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Wyvern
In a saga of sorcery, love and revenge, Jaki, reared by a mystic and schooled on the high seas by pirates, finds passion in marriage and fatherhood and adventure on the shores of a new world
704 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1988
110 people are currently reading
923 people want to read
About the author
A.A. Attanasio
47 books360 followersI’m a novelist and student of the imagination living in Honolulu. Fantasies, visions, hallucinations or whatever we call those irrational powers that illuminate our inner life fascinate me. I’m particularly intrigued by the creative intelligence that scripts our dreams. And I love carrying this soulful energy outside my mind, into the one form that most precisely defines who we are: story.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews
September 19, 2011
I'm done with reading. I quit. I've reached complete fulfillment in Wyvern. Nothing else will ever be this good. Pure perfection.
December 19, 2021
The Ultimate Swashbuckling Pirate Adventure Set in the Dutch East Indies in 1600s
This book is so much better than it needs to be. The writing is gorgeous, the story is fast-paced, the locations are evocative and exotic, spanning various part of the Dutch East Indies, with descriptions so vivid you feel you're there. The action is intense, the characters full of passion, and there is also a complex overlay of colonial incursions by the Western powers into the native kingdoms and islands and their condescending attitude of White Man's Burden and cultural superiority.
The main character is half-breed Jaki Gefjon, son of a native Borneo woman and a Dutch sea captain, who starts life as witch-doctor's slave and apprentice before being capture by pirate Trevor Pam, captain of the feared ship Wyvern. Jaki's witch doctor (medicine man) skills win him acceptance among the pirates, along with his tireless drive to learn their ways and become useful, so he quickly climbs the ranks. He path will then cross with powerful men in the Dutch and English colonial regimes, other pirates, and he will also fall in love and elope with Lucinda and her maid, leading to long-term rivalries that drive much of the storyline to it's action-packed conclusion. While this is a swashbuckling adventure, there is plenty of mysticism from Jaki's apprenticeship as a sorcerer, and he is continually questing his purpose in life, and the competing values of the Western Powers vs his native upbringing. It's all far more in-depth than you'd have any right to expect, and deserves a far bigger audience that it has had.
This book is so much better than it needs to be. The writing is gorgeous, the story is fast-paced, the locations are evocative and exotic, spanning various part of the Dutch East Indies, with descriptions so vivid you feel you're there. The action is intense, the characters full of passion, and there is also a complex overlay of colonial incursions by the Western powers into the native kingdoms and islands and their condescending attitude of White Man's Burden and cultural superiority.
The main character is half-breed Jaki Gefjon, son of a native Borneo woman and a Dutch sea captain, who starts life as witch-doctor's slave and apprentice before being capture by pirate Trevor Pam, captain of the feared ship Wyvern. Jaki's witch doctor (medicine man) skills win him acceptance among the pirates, along with his tireless drive to learn their ways and become useful, so he quickly climbs the ranks. He path will then cross with powerful men in the Dutch and English colonial regimes, other pirates, and he will also fall in love and elope with Lucinda and her maid, leading to long-term rivalries that drive much of the storyline to it's action-packed conclusion. While this is a swashbuckling adventure, there is plenty of mysticism from Jaki's apprenticeship as a sorcerer, and he is continually questing his purpose in life, and the competing values of the Western Powers vs his native upbringing. It's all far more in-depth than you'd have any right to expect, and deserves a far bigger audience that it has had.
February 13, 2017
"Mothered by the jungle, fathered by the wind, he was half serpent sorcerer and half raptor pirate--a child of lust and deception--the earth aching with the effort of heaven."
A super tasty enchilada stuffed with Tarzan of the Apes, The Jungle Book, Treasure Island, Arabian Nights, and The Count of Monte Cristo. A fantastic globe-trotting adventure story. Most highly recommended.
A super tasty enchilada stuffed with Tarzan of the Apes, The Jungle Book, Treasure Island, Arabian Nights, and The Count of Monte Cristo. A fantastic globe-trotting adventure story. Most highly recommended.
February 19, 2013
I picked this up as a free Kindle download and was pleasantly surprised to discover what a deep and intelligent adventure novel it is. Although not quite operating on the level of sophisticated cross-cultural analysis one finds in David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob Zoet, that is the closest work I can think of to compare it to--both books will teach you vocabulary, ask you to ponder religions, colonialism, and far-off, exotic cultures, and tell complicated stories of romance and epic intrigue set at the dawn of the 17th century in Asia.
