To the Haunted Mountains

The Tales of Nedao #1

by Ru Emerson

This is the first tale of the Nedao people, told from the perspective of Nisana, and AEldra of the cat kin. The story is left to her, as one of the few witnesses of the trials of the brave young queen Ylia, the Lady of Nedao. As she trains Ylia in the arts of her powers, Nisana is the only mind to have full access to all of Ylia feelings and emotions as she is thrown into exile from the city of the King and subjected to dark magics and a dangerous journey through unfriendly lands.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, High Fantasy, Science Fiction Fantasy, Adventure, Epic Fantasy

314 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

aka Roberta Cray

Ru Emerson was born on December 15th, 1944 in Montana. She and her husband, Doug, live in Oregon with their only child, a silver mackerel tabby cat named Roberta. She likes to lift weights, run, bike, skate in-line, ski, play basketball, tennis, racquetball, garden, play guitar, scuba dive, and fly stunt kites. Her favorite reading material includes Megan Lindholm, science fiction by Larry Niven, murder mysteries by Patricia Cornwell, plus any other good historical non-fiction.

Reviews

[Mir]

I swear the cover shown on Amazon is the same picture as some other fantasy novel I've previously read...

[Baylee]

Puoi trovare questa recensione anche sul mio blog, La siepe di more

Avevo messo questo libro in lista perché ero convinta facesse parte dei grandi classici del fantasy e invece proprio per niente: è uno dei tanti. A volte mi convinco delle cose come se fossi una terrapiattista antivax qualunque…

Comunque, nonostante il granchio preso sulla sua rilevanza, è stata una lettura piacevole e consona ai quaranta maledetti gradi. Il suo difetto più rilevante è stata la prima metà lentissima, durante la quale il gruppo di personaggi scappa attraverso le montagne e non succede pressoché niente se non caccia, pesca, accensioni di fuochi, raccolta di erbe, bagni nei laghi e compagnia bella.

È vero che tutto questo camminare serve a introdurre e costruire i vari personaggi e le loro reciproche relazioni, ma a Emerson non è riuscito benissimo, visto che sono abbastanza stereotipati e di parecchi continuavo a dimenticare i nomi (in particolare, c’è una coppia di gemelli che confondevo sempre, sebbene fossero anche rilevanti nella storia).

Mi è piaciuta molto, invece, l’impostazione blandamente femminista del romanzo, che va oltre il solito principessa forte che spacca culi. Emerson mette in luce tramite Ylia tutta una serie di dinamiche tossiche di potere tipiche del patriarcato senza bisogno di fare grandi discorsi, per rendere certe critiche digeribili a qualunque tipo di pubblico. Visto che ultimamente spopolano le eroine sarebbe bello vedere più impegno su questo fronte da parte di chi scrive.

[Paul Allard]

Old-fashioned fantasy story, first of a trilogy. Quite good.

Like many fantasy stories that model themselves on the Lord of the Rings and benefitted from its success, this novel deals with Ylia, heir to the throne, escaping the demise of her homeland and embarking on a long journey with several companions of various sorts. There’s a lot of adventures on the way and encounters with different characters. There is plenty of character development and the plot moves along quite well. It’s nothing terribly inspiring but has some original ideas. I’ll probably bother with the second book.

[Theresa]

This book is terrible. Did not finish. The plot was trite and predictable. The characters were stilted and boring. Don't even get me started on the language - the dialogue pattern was trying much too hard to be high fantasy.
For about 2 pages I thought there was going to be an interesting romance but ...the characters spent about 20 seconds discussing their feelings before deciding to be together and 10 pages later the guy was fridged.

Would not recommend.

[scarlettraces]

For a book published in 1987, this felt very 1973

[Kait]

For a book about a princess and a magical cat, I found this book to be pretty boring and unengaging. I appreciated the feminist vibes but it was tough to get through.

[Wendy]

Is this a Young Adult? Well if so, it reads well for an adult. The characters are well developed and engaging and the detailed traveling descriptions are beautiful and realistic.
The female heir of a fallen kingdom travels through dangerous passages to safety hoping to eventually reunite and lead her scattered people. She has minimal Powers that she needs to strengthen and become comfortable with and is also a rare swordswoman. Along with her, travels a very magic cat and survivors.
I think I have the second of this trilogy. It is hard to find, I found mine via internet.

[Molly]

Not a bad book overall - I'd give it 3.5 stars if I could - but the characters are only so-so and there are a lot of them. The plot isn't bad, but it's kind of slow and repetitive; I did enjoy the ending. I probably wouldn't read more by the same author, but I'm not terribly disappointed that I read this one.

[Sarah]

This book was ok. I had some trouble getting into it and found a lot of it repetitive (lots of traveling through the forest and camping out over and over), but there was enough suspense and action to keep me reading. It's a good story with good characters. It could just be written a little better.