talyn is a soldier...</i>   …raised from birth to fight for her people and her country. She long ago embraced her fate: to die in battle. So when a shocking peace sweeps her land,Holly Lisle,Talyn: A Novel of Korre,Tor Fantasy,076534873X,Fantasy fiction.,Fantasy,Fantasy - General,Fiction,Fiction - Fantasy,Fiction Fantasy General,Science Fiction And Fantasy

Talyn A Novel of Korre Holly Lisle 9780765348739 Books Reviews

The books I read over and over are ones where the character has to evolve in ways that make their heads spin. Talyn is a Tonk soldier who finds peace suspiciously forced upon her and throws her into a world where her deepest held values are ruined. She becomes involved with a man who is a magician, though she does not know that. He has developed a way of manipulating other minds through psychic powers and she becomes his puppet.

Key members of her once enemy country rescue her after she had rescued them earlier. Forced together they overcome their racist views of each other and achieve true peace.

I did not find the changing point of view the least bit jarring. I thought it moved along some rather complex internal dialogue understandable. Having read this book many times, I undoubtedly will read it again.
I had to re-order a copy of this book because I loaned my original out and never got it back. And this is a book I want on my keeper shelf.
I hesitate to recommend this novel. It is quite interesting, an absorbing read until about the middle - and I have to spoil you here - when a storyline of extreme sexual violence against women comes to the forefront. I felt it was unnecessary and jarring. The bad guys are bad, evil, sure, but can there be ways to depict that other than, "they like to get together with their friends and rape and torture their wives to death?" In nauseating detail.

That aspect for me overshadowed the other good parts of the story - the likeable main heroine, world-building, the romance, etc. At the middle of the book, I skipped to the very end, the final confrontation, and it didn't really redeem itself. I woke up the next morning feeling sick. This is my reader's cautionary warning. If you don't care for snuff, take care, especially given that it appears without a warning, in what is until then a lovely story.

NOTE I'm aware that my opinion is emotion-laden and not very fair to the novel (I honestly don't like disturbing images or thoughts that might follow me through the rest of my day), so please read the Comments to this review for counterpoints.
My opinion of this book changed a lot as I read through it. This makes it rather difficult for me to decide upon a final score - it seems too good for a 3 star rating, but perhaps not good enough for a 4. I'd have given it a 3.5 if I could. But since doesn't allow me to give half a star, I feel that Talyn deserves more praise than it does complaint, so am going to go with giving it 4 stars.

My first impressions of this book was that I wasn't going to be able to finish it. I struggled to enjoy the prose, which can be quite wordy in places and isn't entirely an "easy read". At one point, I counted a sentence with over 70 words in it - requiring a lot of attention to be paid if anything is going to make sense.

Two other issues bothered me to begin with The world felt massively detailed, but I felt that the prose was very "telling". I had a hard time at first absorbing the massive amount of detail the author put into her world. This problem faded in time, once things had been established and I was no longer bombarded with new information.

The other thing that jarred me slightly was the shift between the first person narrative by Talyn, to the third person narrative of Gair. At first, I couldn't see how their stories were meant to connect, and it bothered me that they seemed so disconnected.

To begin with, the story also felt very slow, and although I sensed that things were obviously going somewhere, the author sure took her time getting there! Considering the matter now that I've finished Talyn, I think this was necessary to allow the reader to become deeply immersed in the world, its characters, and their culture.

At around the 100 - 150 page point, I began to like the book more. I enjoyed the interactions between Talyn and the villain, and I was also enjoying the story-arc concerning Gair and his comrades.

Unfortunately, things with Talyn and the villain didn't go where I had thought they would. On first impressions, I had thought the villain to be an intelligent, manipulative and terribly dangerous man, with deep morals and goals that would make him and his ambitions a fascinating contrast to Talyn's own.

But then we learn the truth about this character, and the character suddenly becomes a very predictable and formulaic depiction of evil. "Ooooh, I am evil because I take pleasure in hurting people." etc, etc. I suppose he had some interesting viewpoints, but I wanted there to be something about this villain that I could sympathize with, and there really wasn't. He was simply evil.

I shall warn readers that this story is extremely dark. There are themes of sex, rape, torture, dominance, etc, etc. In defense of the book---a LOT of what goes on is implied, rather than shown. We only really see the aftermath of what is done to the victims of these cruelties - the rope marks, the burns, the cuts and bruises and broken bones---but it is still very dark and quite disturbing.

The good parts about this story are the characters Talyn and Gair. If they had not been as strong or interesting, I would have struggled to like this story as much. Talyn and Gair are both extremely likable characters, and I enjoyed their story-arc. How Talyn dealt with the ordeals she suffered were very believable and made my heart ache for her. Gair was simply a good and strong hero, and I found myself cheering for him as he faced every conflict.

I did find the magic system a bit complicated, and since the conflict and story in general use it heavily as part of its central storyline, I sometimes felt a little lost. There were a lot of strange names to keep track of, and although I still don't know if I got it all completely worked out, I understood more than enough to enjoy the story.

I was satisfied by the ending; it felt that when the final conflict came, there was a lot to do with few pages left, yet the author managed to resolve everything quite nicely.

On a slight technical note, my edition of this book had rather a lot of grammatical errors than I consider unacceptable in a published work. Some of them are very obvious, and I was surprised that the publisher/editor had failed to catch them prior to publication. This did not distract too much from my enjoyment of the book itself, but it was noticeable.

In conclusion then, I would not have considered this book as good if it were not for Talyn and Gair. Perhaps they were a little too "good" and "likable" at times - yes, they both carry their wounds, but I sometimes wondered if they were maybe a bit too "good". Talyn's ability with magic also left me a bit undecided about whether the author had maybe made her TOO powerful - she did seem to have her limits, but I felt that there were no rules that could not, eventually, be undone. This feeling that she had the potential to become a God, and only her "good heart" would keep her from using that power for evil, bothered me a little. It was a theme that Talyn herself did not seem to struggle with much, and perhaps this is an opportunity the author missed out on by not exploring it further.

But the characters of Talyn and Gair are good and likable. I did find the heavy reliance on sex and violence, torture and cruelty and sadism to be a bit too much at times. I was glad that the author did not detail these scenes as they occurred, or I would not have been able to finish this book. Although I do enjoy a dark read, Talyn tested my limits a lot.

My only disappointment with this book was that the villain was plain and simply evil, with no redeeming qualities or traits to allow the reader to sympathize with him in the slightest. Although I struggled with the first 100 or so pages of this book, the tone and style had led me to believe that I could expect characters with deeper motives than that.

Once I got past this though, I enjoyed the world building and the conflicts of both Talyn and Gair and their struggles to save their people.

A good book---but I really must stress that the dark themes will doubtlessly trouble a lot of readers. Avoid if you are at all disturbed by themes of sex, violence, torture, sadism, rape, etc.