Northern Storm

The Aldabreshin Compass #2

by Juliet E. McKenna

The Aldabreshin Archipelago has been ravaged by war, its fragile alliances sundered by new enemies - enemies wielding forbidden elemental magic and spreading terror throughout the scattered southern realm. Warlord Daish Kheda has vowed to reclaim his people's land. Exiled from the kingdom and separated from his family, Daish journeys north to seek answers. The wizard Dev has pledged to assist him, hungry to discover the secrets of this powerful dark magic. And it is Dev's obsession that will lead the men to further conflict and into a political battle where strength in magic is key to the highest rank of all.

Genres: Fantasy

630 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 2, 2004

About the author

Juliet E McKenna is a British fantasy author living in the Cotswolds, UK. Loving history, myth and other worlds since she first learned to read, she has written fifteen epic fantasy novels so far. Her debut, The Thief’s Gamble, began The Tales of Einarinn in 1999, followed by The Aldabreshin Compass sequence, The Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution, and The Hadrumal Crisis trilogy. The Green Man’s Heir was her first modern fantasy inspired by British folklore in 2018. The Green Man’s Quarry in 2023 was the sixth title in this ongoing series and won the BSFA Award for Best Novel. The seventh book, in 2024, is The Green Man’s War.

Her 2023 novel The Cleaving is a female-centred retelling of the story of King Arthur, while her shorter fiction includes forays into dark fantasy, steampunk and science fiction. She promotes SF&Fantasy by reviewing, by blogging on book trade issues, attending conventions and teaching creative writing. She has served as a judge for the James White Award, the Aeon Award, the Arthur C Clarke Award and the World Fantasy Awards. In 2015 she received the British Fantasy Society’s Karl Edward Wagner Award. As J M Alvey, she has written historical murder mysteries set in ancient Greece.

Who’s to say what will come next?

Learn more about all of this at julietemckenna.com and on Twitter @JulietEMcKenna

Reviews

[Steven Poore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Southern Fire was an outstanding start to the Aldabreshin Compass series. Juliet E McKenna now has to up the ante and give Kheda and his allies a bigger, badder danger to deal with. And yes, that means dragons.

These aren't Smaug-level dragons, however. They're far more dangerous than that. And though he has already tainted himself with magic, Kheda will have to call on the wizards of Hadrumal again to help cleanse his domain.

If there's a sense of deja-vu in the first couple of chapters, that's because the structure is essentially the same as the first book: Kheda discovers a new threat to his domain, seeks outside help, conceals the nature of that help, and (not a spoiler, honestly!) suffers changes to his life as a result. The scale is larger (dragons, yep larger scales, pun intended) but the similarity in structure should help ease the reader back into the series - which, remember, is not your average white medieval society. The Archipelago is very much *other* in that respect, complete with its reliance on foretelling and omens and the total distrust of wizardry.

Which in some respects makes Velindre's journey to search for dragon lore a little unsatisfying (for me at least) because I wanted to spend much more time immersed in the Archipelago itself. The addition of Velindre to the team does add a new dynamic however, and the interplay between her and fellow wizard Dev helps the reader to see the Archipelago from an insider's point of view, as we already know what's going on.

Juliet has said elsewhere that her villains are never evil for the sake of being evil - there's a full logic behind the wild men and the dragons, even if at this point she hasn't revealed it all to the reader. We're still in the dark as much as Kheda and Dev are, which makes their business all that much more risky. The changes in the dramatic landscape at the end of Northern Storm aren't so much surprising as they are logical - for all that Kheda has relied on magic to defeat the dragon, there's a hell of a price to be paid.

[Susanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is slightly more enjoyable than the first. But it still lack a flow to it. Still a lot of internal dialogue and descriptions of odd things. Like... took longer to describe what the dragon looked like then it did to talk about the battle.

It still was a chore to read, but hey I'm not a quitter and there are 2 more books to get through. Very tempted to give up on this series. There could have been a lot of details left out and made into less books and not really lost anything.

[Annika · Rating 3 out of 5]

This second tale started slowly, but gained speed throughout. I enjoyed it more than the first book in the series, but it isn't something I would ever re-read. I haven't yet decided if I will read the next in the series

[Geoff Battle · Rating 4 out of 5]

After Southern Fire comes Northern Storm, and although you could read them standalone, I'd certainly recommend reading them in order, since McKenna has developed the characters considerably in the first book. Northern Storm follows Kheda, warlord to a new domain, his old domain left to his children. The new domain borders unknown southern waters, and it is from here a new threat emerges. The dragon in question, and indeed the magics throughout the book, are exquisitely detailed. A new character is introduced to aid Kheda, Dev and Risala in their defence of the domain, and this character ventures in to new territory seeking answers that the party will clearly need. The endgame is well executed, although perhaps overly lengthy, however Northern Storm is mostly an enjoyable and fresh approach to fantasy fiction.

[Stephanie Griffin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not crazy about dragons in books. Book 1 of this series didn't have any and I really liked the story. Now they are the focus in this Book 2. Looking at the covers of Books 3 and 4, it looks like more dragons ahead. So, sadly, I'm going to move on to other stories.

[Cognatious Thunk · Rating 2 out of 5]

While the plot and pacing improved in this book, it still drags dreadfully. Furthermore, McKenna has a talent for creating truly unlovable characters. Although I initially considered continuing this series, reading the back cover of the third book indicated that the next one has the same repetitive plot of the first two books and I don't have the patience to take this journey again, despite mild improvements. This series is headed for the resale bookshop.

[Nicholas Whyte]

http://nhw.livejournal.com/868803.html[return][return]The second in Juliet E. McKenna's Aldabreshin Compass series. Here we have Kheda, central character of the previous book, struggling to balance the interests of his new realm, his new wife, and the woman he loves (it's a polygamous society, so the love-life issues are somewhat different from those faced by Jane Austen's characters, but they are not absent). Also there is a dragon or two, and a conflict between a highly scientific concept of magic and a superstitious society that wants nothing to do with it.[return][return]I enjoyed this more than the first of the series - didn't take as long to get going, and the whole thing drew me in more. Good stuff.

[Pers · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've just re-read this for the first time since it was published, and because it's been over a decade and I've read at least 1000 books since, it was like reading it for the first time, for the most part - which was actually great! So much tension and anticipation, and so many thrills!

[Gabriel · Rating 4 out of 5]

It started off slow and picked up as the story continues.