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Skyla #1
The Clan of the Warlord
Mistislaus was a wizard. He was old, absentminded, and his potions and spells barely brought in enough money to put food on his table. In short, he was the last person who could be expected to raise a little girl -- in the normal run of things.
But since the Dark Elves had overrun Fairholm -- slaughtering any who resisted -- nothing ran in a normal course. Like it or not, Mistislaus found himself saddled with a baby. He called her Skyla. And Skyla, he soon learned, was a witch . . .
Little Skyla grew up knowing that she was no ordinary orphan -- she was heir to the proud name and magic of the true rules of Fairholm. And so she dared to dream. She learned from old Mistislaus, and she roamed the moors, learning the languages of animals. She molded tiny figures of mud and spittle, and she brought them to life. And she dreamed of avenging the parents she had never known and of claiming the fabled lost treasure the Dark Elves could not find . . .
But since the Dark Elves had overrun Fairholm -- slaughtering any who resisted -- nothing ran in a normal course. Like it or not, Mistislaus found himself saddled with a baby. He called her Skyla. And Skyla, he soon learned, was a witch . . .
Little Skyla grew up knowing that she was no ordinary orphan -- she was heir to the proud name and magic of the true rules of Fairholm. And so she dared to dream. She learned from old Mistislaus, and she roamed the moors, learning the languages of animals. She molded tiny figures of mud and spittle, and she brought them to life. And she dreamed of avenging the parents she had never known and of claiming the fabled lost treasure the Dark Elves could not find . . .
30 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published August 23, 1992
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 25, 2021
If anyone noticed that I had a long reviewing hiatus... It was this book's fault.
I review more often for the purpose of working out my response to a book than I do for sharing my joy in a great reading experience. Sorry about that, as it must make me look quite negative.
The blurb for this book hits so many ooh-yeah! points for me: crusty old wizard, wilful young girl with magical powers, resisting an occupying army, ragtag group of street urchins, shape-shifting cats! I was also intrigued by the setting, which is very Norse-mythology-influenced, and uses a number of Scandinavian words. No gods, though, (which is okay, I can't stand the Norse gods) just elves (Alfar) and dwarfs (Dvergar).
And yet, and yet, I did not like it. So I must examine why.
Backstory: the Ljosalfar (Light Elves) of Fairholm were conquered by the Dokkalfar (Dark Elves), specifically the Krypplingur clan, cursed to be misshapen or sickly. Since then, life sucks, the crops and animals do poorly, there isn't enough food, and the Krypplingur hunt down any of the Skylding (ruling clan, maybe?) Ljosalfar they find. They seem to be content to just the common folk starve and die out on their own. In the (former) capitol, Rangfara, life is somewhat more sustainable, and that's where the Krypplingur chieftains live, hoping to find the Skylding treasure.
I enjoyed the first chapters, where Mistislaus, the not-very-powerful wizard, copes with his obstreperous thralls and the mysterious Ljosalfar orphan who is dumped on him. Skyla is self-willed and stubborn, and her magic is unpredictable. Then there's Illmuri, the mysterious younger wizard with an aura of power & evil, who keeps hanging out with Mistislaus and asking questions about where Skyla came from.
Then Mistislaus is called to Rangfara to tend the ailing Kryppling chief. Skyla goes with him, and finds other Skylding orphans hiding from slavers and Dokkalfar while searching for the Skylding treasure and archives. Illmuri follows, and soon comes into conflict with the mysterious sorceress Alvara.
And almost all the characters get stupid.
I don't know whether this--characters acting against their own interests, being mysterious and secretive to the point where they foil their own plans, being blind to obvious threats--is a motif for Boyer in the way that Connie Willis has her characters constantly having to work around obstacles both physical and organizational. But just as some readers find their patience tried by Willis's setup, I was annoyed and exhausted by the effing stupid counter-productiveness of the characters in this book.
Are we about to hit spoiler territory? Maybe.