Wyvern balances the wild and the civilized, and the struggle between the two, both on individual and international levels. The hero is a dashing halfbreed from the wilds of Borneo who moves through and across cultures--and oceans and continents--as the book progresses (by the way, it is more than 700 pages--but it's charming escapism!). He reflects on animistic wisdom as a tribal sorcerer, on emergent capitalism and colonialism as a pirate, on the shared insights he has with Islam and Buddhism as a budding merchant married to an English beauty, all the while working through the psychological struggles of the self against the Mother and the Father; on the quest to find, hold, and keep the ephemerality of true love; and on the taking of responsibility for one's omissions, sins, and ultimate charge as a parent, as the cycle of life goes ever forward.
This book made me fondly remember my time in Borneo, Malacca, and Singapore. The author's background research appears accurate, the language is as lush as those jungles, and the high seas adventures are swashbuckling. Hail the dragon flag of Wyvern!
Wyvern balances the wild and the civilized, and the struggle between the two, both on individual and international levels. The hero is a dashing halfbreed from the wilds of Borneo who moves through and across cultures--and oceans and continents--as the book progresses (by the way, it is more than 700 pages--but it's charming escapism!). He reflects on animistic wisdom as a tribal sorcerer, on emergent capitalism and colonialism as a pirate, on the shared insights he has with Islam and Buddhism as a budding merchant married to an English beauty, all the while working through the psychological struggles of the self against the Mother and the Father; on the quest to find, hold, and keep the ephemerality of true love; and on the taking of responsibility for one's omissions, sins, and ultimate charge as a parent, as the cycle of life goes ever forward.
This book made me fondly remember my time in Borneo, Malacca, and Singapore. The author's background research appears accurate, the language is as lush as those jungles, and the high seas adventures are swashbuckling. Hail the dragon flag of Wyvern!
December 21, 2007
Attanasio's brilliant reinterpretation of Tarzan, wherein a young orphan is raised by apes and eventually grows up to be the world's most feared pirate. How can you go wrong with a story about apes and pirates? This is one of the all-time best swashbuckling, two-fisted, read-all-night, make-you-abuse-hyphenation action epics ever!
February 8, 2011
This is my current all time favorite book.
It's a rollicking adventure story with heroes and pirates, fantastic creatures and exotic locales. It's fast paced and thrilling from start to finish.
It's a page-turner that kept me up night after night each time I read it.
It's a love story without par, passionate and tragic.
It's got everything I could ask for in a book.
(Not to mention the fact that my version has the most beautiful cover illustration I have ever seen, the one with the spider and the square-rigger).
Here, language is used very creatively. Synergistically.
I love that about Attanasio's writing. While reading Wyvern I can see the sounds, smell the colors. The sorceror, with his hallucinogenic potions, percieves the world in this way, and it is Jackie's world that we are shown. The unusual use of language enhances the magical aspect of the story; it shocks me into really seeing what I'm reading, makes me more aware.
(I gave Wyvern to my sister and she didn't like it. She said AA used words incorrectly. I don't think I found a single example of incorrect word usage, so she and I will have to disagree.)
I can't really criticize this book. It's not realistic, it's not meant to be. This is a sorceror's story, a seafarer's tale; it's mystical. If it didn't end the way I would have wanted it to, the ending is, in it's way, perfect.
Wyverb does not satiate. It tantalizes, makes you ravenous,
leaves you slightly hungry.
I want another one like this.
It's a rollicking adventure story with heroes and pirates, fantastic creatures and exotic locales. It's fast paced and thrilling from start to finish.
It's a page-turner that kept me up night after night each time I read it.
It's a love story without par, passionate and tragic.
It's got everything I could ask for in a book.
(Not to mention the fact that my version has the most beautiful cover illustration I have ever seen, the one with the spider and the square-rigger).
Here, language is used very creatively. Synergistically.
I love that about Attanasio's writing. While reading Wyvern I can see the sounds, smell the colors. The sorceror, with his hallucinogenic potions, percieves the world in this way, and it is Jackie's world that we are shown. The unusual use of language enhances the magical aspect of the story; it shocks me into really seeing what I'm reading, makes me more aware.
(I gave Wyvern to my sister and she didn't like it. She said AA used words incorrectly. I don't think I found a single example of incorrect word usage, so she and I will have to disagree.)
I can't really criticize this book. It's not realistic, it's not meant to be. This is a sorceror's story, a seafarer's tale; it's mystical. If it didn't end the way I would have wanted it to, the ending is, in it's way, perfect.
