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Athame
The southern forest of Kulhn is deep, dark, and deadly. It's a perfect refuge for witches hiding from the temples. A witch like Jessera, wise in survival. She found a lost young nobleman and took pity on him. But the man she called Pete was more than he seemed. Before she knew it, she was dragged into royal politics and witch hunters were after her. Is loving a prince really a good idea after all?
300 pages, ebook
First published March 7, 2013
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30 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 27, 2014
This review covers the first two books in Morgan Alreth’s The Unfortunate Woods series – Athame and Wrath. The series continues in a third book which at the time of writing has not yet been released.
These are fantasy books, set in a world where humans are the most numerous species, but share the land (and especially the forest) with several other natural and supernatural life forms. Relationships between the species tend to drift from neutral towards hostile, with occasional times of cooperation for specific shared goals.
Magic is, as you might expect, a vital part of the setting. The magic system is based around the four classical elements (fire, water, earth, air), with connections to the four seasons as well as other binary or four-fold natural or human divisions. Each element is linked to a deity with suitable qualities. It seems to me to be fundamentally well thought-out, particularly in Wrath where there is more development of the interconnections. An important plot theme is that pretty much any serious use of magic tends to have unpredictable side-effects, small compared to the original purpose but needing to be taken into account.
Athame opens in a wild and dangerous forest. A woman living here, Jess, chooses to help a man, Pete, who is lost, saving his life from any number of potential threats. He turns out to be a significant player in the royal succession drama unfolding in the country. Unsurprisingly, but credibly, the two eventually become lovers.
The plot continues with Jess and Pete venturing out of the forest and back to the capital city. This turns out to be every bit as dangerous as the wild forest, but with human rather than exotic enemies. There are definite echoes of Crocodile Dundee here, though the gender roles are switched, and the couple here is much more equally matched in talent and ability.
Athame ends with them having resolved a serious external threat, but separating for what appear to be perfectly sensible and necessary reasons. However, this is a source of grief to both.
Wrath – over twice as long according to my kindle – tracks subsequent events. They start separately, in different regions of the world, as they try to resolve their individual destinies; both have to face different but significant threats. Eventually they reunite, but tact and spoiler avoidance forbids me saying how this turns out. Suffice it to say that their quest returns them to their country of origin, which by now has fallen into serious civil unrest.
The hints and clues you get about the third book indicate that the overall problems of succession and disunity will be resolved, perhaps with a level of reconciliation between the various non-human species as well.
So, the books are interesting, and many aspects of the world seem credible to me. What are the down sides? Firstly, there is a theme I have also encountered in some of Morgan’s other writing. Rural settings may well be dangerous, but are basically clean and honourable; rural individuals are poor and bluntly spoken but honest. In contrast, cities and towns – anything bigger than a handful of houses together – are filthy, disease-ridden, and full of cruel and wickedly motivated individuals. Countryside is good: towns are bad. I am not really convinced by this.
In Athame, another rather simple binary opposition is between organised religion (largely in the hands of men and fundamentally corrupt) and personal spirituality (largely in the hands of women and basically uplifting and respectable). Wrath is more nuanced about this, and smooths out the earlier stark contrast into lots of intermediate shades of a spectrum.
Another difficulty is with the opponents. I guess it is par for the course for fantasy heroes to get increasingly more powerful themselves, and have a coterie of increasingly powerful followers. But how do you then find worthy adversaries? Somehow, the filthy, disease-ridden cities and their temples manage to turn out a whole collection of fearsome, top-of-the range fighting men and magician-priests.
The production of the kindle copy is mixed. My copies were downloaded from Smashwords, and the rather patchy navigation may be a consequence of that site’s conversion software. However, there are a surprising number of spelling errors, format problems, and other minor issues which should have been caught during rounds of proof reading.
In summary, these two books still come out as four star books for me. Certainly worth the read if you like fantasy books, and the series develops some interesting ideas. The gradual build-up of the plot is credible. Speaking as a Brit, some of the dialogue rather grates, but US readers might appreciate it more. However, the flaws which I have mentioned diminished my enjoyment of the whole, and made me feel that Morgan could have lavished a little more care on the production of the books as well as the imaginative aspects. I do intend to catch up on the conclusion of the series in time, so these flaws have not deterred me from carrying on.
These books were made available to me without charge but with no expectation of a review.