*******SPOILERS!**********
The Kryppling clan wants to wipe out the Skyldingur to consolidate their own rule, after torturing them to find the treasure. Skyldingur characteristically have white-blonde hair and are fair-skinned. Skyla has a wild, constantly-growing mane of white-blonde hair, and she accompanies Mistislaus to the Krypplingur fortress as he treats their chieftain. No one notices that she is obviously a Skylding (until a later-introduced character points it out).
The Skylding orphans want to find the treasure, and the archives so that they have their family records. None of them know the names of their parents or clans, so it's unclear what the records would tell them. Although there's some suggestion of hereditary memory via 'carbuncle stones', nothing definitive comes of that other than some visions.
The archives (and presumably the treasure) are hidden in the Kjallari, catacombs haunted by the mutant Kellerman and nightmarish Kjallari-folk. They are later revealed to be failed results of genetic experiments by the Skylding, which raises questions about just how admirable the Skylding were, and makes the Kjallari a really questionable site for archival resources.
Skyla learns to animate little clay figures, which is pretty cool. She also discovers that she can bring dead creatures back to life, and when she does this, the dead creatures are vicious and dangerous. Mistislaus mostly ignores this, except for telling her not to do it. It turns out that she's not bringing back the creature (or person's) actual self, but whatever opportunistic spirit is available.
Under stress, Skyla shifts into a snow lynx, and kills Dokkalfar. Alvara is also a lynx-shifter, but refuses to counsel or instruct Skyla unless Skyla comes to her tower.
Illmuri spends most of the book squabbling with Alvara, smirking and laughing evilly, and creepily stealing Skyla's clothing in order to scry something or other with it. He does this at a shrine in the Kjallari, because why not?
SPOILERIFFIC!
Skyla tries to bring a Krypplingur chief back to life, but his body is instead claimed by the spirit of murdered Kraftugur (a mad prophet determined to wipe out every Skylding), who very quickly slaughters Mistislaus, even while the old wizard is downplaying the threat.
Illmuri isn't evil: he had a secret mission to find and recover all the Skylding orphans and bring them to safety. He decided that the best way to do that was to leave them chained up by a slaver until he was ready to pick them up. Before he does, they are all helplessly butchered by Kraftugur.
As you might expect, all this stress leads to Skyla being trapped in lynx form, and the book ends with her refusing Illmuri's offer of help (a wise choice, I have to say) and bounding off to "destroy myself and those I hate."
We do not find out what the Skylding treasure is, or whether it ever existed.
This was definitely one of those books where I wanted to reach through the paper and give characters a hard shaking, or better yet a good slap. I cut Skyla some slack, since she is a child, but Mistislaus is at times described as a 'great one', although he never does anything to justify that within the story, and mostly acts like an old fussbudget.
Illmuri is an effing idiot. Alvara at least attempts to communicate with Skyla, but he seems to work at being someone you would never want to open a conversation with.
The middle (Rangfara) part of the story is rather repetitive and talky. The orphans squabble and talk about finding the treasure / getting vengeance. Illmuri and Alvara accuse each other of bad intent, but never explain their actual intentions. Mistislaus reminds Skyla and her orphan friend Jafnar to do their homework and stay out of trouble. He goes again and again to tend Herrad, the Krypplingur chief, without anything much coming from that, and Herrad never notices that Skyla is a Skylding.
Boyer drops hints and clues that all these characters have encountered each other previously and Stuff Happened when they did, but mostly we don't find out what it was or how it mattered. While ordinarily I enjoy this sort of deepening of characters' backstories, in this case it mostly made me wonder what I'd missed or skipped.
Boyer's dialogue has an oddly formal, distanced tone, and characters spend a lot of time quibbling about details, or talking at cross-purposes, or ignoring what their interlocutor has said. I find that sort of thing more bearable in stories with lower stakes.
There is a sequel, but I'm not inclined to seek it out. I think Boyer is just not for me.
I review more often for the purpose of working out my response to a book than I do for sharing my joy in a great reading experience. Sorry about that, as it must make me look quite negative.