Wyverb does not satiate. It tantalizes, makes you ravenous,
leaves you slightly hungry.
I want another one like this.
April 10, 2024
I'm beginning to think that A.A. Attanasio is one of the most underrated speculative fiction authors of our time.
This book is a historical fiction/fantasy and Tarzan/Treasure Island mashup. Some common Attanasio themes like the importance of personal spirituality, unattractive characters becoming attractive, and characters evolving to be far more than they started out as (or what people thought they were capable of) are present here as well.
This book is a historical fiction/fantasy and Tarzan/Treasure Island mashup. Some common Attanasio themes like the importance of personal spirituality, unattractive characters becoming attractive, and characters evolving to be far more than they started out as (or what people thought they were capable of) are present here as well.
October 8, 2017
I loved Matubrembrem (and Jaki, until Lucinda) but I’m not sure I’m interested in Jaki’s current adventures (plus, what’s coming is so predictable).
3 stars (despite the DNF) because the first part did keep me captivated. Sadly, I am now less and less eager to pick the book up. The pattern is recurent (living a particular way of life, then father figure dies, then new life, then father figure dies, then new life ... with some battles here and there, lots, lots of introspection and of philosophical debate ... ). Ah well *shrug*
3 stars (despite the DNF) because the first part did keep me captivated. Sadly, I am now less and less eager to pick the book up. The pattern is recurent (living a particular way of life, then father figure dies, then new life, then father figure dies, then new life ... with some battles here and there, lots, lots of introspection and of philosophical debate ... ). Ah well *shrug*
April 27, 2018
Holy epic book, Batman! It's kind of like the movie A.I. in that it's three separate stories, one after the other. Except it's better :) And they're all about the same main character, Jaki Gefjon, first as a tribal-outcast-made-shaman, then as a pirate-in-training, and then finally in his own love story.
The setting is amazingly rich and detailed about the time period and cultures and the characters are believable humans with a large variety of personalities. It was a little tough to get into at first because the setting was so foreign and the introductions and background were gradual, but it got richer and better over time.
The setting is amazingly rich and detailed about the time period and cultures and the characters are believable humans with a large variety of personalities. It was a little tough to get into at first because the setting was so foreign and the introductions and background were gradual, but it got richer and better over time.
September 21, 2025
Wyvern is an unjustly forgotten epic historical fantasy. From the first pages, this story is vibrant with wild energy and jam-packed with passion. Mysticism. Piracy. Love. Murder. Coming of age. Colonialism from aboriginal eyes. Attanasio’s electric prose completely submerged me in a wonderland of steaming jungles and bright salty oceans. A stirring mixture of historical fiction, swashbuckling adventure and fantasy in extension of the spirit mysticism of Bornean tribes. A Jungle Book meets Treasure Island.
Set in Indonesia in the early 1600s while the European powers were committed to their colonial greed, we meet Jaki, a young boy and a half-breed offspring of a Dutch sea captain and a Bornean woman. Seen as a demon boy by other tribes with his cloudpale skin and sunfire hair, Jaki has a unique life journey in front of him. This is a 700-page epic of huge proportions and in the traditional sense of a decades-spanning saga. Carrying a Bible, the shrunken head of his father and a little monkey familiar, Jaki is trained as a soul-catcher by the sorcerer Jabalwan. Jaki is a child of two worlds. His future may lie in the colonial world of the Dutch Indies, but he carries with him the local magic that unites this world with that of the spirits and of the dead. He reminds me of Paul Atreides, if Herbert would have written a pirate novel.
There is enough depth to Attanasio’s writing to lift it up over most adventure fiction in certain qualities. There is depth in the sense-stirring jungle landscapes, in its fragrances, its sounds in the darkness and starry nighttimes. There is depth to the cultural and historical depictions of the tribes and their customs, and of the seafaring Dutch and Muslim sultanates. There is depth and beauty in the spiritual descriptions of tribal magic, visions, memories and the boundaries between this life and the next. I can only assume that Attanasio has spent some time on Borneo. Combine that with a fast-moving plot and a hallucinatory, synesthesiac writing style, and the text is almost too rich for taste. Some readers will find it an incredibly rewarding reading experience while others may be annoyed with his style - with him using words in unexpected combinations, often using their second or third meaning.
