The Wooden Sword

Walensor #1

by Lynn Abbey

OF ALL LIVING THINGS IN EVERLON, THE TREES WERE THE OLDEST...AND THE WISEST

A generation ago, the ancient forests of Waensor swallowed up the young princeling Dart. All the kingdom presumed him dead. But, enclosed in the bark of the oldest tree, Dart was kept alive - a human vessel of the trees' greatest secrets ... and most powerful magic.

Twenty years later, Dart was released. The trees had given him the most precious of gifts: A wooden sword, a harp, and timeless wisdom.

The trees also gave him a great and terrible mission: To save his world from a powerful tyrant, a dark wizard of smoke ... and fire.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction, Magic, Science Fiction Fantasy, Speculative Fiction

247 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 1, 1991

About the author

Lynn Abbey began publishing in 1979 with the novel Daughter of the Bright Moon and the short story "The Face of Chaos," part of a Thieves World shared world anthology. She received early encouragement from Gordon R. Dickson.

In the 1980s she married Robert Asprin and became his co-editor on the Thieves World books. She also contributed to other shared world series during the 1980s, including Heroes in Hell and Merovingen Nights.

Abbey and Asprin divorced in 1993 and Abbey moved to Oklahoma City. She continued to write novels during this period, including original works as well as tie-ins to Role Playing Games for TSR. In 2002, she returned to Thieves World with the novel Sanctuary and also began editing new anthologies, beginning with Turning Points.

Reviews

[Kenya Starflight · Rating 1 out of 5]

There's nothing more disappointing than finding a book with a fantastic premise, only for the story, writing, and characters to be so bad as to do that premise a major disservice. "The Wooden Sword," unfortunately, falls into that category. I was tempted to give it two stars for its unique worldbuilding, but in the end I found the writing and characters so bad that the decent worldbuilding and premise actually upset me -- because they deserved far better than what they were given in this book.

Berika is a shepherdess living in the world of Walensor, where a mystical Web connects the land's sorcerers and gods are a very real, dangerous phenomenon. On the heels of a long-running war, Berika finds herself betrothed to a man she hates and pleads to the goddess Weycha for some kind of release... and ends up awakening her champion, a man named Dart who has pledged to protect Weycha and her forest from a terrible flame-wielding sorcerer. If Dart is to stop this threat, he needs Berika's help... if Berika can find the courage to change her fate on her own.

There were concepts in this book I really enjoyed, such as the idea of the Web (a magical version of our Internet, which is ironic as this book was published before the Internet became widespread) and the conceit that gods don't awaken and become powerful until humanity chooses to believe in them. Sadly, both these concepts are barely utilized throughout the novel. And though it strives to set itself apart from the usual "generic fantasy setting" with unique names for magic, nobility, honor, etc., it would have helped to have a glossary to better define these terms.

The characters are almost entirely awful or flat. Berika shuffles back and forth between being an angry brat and being a complete pushover who lets everyone walk all over her. The book tries to justify it by giving her an abusive past, but it gets so over the top it becomes eye-rolling after awhile. Dart has an interesting past but is fairly bland throughout, while the much-hyped villain never shows up and is so vaguely referred to that he's a glaring non-entity. Every other character is either completely loathsome or completely flat... with the possible exception of Ingolde, Berika's mother, who is the closest thing this book has to a sympathetic and interesting character, and even then she vanishes after the first half of the book.

The story itself feels like a wandering, empty mess, involving nothing more than wandering around and pointless encounters. It feels like every fantasy has to imitate "Lord of the Rings" by sending its characters on a journey of some kind, and honestly, this journey feels boring and pointless. Again, the threat towards the world and characters feels barely defined, motivations barely there, and all in all not much happens. Even the ending just leaves the reader hanging, doubtless as a bid to make the reader buy the inevitable sequel.

Also, the treatment of women in this book is horrible. I get that the author wants to point out that women have it rough in this world -- they seem to have it rough in every single fantasy novel where the world is based on a medieval-Europe culture -- but it gets tiring to read about. Yes, there was misogyny and discrimination in medieval Europe, but there were also strong and powerful women during that time period. And when one of the two main characters is female, it gets cringe-worthy constantly reading about how she's treated as property and abused by everyone they come across. I get it, it sucks to be a girl, move on with the story...

This book was a major disappointment, enough so that I feel absolutely no desire to pick up the sequel despite the obvious sequel hook. What could have been an interesting premise is absolutely squandered by bland writing, a boring story, and awful characters. Even fantasy fans won't enjoy this one.

[Bryce · Rating 1 out of 5]

I owned this book and read it multiple times when I was in middle school. The memory of it returned to me randomly in my late 30s and I simply HAD to read it again. Thank goodness for the internet; I was able to find this out of print novel and have it in my hands for roughly the same price as a froufrou coffee drink from Starbucks.