The blurb for this book hits so many ooh-yeah! points for me: crusty old wizard, wilful young girl with magical powers, resisting an occupying army, ragtag group of street urchins, shape-shifting cats! I was also intrigued by the setting, which is very Norse-mythology-influenced, and uses a number of Scandinavian words. No gods, though, (which is okay, I can't stand the Norse gods) just elves (Alfar) and dwarfs (Dvergar).
And yet, and yet, I did not like it. So I must examine why.
Backstory: the Ljosalfar (Light Elves) of Fairholm were conquered by the Dokkalfar (Dark Elves), specifically the Krypplingur clan, cursed to be misshapen or sickly. Since then, life sucks, the crops and animals do poorly, there isn't enough food, and the Krypplingur hunt down any of the Skylding (ruling clan, maybe?) Ljosalfar they find. They seem to be content to just the common folk starve and die out on their own. In the (former) capitol, Rangfara, life is somewhat more sustainable, and that's where the Krypplingur chieftains live, hoping to find the Skylding treasure.
I enjoyed the first chapters, where Mistislaus, the not-very-powerful wizard, copes with his obstreperous thralls and the mysterious Ljosalfar orphan who is dumped on him. Skyla is self-willed and stubborn, and her magic is unpredictable. Then there's Illmuri, the mysterious younger wizard with an aura of power & evil, who keeps hanging out with Mistislaus and asking questions about where Skyla came from.
Then Mistislaus is called to Rangfara to tend the ailing Kryppling chief. Skyla goes with him, and finds other Skylding orphans hiding from slavers and Dokkalfar while searching for the Skylding treasure and archives. Illmuri follows, and soon comes into conflict with the mysterious sorceress Alvara.
And almost all the characters get stupid.
I don't know whether this--characters acting against their own interests, being mysterious and secretive to the point where they foil their own plans, being blind to obvious threats--is a motif for Boyer in the way that Connie Willis has her characters constantly having to work around obstacles both physical and organizational. But just as some readers find their patience tried by Willis's setup, I was annoyed and exhausted by the effing stupid counter-productiveness of the characters in this book.
Are we about to hit spoiler territory? Maybe.
*******SPOILERS!**********
The Kryppling clan wants to wipe out the Skyldingur to consolidate their own rule, after torturing them to find the treasure. Skyldingur characteristically have white-blonde hair and are fair-skinned. Skyla has a wild, constantly-growing mane of white-blonde hair, and she accompanies Mistislaus to the Krypplingur fortress as he treats their chieftain. No one notices that she is obviously a Skylding (until a later-introduced character points it out).
The Skylding orphans want to find the treasure, and the archives so that they have their family records. None of them know the names of their parents or clans, so it's unclear what the records would tell them. Although there's some suggestion of hereditary memory via 'carbuncle stones', nothing definitive comes of that other than some visions.
The archives (and presumably the treasure) are hidden in the Kjallari, catacombs haunted by the mutant Kellerman and nightmarish Kjallari-folk. They are later revealed to be failed results of genetic experiments by the Skylding, which raises questions about just how admirable the Skylding were, and makes the Kjallari a really questionable site for archival resources.
Skyla learns to animate little clay figures, which is pretty cool. She also discovers that she can bring dead creatures back to life, and when she does this, the dead creatures are vicious and dangerous. Mistislaus mostly ignores this, except for telling her not to do it. It turns out that she's not bringing back the creature (or person's) actual self, but whatever opportunistic spirit is available.
Under stress, Skyla shifts into a snow lynx, and kills Dokkalfar. Alvara is also a lynx-shifter, but refuses to counsel or instruct Skyla unless Skyla comes to her tower.
Illmuri spends most of the book squabbling with Alvara, smirking and laughing evilly, and creepily stealing Skyla's clothing in order to scry something or other with it. He does this at a shrine in the Kjallari, because why not?
SPOILERIFFIC!