There is a sense throughout the novel that we are on the cusp of an old age dying and new age beginning. The Bornean mythology adds this fantasy flair to the story. The tribes are doomed and the age of iron has come with the white monkeyface sailors and the turbaned Star-and-Moon people. Jaki may be trained to read prophecies in the clouds, rescue the spirits of dying people and commune with animals, but his hero journey towards shamanism is interrupted. He finds that his destiny lies elsewhere. He is taken in by the pirate Trevor Pym and a new phase of his life starts. Pym’s ship becomes his home, and he becomes a pirate himself.
Jaki’s mentors are fascinating characters. Jabalwan is this mysterious, sinister figure and known as the mansnake. Both respected as a healer and feared for his supernatural wisdom. For Jaki, he is a man of little words but deep understanding. Trevor Pym is a far more flamboyant figure. A charismatic, learned and tortured pirate lord. Pym displays his own sense of honour to Jaki and a belief that fate brought the boy to him. But Jaki’s worldview is deeply mystical and stays that way even when he leaves Borneo. As a sorcerer he carries the world’s pain, and Attanasio spins a web of symbols that hold meaning for him, including Trevor Pym’s Wyvern and Jabalwan’s Spider. Symbols of the pain that brings enlightenment.
This whole novel is an absolute banger - one of the most stirring things I have ever read. Youthful excitement, passionate love, understated magical intervention, last-minute escapes on the open seas, jungle survivalism, bold dreams and dangerous living.
Jaki’s journey ends with a love story. In a Tarzan meets Pirates of the Caribbean situation, he falls in love with the upper-class daughter of the very captain who is chasing him and Pym across the South Seas. Lucinda, the daughter, wants to make a proper English gentleman of Jaki. She becomes his final teacher, and Jaki accepts, because he realises that the age of the tribes is gone. The age of magic is disappearing. For readers, this feels like a loss, and it makes the final part of the novel feel less exciting. I think Attanasio deliberately makes us feel that the world has become poorer for it. The tribal way of life, with its magic and mysticism, becomes a thing of nostalgia. That is not to say that Attanasio presents the European, British way of life as superior. Lucinda, like all of Jaki’s teachers, raises conflicting feelings in him. He is in love with her, but the British class system clashes violently with his tribal notions. The cold and dismissive ways Lucinda treats her maid Maud chills Jaki to his core, and Lucinda shows an arrogance in her unwillingness to learn anything from him in return.
If there is any message in the novel, it is that there is something missing in the European mindset that the tribal mysticism has not forgotten, but Jaki’s life is far too small and incidental to change anything about that. Instead, he represents the tribal apocalypse; the last sorcerer. Attanasio’s artistic ambition is more abstract: a story that celebrates life, while continuously looking at death. I loved this novel, even though I think that Attanasio had some trouble bringing it to an end. It is full of amazing moments, fascinating characters, and Jaki’s spiritual journey gives it a soulful and epic emotional backbone.
Set in Indonesia in the early 1600s while the European powers were committed to their colonial greed, we meet Jaki, a young boy and a half-breed offspring of a Dutch sea captain and a Bornean woman. Seen as a demon boy by other tribes with his cloudpale skin and sunfire hair, Jaki has a unique life journey in front of him. This is a 700-page epic of huge proportions and in the traditional sense of a decades-spanning saga. Carrying a Bible, the shrunken head of his father and a little monkey familiar, Jaki is trained as a soul-catcher by the sorcerer Jabalwan. Jaki is a child of two worlds. His future may lie in the colonial world of the Dutch Indies, but he carries with him the local magic that unites this world with that of the spirits and of the dead. He reminds me of Paul Atreides, if Herbert would have written a pirate novel.
There is enough depth to Attanasio’s writing to lift it up over most adventure fiction in certain qualities. There is depth in the sense-stirring jungle landscapes, in its fragrances, its sounds in the darkness and starry nighttimes. There is depth to the cultural and historical depictions of the tribes and their customs, and of the seafaring Dutch and Muslim sultanates. There is depth and beauty in the spiritual descriptions of tribal magic, visions, memories and the boundaries between this life and the next. I can only assume that Attanasio has spent some time on Borneo. Combine that with a fast-moving plot and a hallucinatory, synesthesiac writing style, and the text is almost too rich for taste. Some readers will find it an incredibly rewarding reading experience while others may be annoyed with his style - with him using words in unexpected combinations, often using their second or third meaning.