So experiencing this as an adult, I can say with confidence: this book blows. Totally sucks. The characters are unlikeable, their motivations contradictory, and their personalities flat. The plot makes no sense. None. But luckily it's also poorly paced. A boring trek through a muddy forest takes pages and pages and pages but the big character reveal comes and goes I'm a few paragraphs.

I'm not sure what made me read this not just once but several times when I was a tween. I suspect it's because I read every book I owned several times. I was a voracious reader and, at that age, hungry for any story that even vaguely mentioned romance or sex.

This little trip down memory lane was interesting but ultimately, I did not rediscover a treasured classic.

[Ery · Rating 1 out of 5]

The blurb lies: it is one half a book in a village where Berrika finds Dart, and they are utter idiots in it with the village politics before they escape -- and the second half in a town where again, they behave like complete nitwits while Dart gambles and is all I Know Who I Am (not a country bumpkin) and so they both get thrown in the mire.

Certainly no saving of any world going on in it, nor any intimation why any of the harp or sword is meaningful in any way.

Nobody is likeable at /all/, and by the end of it you just want someone to run them both through with as sword -- Dart (certainly no wisdom on his end) for being a moron who just didn't leave the first village without making a huge song and dance about it, and then for being all about HoNoUR or whatever the fuck that was about, and then Berrika for being a whiny clingy brat who throws Dart under the bus the first time someone looks at her for two seconds with "kindly" eyes.

Pah.

[Linda · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was awful. I managed to finish it...barely. The author managed to take an interesting concept and totally kill it. The only reason I was able to finish it was because it was only around 250 pages. If it had been much longer I never would have made it. The plot dragged out while the characters dithered in place or another. And then in the last 10 pages, everything was suddenly resolved. Things that really should have taken place over a longer section in the book, took place in a paragraph. Very abrupt. And considering how dull and how little was accomplished in the earlier parts of the book were, it was especially jarring. Event hough it ends on a setup for a sequel, I didn't even bother to swear that I would never read it. I just knew I never, ever would. And I recommend you don't even pick this one up.

[Jeff Gilpin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book although it was frustrating to read at times. Worth reading for fantasy fans who think they have run out of stories, they really haven't though.

[LadyRose · Rating 5 out of 5]

*Deep Breath, and again* It was a 5 star book for me, but not sure if it is a re-readable book for me...mainly since it did this neat writing trick of beginning you with one female character as the main character and through most of the book, then slowly giving you glimpses in the mind of another male character more and more, till at the end he seems to have become the main character...which by then I loved him and really didn't like her (she acted way too typical "country stupid" but *spoiler here* she was completely not loyal which is the exact opposite of the typical "country" character where their friends are concerned).

So when he does his best for her by basically offending her into the arms/protection of a different guy for her own good, I was cheering for him to never try and get her back even though I did feel sorry for her a bit (but was way more annoyed by how stupid selfish she was and even though it made her a good bit smarter than most in the book, she was way too naive/trusting/closed-minded/emotional-instead-of-logical for a truly smart character...her mother seemed way smarter, which was true to life in that it was said her father was not very bright either). I felt more sad for him though since he truly cared about her and proved it through his actions, whereas she used him/berated him like a bitter old nag/never proved her caring except for when she gave him more of their food/acted like a tease to him without ever going farther than a kiss but very willing to be a sex trafficing victim for a stranger and then used as a bootycall/mistress by a lord...all supposedly from being an abuse victim of her childhood betrothed (but her first actions and her last actions did not match with her middle abuse victim actions...so her character was all over the place, but his character was way more solid and stable in his loyalty/friendship/actions based on his issues).

The book had a very easy magical world setup (done in just the first 2-3 pages), it worked alot like the internet and everyone had or would have some build up of magic but the most magical is who became sorcerers. Most magical = most important sorcerers. Different natural magical talents: healing, interrogating, telepathy, etc. They used water as a magical medium. The internet part was a built magical communication device that also stored up magical powers called The Web, strong enough sorcerers could contact it for information and more powerful ones could post things and even communicate with Gods. Every village had someone with enough magic "basi" so they could tap into the Web for the latest news/proclamations from the nobility. Being a sorcerer was the best thing someone could be besides nobility.

The writing was very good (and editing too) since I don't remember any glaring mistakes and it was easy to read. The book was one I found extremely hard to put down, I kept wanting to know what would happen next. There were parts when you might of thought lets get to what happens next since some sections seemed more drawn out than others, like a long walk was completely described in the beginning of it till at some point you are glad it began to summarize and when it was over yay but it was necessary to see the interaction between our two main characters and into both their heads at the same time, which made you see why it would never work between them.

In the end you are left kinda on a cliff hanger and kinda not, its just enough to want another book to see what happens next, that's about when I figured out this probably wasn't a stand alone book but the first in a series. It is good enough I want to read what happens to Dart next, and hope he meets and falls for a different female (one more trustworthy than this one turned out to be). The re-readability would then be based on whether the book had more books and how good that story went as to whether I would reread it since I ended up disliking the first main character so much.