Skyla tries to bring a Krypplingur chief back to life, but his body is instead claimed by the spirit of murdered Kraftugur (a mad prophet determined to wipe out every Skylding), who very quickly slaughters Mistislaus, even while the old wizard is downplaying the threat.
Illmuri isn't evil: he had a secret mission to find and recover all the Skylding orphans and bring them to safety. He decided that the best way to do that was to leave them chained up by a slaver until he was ready to pick them up. Before he does, they are all helplessly butchered by Kraftugur.
As you might expect, all this stress leads to Skyla being trapped in lynx form, and the book ends with her refusing Illmuri's offer of help (a wise choice, I have to say) and bounding off to "destroy myself and those I hate."
We do not find out what the Skylding treasure is, or whether it ever existed.
This was definitely one of those books where I wanted to reach through the paper and give characters a hard shaking, or better yet a good slap. I cut Skyla some slack, since she is a child, but Mistislaus is at times described as a 'great one', although he never does anything to justify that within the story, and mostly acts like an old fussbudget.
Illmuri is an effing idiot. Alvara at least attempts to communicate with Skyla, but he seems to work at being someone you would never want to open a conversation with.
The middle (Rangfara) part of the story is rather repetitive and talky. The orphans squabble and talk about finding the treasure / getting vengeance. Illmuri and Alvara accuse each other of bad intent, but never explain their actual intentions. Mistislaus reminds Skyla and her orphan friend Jafnar to do their homework and stay out of trouble. He goes again and again to tend Herrad, the Krypplingur chief, without anything much coming from that, and Herrad never notices that Skyla is a Skylding.
Boyer drops hints and clues that all these characters have encountered each other previously and Stuff Happened when they did, but mostly we don't find out what it was or how it mattered. While ordinarily I enjoy this sort of deepening of characters' backstories, in this case it mostly made me wonder what I'd missed or skipped.
Boyer's dialogue has an oddly formal, distanced tone, and characters spend a lot of time quibbling about details, or talking at cross-purposes, or ignoring what their interlocutor has said. I find that sort of thing more bearable in stories with lower stakes.
There is a sequel, but I'm not inclined to seek it out. I think Boyer is just not for me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 27, 2024
The book was very tedious I almost DNF this book due to the character names and places being hard to pronounce, my poor brain started to scream trying to read through one page. I ended up skimming past the names I hated pronouncing which was most of the book lol!
May 26, 2024
Once again we venture into the odd liminal space where I try to leave a review for a book that I have *so many questions* about but without spoilers! Let’s see how I do?
Ok, so the setup is thus: get together a mysterious wizard, the dwarf sworn to guard him with his life, a couple grumpy old thralls, and some cats. Have all of them hide out in a crumbling home in the countryside. Enter a baby who by circumstance and luck is one of the last of her kind, a Skylding, heir to vast magics and innate powers…but only if she’s also quick-witted enough to reach adulthood!
Automatically this sounds like a wild, fun ride, doesn’t it? You have a willful girl, discovering her powers and learning to save her friends, right? Wrong. You get a story that is mostly about characters fumbling the ball, and by ball I mean plot, and by plot I mean the stuff happening around them that they are supposed to be responding to. Now…I get what is happening between the wizards in this book, there’s a lot more going on under the hood than we’re allowed in on, and I notice this frustrated some other reviewers. But these are wizards being their out-there, weird selves, knowing things but acting like they don’t, side-stepping each other and pretending that the obvious *isn’t* so obvious, because of their behind the scenes machinations. And while this annoyed me (because wizards being their lofty selves normally does) this wasn’t my chief issue with this book. At least I understood that bit.
What bugged me and confused me was really how everyone treated Skyla, the Skylding (yes she is Skyla the Skylding, no it was never properly explained, I’m sorry). Here you have a young girl of vast and sometimes incomprehensible powers, and what does most of the cast do? Ignore her, lie to her, and tell her not to do things because *bad stuff might happen*. Half the time the girl just wanted to help, or she had an answer, and yet she was still treated like some sort of baby child, even as a pre-teen. Characters, very often, could have easily solved their problems but what did they do? Make things worse for themselves by ignoring common sense and those around them giving them actual advice.