There is a sense throughout the novel that we are on the cusp of an old age dying and new age beginning. The Bornean mythology adds this fantasy flair to the story. The tribes are doomed and the age of iron has come with the white monkeyface sailors and the turbaned Star-and-Moon people. Jaki may be trained to read prophecies in the clouds, rescue the spirits of dying people and commune with animals, but his hero journey towards shamanism is interrupted. He finds that his destiny lies elsewhere. He is taken in by the pirate Trevor Pym and a new phase of his life starts. Pym’s ship becomes his home, and he becomes a pirate himself.
Jaki’s mentors are fascinating characters. Jabalwan is this mysterious, sinister figure and known as the mansnake. Both respected as a healer and feared for his supernatural wisdom. For Jaki, he is a man of little words but deep understanding. Trevor Pym is a far more flamboyant figure. A charismatic, learned and tortured pirate lord. Pym displays his own sense of honour to Jaki and a belief that fate brought the boy to him. But Jaki’s worldview is deeply mystical and stays that way even when he leaves Borneo. As a sorcerer he carries the world’s pain, and Attanasio spins a web of symbols that hold meaning for him, including Trevor Pym’s Wyvern and Jabalwan’s Spider. Symbols of the pain that brings enlightenment.
This whole novel is an absolute banger - one of the most stirring things I have ever read. Youthful excitement, passionate love, understated magical intervention, last-minute escapes on the open seas, jungle survivalism, bold dreams and dangerous living.
Jaki’s journey ends with a love story. In a Tarzan meets Pirates of the Caribbean situation, he falls in love with the upper-class daughter of the very captain who is chasing him and Pym across the South Seas. Lucinda, the daughter, wants to make a proper English gentleman of Jaki. She becomes his final teacher, and Jaki accepts, because he realises that the age of the tribes is gone. The age of magic is disappearing. For readers, this feels like a loss, and it makes the final part of the novel feel less exciting. I think Attanasio deliberately makes us feel that the world has become poorer for it. The tribal way of life, with its magic and mysticism, becomes a thing of nostalgia. That is not to say that Attanasio presents the European, British way of life as superior. Lucinda, like all of Jaki’s teachers, raises conflicting feelings in him. He is in love with her, but the British class system clashes violently with his tribal notions. The cold and dismissive ways Lucinda treats her maid Maud chills Jaki to his core, and Lucinda shows an arrogance in her unwillingness to learn anything from him in return.
If there is any message in the novel, it is that there is something missing in the European mindset that the tribal mysticism has not forgotten, but Jaki’s life is far too small and incidental to change anything about that. Instead, he represents the tribal apocalypse; the last sorcerer. Attanasio’s artistic ambition is more abstract: a story that celebrates life, while continuously looking at death. I loved this novel, even though I think that Attanasio had some trouble bringing it to an end. It is full of amazing moments, fascinating characters, and Jaki’s spiritual journey gives it a soulful and epic emotional backbone.
March 28, 2023
"Wyvern" is both a coming-of-age in the jungle tale better than anything Edgar Rice Burroughs ever dreamed up and also a "swash buckling" seagoing saga on a league with "Treasure Island" and "Two Years Before the Mast". In other words, it's a capital-A adventure story that will leave you wanting more. I've read it many times and return to it periodically as a tale worth retelling and rereading.
June 17, 2013
Review: Wyvern
AA Attanasio
Title : Wyvern
Author: AA Attanasio
Publisher : Firelords Press
Format : kindle edition
Rating : 4 stars
Source : I received this book in exchange for an honest review.
Book blurb
Headhunters, sorcerers, pirates and Indian princes thrive in this exciting and poetic tale of a young outcast in Borneo. Born in 1609, son of a native woman and a Dutch sea captain he never knew, Jaki Gefjon grows up in the jungle as a sorcerer’s apprentice. Later kidnapped by pirates, he befriends his captor, Trevor Pym, notorious for his dreaded man-of-war, Wyvern.
The scientific marvels on the European privateer become the young soul-catcher’s passion – until he falls for Lucinda, the headstrong daughter of Pym’s sworn enemy. Propelled by intrigue, pirates’ battles, curses and visions, this seafaring saga takes Lucinda and Jaki from the South Seas to India – and to a bold, unforeseen destiny in the New World. Join the journey!
My thought
Well written good historic background added with some great fiction, can't stop reading once you start!
It is an amazing blend of historical fiction with some elements of the fantasy genre
I Loved the characters and the adventure. Wonderful transitional tale of moving from the primitive to the modern
I've never found anything else (by any author) that quite matches this in its sweeping scope. The setting is also wonderfully exotic and refreshingly different from most books in the historical fantasy genre.
