The Golden Thread

The Sorcery Hall Trilogy #3

by Suzy McKee Charnas

Magic is nothing unusual to Valentine Marsh. But when she and her friends join hands to make a wish on New Year's Eve, even Val marvels at the ring of energy and light they mysteriously create. Since her magical grandmother is lying near death in a hospital, Val can only assume that this power of the Comet Committee, as they come to call themselves, is her own. When Val is assigned to host foreign exchange student Bosanka Lonat at school, the Comet Committee's purpose becomes clear to her. Bosanka has come to America in search of her estranged relatives, and she believes that the Committee has the power to reunite them. Disturbing things begin to happen, and Val suspects that she's dealing, not with a typical European teenager, but with someone who is capable of great evil. Together with Joel, Barb, and Lennie, Val tests her courage and magical powers to fight against the terrifying tragedy that faces them all.

Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Suzy McKee Charnas, a native New Yorker raised and educated in Manhattan, surfaced as an author with WALK TO THE END OF THE WORLD (1974), a no-punches-pulled feminist SF novel and Campbell award finalist. The three further books that sprang from WALK (comprising a futurist, feminist epic about how people make history and create myth) closed in 1999 with THE CONQUEROR’S CHILD, a Tiptree winner (as is the series in its entirety).

Meanwhile, she taught for two years in Nigeria with the Peace Corps, married, and moved to New Mexico, where she has lived, taught, and written fiction and non-fiction for forty five years. She teaches SF from time to time, and travels every year to genre conventions around the country and (occasionally) around the world.

Her varied SF and fantasy works have also won the Hugo award, the Nebula award, the Gigamesh Award (Spain), and the Mythopoeic award for Young-Adult fantasy. A play based on her novel THE VAMPIRE TAPESTRY has been staged on both coasts. STAGESTRUCK VAMPIRES (Tachyon Books) collects her best short fiction, plus essays on writing feminist SF and on seeing her play script first become a professionally staged drama in San Francisco. Currently, she’s working at getting all of her work out in e-book, audio, and other formats, and moving several decades’ worth of manuscripts, correspondence, etc. out of a slightly leaky garage and sent off to be archived at the University of Oregon Special Collections. She has two cats and a gentleman boarder (also a cat), good friends and colleagues, ideas for new work, and travel plans for the future.

Reviews

[Lara · Rating 3 out of 5]

The trilogy as a whole hasn't aged very well; it will be stuck in the late 80s/early 90s forever. But finding this book after years--I read the first book all the way back in high school, found the second book by chance at a library ten years ago, and snatched this one off a used-book shelf in the local gaming store last week--was an absolute joy. Val's voice is uniquely her own, the magic she encounters is equally unique, and reading this book twenty-some years after beginning the series felt like running into an old friend.

[Conan Tigard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story takes place fairly soon after the end of The Silver Glove. In this story, unlike the previous two, Valentine is forced to reveal to others her magic, what little magic she does. My only problem with this entire series is that Valentine does very little magic. The reader never really gets to know what magic she does.

I did like that more of her friends, if you can call them that, were involved in this story. It was also nice to see Joel back again. As for Valentine never getting to Sorcery Hall, maybe more books will follow. I am left wondering if she will ever make it there and get a better understanding of what her powers truly are. Bosanka is an interesting villain, but she really isn't very mean. She only turns Peter into a deer. I was expecting something much worse, and would have been happier if something really nasty happened to him. Valentine uses her wits more than magic in this story.

The Golden Thread by Suzy McKee Charnas is an interesting conclusion to the Sorcery Hall Trilogy, but it does leave a lot of questions unanswered. Overall, this is a fun book to read, but it is missing something, as is the entire trilogy.

I rated this book a 7½ out of 10.

[Arlene Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh wait. A book about kids. In a school for sorcery. Man how unoriginal is that, Suzy. Ripping off Harry Potter 30 years before it was published. The shondel.

P.S. For the sarcasmically challenged, that was indeed sarcasm.