These are fantasy books, set in a world where humans are the most numerous species, but share the land (and especially the forest) with several other natural and supernatural life forms. Relationships between the species tend to drift from neutral towards hostile, with occasional times of cooperation for specific shared goals.
Magic is, as you might expect, a vital part of the setting. The magic system is based around the four classical elements (fire, water, earth, air), with connections to the four seasons as well as other binary or four-fold natural or human divisions. Each element is linked to a deity with suitable qualities. It seems to me to be fundamentally well thought-out, particularly in Wrath where there is more development of the interconnections. An important plot theme is that pretty much any serious use of magic tends to have unpredictable side-effects, small compared to the original purpose but needing to be taken into account.
Athame opens in a wild and dangerous forest. A woman living here, Jess, chooses to help a man, Pete, who is lost, saving his life from any number of potential threats. He turns out to be a significant player in the royal succession drama unfolding in the country. Unsurprisingly, but credibly, the two eventually become lovers.
The plot continues with Jess and Pete venturing out of the forest and back to the capital city. This turns out to be every bit as dangerous as the wild forest, but with human rather than exotic enemies. There are definite echoes of Crocodile Dundee here, though the gender roles are switched, and the couple here is much more equally matched in talent and ability.
Athame ends with them having resolved a serious external threat, but separating for what appear to be perfectly sensible and necessary reasons. However, this is a source of grief to both.
Wrath – over twice as long according to my kindle – tracks subsequent events. They start separately, in different regions of the world, as they try to resolve their individual destinies; both have to face different but significant threats. Eventually they reunite, but tact and spoiler avoidance forbids me saying how this turns out. Suffice it to say that their quest returns them to their country of origin, which by now has fallen into serious civil unrest.
The hints and clues you get about the third book indicate that the overall problems of succession and disunity will be resolved, perhaps with a level of reconciliation between the various non-human species as well.
So, the books are interesting, and many aspects of the world seem credible to me. What are the down sides? Firstly, there is a theme I have also encountered in some of Morgan’s other writing. Rural settings may well be dangerous, but are basically clean and honourable; rural individuals are poor and bluntly spoken but honest. In contrast, cities and towns – anything bigger than a handful of houses together – are filthy, disease-ridden, and full of cruel and wickedly motivated individuals. Countryside is good: towns are bad. I am not really convinced by this.
In Athame, another rather simple binary opposition is between organised religion (largely in the hands of men and fundamentally corrupt) and personal spirituality (largely in the hands of women and basically uplifting and respectable). Wrath is more nuanced about this, and smooths out the earlier stark contrast into lots of intermediate shades of a spectrum.
Another difficulty is with the opponents. I guess it is par for the course for fantasy heroes to get increasingly more powerful themselves, and have a coterie of increasingly powerful followers. But how do you then find worthy adversaries? Somehow, the filthy, disease-ridden cities and their temples manage to turn out a whole collection of fearsome, top-of-the range fighting men and magician-priests.
The production of the kindle copy is mixed. My copies were downloaded from Smashwords, and the rather patchy navigation may be a consequence of that site’s conversion software. However, there are a surprising number of spelling errors, format problems, and other minor issues which should have been caught during rounds of proof reading.
In summary, these two books still come out as four star books for me. Certainly worth the read if you like fantasy books, and the series develops some interesting ideas. The gradual build-up of the plot is credible. Speaking as a Brit, some of the dialogue rather grates, but US readers might appreciate it more. However, the flaws which I have mentioned diminished my enjoyment of the whole, and made me feel that Morgan could have lavished a little more care on the production of the books as well as the imaginative aspects. I do intend to catch up on the conclusion of the series in time, so these flaws have not deterred me from carrying on.
These books were made available to me without charge but with no expectation of a review.
March 28, 2013
I really enjoyed this. The original story and likeable characters more than made up for some editing issues and a derivative setting.
There are some lovely bits of writing that made me smile, or even chuckle. "Breakfast consisted of looking at last night's rabbit bones and wistfully licking their lips", for example. Unfortunately, there are also typos, missing words, errors like your/you're, it's/its, other missing or misplaced apostrophes, occasional incorrect tense, and the word "inn" consistently and unnecessarily capitalized. Compound adjectives are sometimes, but not always, hyphenated, and there isn't always a comma before the name of someone who's being addressed. Compared with many other indie books I've read, this isn't bad. The author doesn't use fancy words that don't mean what he thinks they mean, and a couple of passes by a reasonably competent proofreader would sort out the issues easily. The sentences mostly flow well, and the descriptions are workmanlike. I'll award three stars for language, given the general competence of the writing.