Every page was a thriller and I could barely catch my breath between them. This was an astounding read.
AA Attanasio
Title : Wyvern
Author: AA Attanasio
Publisher : Firelords Press
Format : kindle edition
Rating : 4 stars
Source : I received this book in exchange for an honest review.
Book blurb
Headhunters, sorcerers, pirates and Indian princes thrive in this exciting and poetic tale of a young outcast in Borneo. Born in 1609, son of a native woman and a Dutch sea captain he never knew, Jaki Gefjon grows up in the jungle as a sorcerer’s apprentice. Later kidnapped by pirates, he befriends his captor, Trevor Pym, notorious for his dreaded man-of-war, Wyvern.
The scientific marvels on the European privateer become the young soul-catcher’s passion – until he falls for Lucinda, the headstrong daughter of Pym’s sworn enemy. Propelled by intrigue, pirates’ battles, curses and visions, this seafaring saga takes Lucinda and Jaki from the South Seas to India – and to a bold, unforeseen destiny in the New World. Join the journey!
My thought
Well written good historic background added with some great fiction, can't stop reading once you start!
It is an amazing blend of historical fiction with some elements of the fantasy genre
I Loved the characters and the adventure. Wonderful transitional tale of moving from the primitive to the modern
I've never found anything else (by any author) that quite matches this in its sweeping scope. The setting is also wonderfully exotic and refreshingly different from most books in the historical fantasy genre.
Every page was a thriller and I could barely catch my breath between them. This was an astounding read.
July 10, 2023
I don't know why it's never dawned on me before, but A. A. Attanasio is almost a David Zindell... if certainly not -lite, then a -not-quite-as-heavy. Both dip rather a lot into philosophy (particularly metaphysics). Both champion the mystical. Both favour headstrong pretty boys who don't know their place in life as heroes. Both love an epic story.
But where Zindell can become engrossed in philosophical introspection sometimes to the point of stalling a story, Attanasio can be relied upon to only touch lightly on the subject - with him Story is more important than Deep Thought. And Wyvern very much illustrates this.
It's a rollicking adventure, starting off in the jungles of Burma, sailing backwards and forwards across the Bay of Bengal, caravanning through India, dipping beneath Africa, and then over the Atlantic to South America and finally up to New York before it was. The journey includes head-shrinking, shamanistic magic, kidnapping, pirates (lots of these), drug-maddened man-eating tigers, wandering Buddhists, broadsides, grief and heartache, shipwrecks, cursed diamonds, daddy issues of various sorts, and the Dutch. And all the colour, horror, excitement, and wonder all that should suggest does, I'm very happy to report, overflow from the novel's 422 rather large format pages.
Wyvern is a thinking person's romp, and one I heartily recommend.
But where Zindell can become engrossed in philosophical introspection sometimes to the point of stalling a story, Attanasio can be relied upon to only touch lightly on the subject - with him Story is more important than Deep Thought. And Wyvern very much illustrates this.
It's a rollicking adventure, starting off in the jungles of Burma, sailing backwards and forwards across the Bay of Bengal, caravanning through India, dipping beneath Africa, and then over the Atlantic to South America and finally up to New York before it was. The journey includes head-shrinking, shamanistic magic, kidnapping, pirates (lots of these), drug-maddened man-eating tigers, wandering Buddhists, broadsides, grief and heartache, shipwrecks, cursed diamonds, daddy issues of various sorts, and the Dutch. And all the colour, horror, excitement, and wonder all that should suggest does, I'm very happy to report, overflow from the novel's 422 rather large format pages.
Wyvern is a thinking person's romp, and one I heartily recommend.
April 21, 2014
What a cultural clash! A young boy in Borneo, half Dutch and half Aborigine, is raised by a native sorcerer and trained to follow the ways as a sorcerer and healer. He carries this philosophy and skills through several different changes of his life. From pirate to trader he struggles with the differences between his native beliefs and the hard-learned lessons trying to become more European to fit with his long-dead father's world.
Wonderful detail and excellently crafted. Really brings to life the struggles of the time period between the native peoples and the incursions of the European traders.
Wonderful detail and excellently crafted. Really brings to life the struggles of the time period between the native peoples and the incursions of the European traders.