[Teresa Fay - Texas Book Fiend · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall Story: Very slow and the ending sets you up for a sequel.

- This is the kind of book you set near your toilet for when you forget to take your phone with you, and your desperate for distraction.

Characters: Berika and Dart, the two protagonists, are as basic as basic comes. I could not come to care about these two at all. Berika you want to slap and strangle continuously. Dart comes across as a pompous jacka** who whines the entire time up until the end.

- These two characters are basic and stereotypical as characters come. Idiot country abused girl - Berika and Dart - hero noble without a memory whose been stuck in a tree for 20 years. These two had SO MUCH POTENTIAL.

World: Abbey did very well describing the scenery, village, cities and characters. Very vivid and not overly descriptive to the point you start skipping paragraphs to get to something more interesting.

- Easily able to picture and imagine each scene description.

Verdict: Unless you find a copy for $1 like I did, and you can't find anything else in the store to spend that $1 on (up to and including a candy bar, fake mustache, roll of tape - really anything in existence) it's not a terrible way to kill 2 hours. Otherwise, there are much better books out there.

[Shaitarn · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5 stars rounded down.

This is an older (my copy dates back to 1991)and thankfully pretty short fantasy novel. It is also pretty terrible, in my opinion.

The story is of a young village girl named Berika, who is desperate to escape an arranged marriage to the brutal son of the village wise woman. She prays for some way out of this, and the local forest goddess spits a young man (or demon or fetch) out of a tree to help her. This young man, named Dart, is carrying a wooden sword and a harp (inside a giant acorn) and has no memory or who he is or his life until he was taken by the trees. The two of them escape from the village to the nearest town, Dart wins money by gambling, finds out about his background (it won't surprise you) and... the book ends abruptly.

The world building was quite interesting, but everything else was pretty bad. The pacing was all over the place - it took almost half the book for the characters to leave the village, and the events at the end were squeezed into a couple of pages when they could've filled a chapter. The characters were also pretty terrible. Berika was awful, switching from an argumentative bitch to completely spineless more than once. the only reason I managed to finish this book was because it was so short; if it'd been any longer I would've DNFed.

The ending was set up for a sequel but i won't be reading it. In fact, I won't be holding on to this one any longer either. My advice is don't bother.

[Liam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ignore the blurb.

I like Lynn Abbey, and my buddy Karth does too, but that’s about it in my circle. This is my fourth novel by her, though I’ve read her short stories too (Thieves’ World, anyone?), and she is an auto-buy author at this point. I’m sad she doesn’t seem to write anymore, but anyway.

This book is not epic fantasy. It starts with one main character before shifting to focus on another. It seems a critique of the patriarchy, I do not envy any women in this world, it is terrible. One thing I like about Abbey’s character work is their relatability and realism. That means they are not always likable, just like humans in reality. This is a world of magic and darkness, but the antagonists are our main characters and the world they live in. The big bad is actually never seen, though the world building is pretty good.

So Abbey subverts some tropes, but one thing she does keep normal is the amnesia one. She does subvert the heroine/hero, nobility thing really well. I found this very engrossing and I’m looking forward to book 2, as the ending is abrupt and does not work as a stand-alone.

[Nikhilā · Rating 3 out of 5]

So there is not one single likeable character in this entire book. They are all really unpleasant people, but they’re pretty believably unpleasant, and I still want to find out what happens to them, which is some kind of impressive character building. Though the only character whose motivations made sense to me was Berika. I think Abbey did a pretty good job of writing a realistic 16-yr-old who’s led a pretty abusive life, and I applaud her for not just turning her into the flawless heroine that’s been painfully, painfully over-written in so many fantasy novels.

I had a lot of trouble understanding what was going on in each scene. The author doesn’t explain the world and scenes very well, even the positions of the characters within the scenes was confusing.

[Zaryna · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good read! The plot is very interesting and I fell in love with the characters from the very start. At some points the writing makes the scenes a little confusing, things happen too fast towards the end and I began to lose connection to the main characters. I'm not sure why the writer has done this...to me the book could have had a very different ending. I will still read the next book because as I said, the plot is good and i still want to know what happens, maybe I will be surprised.

[Paula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good character building, an interesting story in an agrarian world where the more powerful magic practitioners leave home and leave the less powerfull behind to cope with a patriarchal society where all the men haave gone off to war. Women can be such B***hs. I read the new ebook version available from my link textClosed-Circle

[Kristi Thompson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I borrowed this from the library a few years ago and remember nothing except that it left me with a feeling of "eh," and I didn't pick up anything by Abbey after that. Until I saw her Emma Merrigan books, featuring a librarian...

[Aurelin · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first ever fantasy book and it started my lifelong (hopefully) love for the genre. That is why it got a 5, otherwise it would probably have been more around 3.5. I'm still trying to imagine how Dart looked like!

[April Jones · Rating 1 out of 5]

Horrible. It had a good premise but when things were finally getting somewhere, it ended!

[Bill B]

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