I liked the characters immediately. Pete is good-hearted and willing to try anything and persevere. Jess cares deeply about doing the right thing and is tough and competent. None of the other characters develop, but they're distinct and well-drawn. The main characters are also proactive, setting out to do things rather than just watching things happen. A strong four stars for characters.
The plot isn't, thankfully, one of the usual three epic fantasy plots. It's original, not predictable, and (to me, anyway) engaging, largely because I cared about the main characters. It doesn't rely on character stupidity or coincidence, either. It's not a complex plot, but it's well-handled. Four stars for plot.
The setting is not so original. Apart from the ghaunts, all the creatures were standard issue, and the kingdom was your basic fantasy kingdom: king, nobles, peasants, medieval technology, priests of several gods, magic. The magic, too, was the rather worn four elements type, though I liked what the author did with it. I also liked the fact that the nobles were a bit more like actual medieval nobles (that is, nasty bastards) than is often the case in high fantasy. A highish three stars for setting.
Overall, a definite four stars, and I will be buying the sequel.
Through The Kindle Book Review, I received a free copy of this
book for an independent, fair, and honest review. KBR are not
associated with the author or Amazon.
There are some lovely bits of writing that made me smile, or even chuckle. "Breakfast consisted of looking at last night's rabbit bones and wistfully licking their lips", for example. Unfortunately, there are also typos, missing words, errors like your/you're, it's/its, other missing or misplaced apostrophes, occasional incorrect tense, and the word "inn" consistently and unnecessarily capitalized. Compound adjectives are sometimes, but not always, hyphenated, and there isn't always a comma before the name of someone who's being addressed. Compared with many other indie books I've read, this isn't bad. The author doesn't use fancy words that don't mean what he thinks they mean, and a couple of passes by a reasonably competent proofreader would sort out the issues easily. The sentences mostly flow well, and the descriptions are workmanlike. I'll award three stars for language, given the general competence of the writing.
I liked the characters immediately. Pete is good-hearted and willing to try anything and persevere. Jess cares deeply about doing the right thing and is tough and competent. None of the other characters develop, but they're distinct and well-drawn. The main characters are also proactive, setting out to do things rather than just watching things happen. A strong four stars for characters.
The plot isn't, thankfully, one of the usual three epic fantasy plots. It's original, not predictable, and (to me, anyway) engaging, largely because I cared about the main characters. It doesn't rely on character stupidity or coincidence, either. It's not a complex plot, but it's well-handled. Four stars for plot.
The setting is not so original. Apart from the ghaunts, all the creatures were standard issue, and the kingdom was your basic fantasy kingdom: king, nobles, peasants, medieval technology, priests of several gods, magic. The magic, too, was the rather worn four elements type, though I liked what the author did with it. I also liked the fact that the nobles were a bit more like actual medieval nobles (that is, nasty bastards) than is often the case in high fantasy. A highish three stars for setting.
Overall, a definite four stars, and I will be buying the sequel.
Through The Kindle Book Review, I received a free copy of this
book for an independent, fair, and honest review. KBR are not
associated with the author or Amazon.
April 2, 2013
What a fun story. First to last, Jess and Pete keep you rooting for them against all odds--and they have a lot of odds to overcome!
Thankfully, the preview of book two makes it clear we'll be seeing more of both Jess and Pete.
Thankfully, the preview of book two makes it clear we'll be seeing more of both Jess and Pete.
July 25, 2018
Another re-read for me. Still a ripping good story.
August 31, 2015
A pretty good read. nice plot to the story going on. you immediately like the main characters and they developed threw out the book. the rest of the characters don't have much meaning and don't really developed. you don't get to know them so their not really worth mentioning.
it's a decent fantasy novel. I wouldn't pass it up and I don't highly recommend it it but I'd recommend it if your looking for this type of read.
it's a good fantasy novel.
I was given this book for a honest review.
it's a decent fantasy novel. I wouldn't pass it up and I don't highly recommend it it but I'd recommend it if your looking for this type of read.
it's a good fantasy novel.
I was given this book for a honest review.
July 16, 2014
All in all this was an enjoyable read. The strong points are the unusual plot and well-developed and interesting characters and the weak points are the slow pacing in places and the number of typos.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews