Western Shore

The Aldabreshin Compass #3

by Juliet E. McKenna

Warlord Daish Kheda has been building political alliances, working to consolidate power over his new realm. Although he has saved his people from the twin evils of wizardry and dragons, he feels tainted by association with forbidden magic and fears he may bring great ill-fortune to his people. So Kheda resolves to once more join his Northern wizard allies in the hope of removing the dragon threat once and for all, and to seek whatever purification he can find. Only time can tell whether he will be condemned for his actions, or whether magic is less a sin than he was brought up to believe... He tells his son in secret that he may not return, and sets his face to the future.

Genres: Fantasy, Magic, Dragons

621 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2005

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

[Geoff Battle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Western Shore is definitely not a stand-alone entry in to the Aldabreshin Compass sequence. The first hundred and fifty pages have remarkably little to do with the next four hundred. The political wrangling within the first third of the book are assumedly setting up the final book, however it feels remarkably disjointed when the Western Shore plot embarks. The story of this entry offers nothing new, whereas the first books were fresh and exciting and the content is largely similar to that of the first two books. That all said, the character building is excellent and the action of the finale of the highest standard. There is enough here to ensure you read the final chapter, although this book will merely seem a stepping stone to get there.

[Evander · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed it although a lot of it was quite slow. It got a bit too "coloniser" for my taste though. "Oh, the poor 'savages' are living in such ignorance and we must take over and share our culture and technology to improve their primitive lives."

[Eddy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Less pondering over portents compared with the first two in the series, together with more action and some ethical dilemmas made this a better read.

[Steven Poore · Rating 4 out of 5]

In my review of the previous book, Northern Storm, I pointed out the similarities in that book's structure to the first volume, Southern Fire. Kheda's life is disturbed by magic, and he enlists the reluctant help of mages to defeat the threat to his domain and the Archipelago. Western Shore does start out in much the same way - but it quickly departs from that format, leaving Kheda, Risala and Velindre in unknown lands, facing unknown foes and dangerous wildlife, along with magic, dragons, and natural disasters.

That departure mirrors Kheda's mounting doubts over the reliability of the omens he sees in the stars. If he can no longer trust his own interpretations, what can he trust? There's far less of the Aldabreshin islands in this third volume of the series, but the land our heroes travel to is as wildly different to the Archipelago as the Archipelago is to Einarrin. If you thought Australia was dangerous... well, this land, a sort of Oz-analogue, is even more so. And once again, every action Kheda takes has a knock-on effect, setting up plenty to do in the concluding book of the series. Kheda may not be able to read the omens, but it's easy to see trouble coming over the horizon....

[Susanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was worth struggling through the first 2 books to get to this book.

I consumed this book in 3 days. Could not put it down.

Suddenly I care for the characters and want them to do well. Suddenly they seem human and have feelings and are fighting for what they WANT, not fighting because they feel they should. Suddenly there is passion and excitement in them, not must some well oiled machine running through the paces.

[Pers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really excellent. I love Kheda and Risala and Naldeth, but I especially love Velindre. Spiky, aloof, occasionally arrogant, yet wholly human and totally 3D. This is epic fantasy with dragons at its best.