All children were treated as useless or downright too wild even when they had legitimate concerns or needs. Half the problems would have been solved by people talking to each other and actually, you know, believing each other. The two smartest people in the book, both children, were told multiple times to stop doing things that made sense while the adults all played musical ‘avoid the truth’ chairs. It was at times so odd I would turn the book sideways and wonder if what I’d read had actually just occurred on the page, and that perhaps there was some hidden meaning I just wasn’t getting.
And that ending? A cliffhanger. You’ve been warned.
This book clocks in at something like 267 pages in the first printing and my gosh it still took me two and a half weeks to finish it. However—do I hate this book? Nah. It’s a classic 90s fantasy romp with some fun scenery bits and a dash of spooky horror (I do love me some good spooky horror). This ain’t making it on my favs shelf but it was light and Skyla was an enjoyable character, along with some of the wild boys. I’ve already got the next one in this series and I’m going ahead with it, hoping they since the board has been laid out, all the chess pieces will finally start moving.
Ok, so the setup is thus: get together a mysterious wizard, the dwarf sworn to guard him with his life, a couple grumpy old thralls, and some cats. Have all of them hide out in a crumbling home in the countryside. Enter a baby who by circumstance and luck is one of the last of her kind, a Skylding, heir to vast magics and innate powers…but only if she’s also quick-witted enough to reach adulthood!
Automatically this sounds like a wild, fun ride, doesn’t it? You have a willful girl, discovering her powers and learning to save her friends, right? Wrong. You get a story that is mostly about characters fumbling the ball, and by ball I mean plot, and by plot I mean the stuff happening around them that they are supposed to be responding to. Now…I get what is happening between the wizards in this book, there’s a lot more going on under the hood than we’re allowed in on, and I notice this frustrated some other reviewers. But these are wizards being their out-there, weird selves, knowing things but acting like they don’t, side-stepping each other and pretending that the obvious *isn’t* so obvious, because of their behind the scenes machinations. And while this annoyed me (because wizards being their lofty selves normally does) this wasn’t my chief issue with this book. At least I understood that bit.
What bugged me and confused me was really how everyone treated Skyla, the Skylding (yes she is Skyla the Skylding, no it was never properly explained, I’m sorry). Here you have a young girl of vast and sometimes incomprehensible powers, and what does most of the cast do? Ignore her, lie to her, and tell her not to do things because *bad stuff might happen*. Half the time the girl just wanted to help, or she had an answer, and yet she was still treated like some sort of baby child, even as a pre-teen. Characters, very often, could have easily solved their problems but what did they do? Make things worse for themselves by ignoring common sense and those around them giving them actual advice.
All children were treated as useless or downright too wild even when they had legitimate concerns or needs. Half the problems would have been solved by people talking to each other and actually, you know, believing each other. The two smartest people in the book, both children, were told multiple times to stop doing things that made sense while the adults all played musical ‘avoid the truth’ chairs. It was at times so odd I would turn the book sideways and wonder if what I’d read had actually just occurred on the page, and that perhaps there was some hidden meaning I just wasn’t getting.
And that ending? A cliffhanger. You’ve been warned.
This book clocks in at something like 267 pages in the first printing and my gosh it still took me two and a half weeks to finish it. However—do I hate this book? Nah. It’s a classic 90s fantasy romp with some fun scenery bits and a dash of spooky horror (I do love me some good spooky horror). This ain’t making it on my favs shelf but it was light and Skyla was an enjoyable character, along with some of the wild boys. I’ve already got the next one in this series and I’m going ahead with it, hoping they since the board has been laid out, all the chess pieces will finally start moving.
March 17, 2013
Something happened to Elizabeth Boyer with this new series. I no longer found this to be fun or entertaining. I felt preached at and somewhat offended by it. I did not finish this one and never bought another book by her. I was too creeped out.
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