March 25, 2008
I loved this book. It is epic in proportion. Everyone I shared it with said they didn't like it, but geeze................... it has colonialism, headhunting, shamanism, romance, brutality, world travel, piracy, elephants, and tigers! What more could a romantic ask for? Don’t worry, this is not a romance novel!
May 30, 2017
I had the hardest time getting into this book which is odd because I feel like it's a book that's right up my alley with the pirates and sorcery. I didn't really starting getting into it until Jaki took off with Pym and started being a pirate but even that only moved a bit faster for me. Perhaps this book was just not meant for me
May 24, 2017
This book was stunning... I could hardly put it down. Almost a spiritual experience.
June 28, 2025
engaging, entertaining, weird, lyrical, with some great turns of phrase. On the other hand, it's a series of adventures without a compelling story arc plot or much character development.
fun quotes:
"There is a truth I must tell you." Malawangkuchingang spoke, her voice sounding far away. "At this moment, your life is forfeit. I have deceived the company man with his lust, and he has deceived you with your greed."
---
"My vision was right after all," Gefjon said, meeting her terror with grim bemusement. "You are death — and all I've mined from my grave is greed. Christians and savages, all mining that dark lode! As if we could take enough out of the earth for all we must put in."
---
"Everything we see around us knows just what to do," Jabalwan told Jaki. "We alone cannot remember enough.
---
His lack of pride made him look ridiculous to her at first, especially when he insisted on bathing and swabbing his ripped thigh in herbal waters and root oils like some precious pet instead of defeating it with the indifference of a true man.
---
"You healed me — and now all my pain is exiled to my soul."
---
The weight of the sword at his hip dropped his gravity's center deeper into his pelvis, and he had to practice moving with it, promenading up and down the decks.
---
The gel of red light in the stone's heart cooled his anger.
---
Stung by this new clarity, Jaki swore that the next time sweat stuck him to a woman, love would be the weld.
---
"Let us say no more. The truth cannot be added to."
---
Her fear belonged to him now. He had married it, and he would need all his sorcerer's wiles and fearlessness to hold on to her as long as he could in the spell of departure that entranced everything alive. The wedding would be the first healing ritual, his first chance to take some of her fear onto himself.
---
Jaki, leaning casually on his long blowgun, idled his stare on the man and observed the relics of uninformed jungle travel: bleached patches on his shins above his boots where leeches and swamp fungus had scarred him, a disfigured forearm with the distinctive twin blotches of glossy flesh from snakebite, and the piss-bright yellow in the whites of his eyes attesting to fevers.
---
He had struck her, as any good father would when his child strays toward danger.
---
Darkness sleek and black as a beetle.
fun quotes:
"There is a truth I must tell you." Malawangkuchingang spoke, her voice sounding far away. "At this moment, your life is forfeit. I have deceived the company man with his lust, and he has deceived you with your greed."
---
"My vision was right after all," Gefjon said, meeting her terror with grim bemusement. "You are death — and all I've mined from my grave is greed. Christians and savages, all mining that dark lode! As if we could take enough out of the earth for all we must put in."
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"Everything we see around us knows just what to do," Jabalwan told Jaki. "We alone cannot remember enough.
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His lack of pride made him look ridiculous to her at first, especially when he insisted on bathing and swabbing his ripped thigh in herbal waters and root oils like some precious pet instead of defeating it with the indifference of a true man.
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"You healed me — and now all my pain is exiled to my soul."
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The weight of the sword at his hip dropped his gravity's center deeper into his pelvis, and he had to practice moving with it, promenading up and down the decks.
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The gel of red light in the stone's heart cooled his anger.
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Stung by this new clarity, Jaki swore that the next time sweat stuck him to a woman, love would be the weld.
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"Let us say no more. The truth cannot be added to."
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Her fear belonged to him now. He had married it, and he would need all his sorcerer's wiles and fearlessness to hold on to her as long as he could in the spell of departure that entranced everything alive. The wedding would be the first healing ritual, his first chance to take some of her fear onto himself.
---
Jaki, leaning casually on his long blowgun, idled his stare on the man and observed the relics of uninformed jungle travel: bleached patches on his shins above his boots where leeches and swamp fungus had scarred him, a disfigured forearm with the distinctive twin blotches of glossy flesh from snakebite, and the piss-bright yellow in the whites of his eyes attesting to fevers.
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He had struck her, as any good father would when his child strays toward danger.
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Darkness sleek and black as a beetle.
August 9, 2021
Loved the first part. Liked the second part. Skimmed the third one.
Highlights:
Absolutely original main character. Mowgli from The Jungle Book if he grew up to be a shaman? They share both the orphaned-in-the-jungle background and the feel that we have be introduced to a charmed life.
Then comes the seafaring part of the book, and the main character's transition to a new way of life is so seamless that he starts to take on the feel of the Man in Black from The Princess Bride. It's a little darker, but he has the same aura of invincibility around him.
The third and final part shows him as a grown man, with his own family, and I don't know why it faded. Part of it is repetition ... after part two I had read all the sea battles I cared to. But a larger part is that the magic fades. In part it fades as the jungle recedes, but there's also a magic to an entirely innocent character (Being There is another touchstone). As they become more steeped in the ways of a callous world, some of the joy escapes. In its place is a grim fatalism. Life is a long, slow dying.
Maybe I didn't want to finish because I didn't want to lose the last of magic from the life in the jungle. I'm nut sure, but for whatever reason, I could not bring myself to more than skip through the last hundred or so pages.
Highlights:
Absolutely original main character. Mowgli from The Jungle Book if he grew up to be a shaman? They share both the orphaned-in-the-jungle background and the feel that we have be introduced to a charmed life.
Then comes the seafaring part of the book, and the main character's transition to a new way of life is so seamless that he starts to take on the feel of the Man in Black from The Princess Bride. It's a little darker, but he has the same aura of invincibility around him.
The third and final part shows him as a grown man, with his own family, and I don't know why it faded. Part of it is repetition ... after part two I had read all the sea battles I cared to. But a larger part is that the magic fades. In part it fades as the jungle recedes, but there's also a magic to an entirely innocent character (Being There is another touchstone). As they become more steeped in the ways of a callous world, some of the joy escapes. In its place is a grim fatalism. Life is a long, slow dying.
Maybe I didn't want to finish because I didn't want to lose the last of magic from the life in the jungle. I'm nut sure, but for whatever reason, I could not bring myself to more than skip through the last hundred or so pages.
November 15, 2017
A truly epic adventure
Wow, a very strange history of a half breed boy taken from the headhunter jungles of Borneo to becoming the last soul catcher and sorcerer. Finally becoming a pirate and falling In love, only to face heartache. A very hard book to read, you want Jaki to catch a break somewhere, but life happens. It leaves you in awe of the story, but with a distinct desire to cry. Wonderfully written, but not everyone's favorite tale. Not really mine but I have a feeling I will be thinking about it for a long time.
Wow, a very strange history of a half breed boy taken from the headhunter jungles of Borneo to becoming the last soul catcher and sorcerer. Finally becoming a pirate and falling In love, only to face heartache. A very hard book to read, you want Jaki to catch a break somewhere, but life happens. It leaves you in awe of the story, but with a distinct desire to cry. Wonderfully written, but not everyone's favorite tale. Not really mine but I have a feeling I will be thinking about it for a long time.
August 12, 2025
Wyvern is an ambitious mix of pirate adventure, history, and mysticism, set in the lush, dangerous world of the 17th-century East Indies. The story wanders, sometimes losing focus in its love for detail, and the characters don’t always leave a lasting mark, yet they go through a lot and change throughout the story. Even so, it’s a rich, strange journey with enough beauty and imagination to make it worth the ride.
November 9, 2020
I found this in our school library, so old and dusty but then I was curious and so I decided to read the book. I was glad because the story is quite beautiful and interesting but though the end is somewhat disappointing not in terms of lackness but I just felt void and hollow after I finsihed reading it.
December 29, 2018
Really fun and exciting novel. The historical fiction is cool, gives a small glimpse into the world in the early 1600s but adds an interesting science/fiction aspect to it. Long book but I breezed right through it.
June 2, 2018
picked it up decided to give it a whirl, when I finished sweat drenched and needed a smoke (metaphorically).
February 23, 2021
Attanasio
This would have been better split into two books. But its a great read with a lot of adventure, a touch of romance and lots of philosophical introspection.
This would have been better split into two books. But its a great read with a lot of adventure, a touch of romance and lots of philosophical introspection.
January 17, 2022
Interesting.... wanted the main character to be happy in the end. He had quite the life journey.
Read
May 9, 2022didn't appeal to me -stopped after 80 pages
July 7, 2023
5 stars for the first half, 3 stars for the second.
August 4, 2023
Started off slow but could not put it down after getting into it.
February 5, 2024
The prose is consistently beautiful throughout. Makes the eyes water with joy.
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