Yvgenie

Russian Stories #3

by C.J. Cherryh

Ilyana is always careful to avoid the temptations of her gift, until she began to fall in love with a ghostly spring visitor and realizes that he is an evil wizard returned from the dead to take revenge on her mother. Reprint.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Russia, Science Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Audiobook, Historical

311 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 15, 1991

About the author

Currently resident in Spokane, Washington, C.J. Cherryh has won four Hugos and is one of the best-selling and most critically acclaimed authors in the science fiction and fantasy field. She is the author of more than forty novels. Her hobbies include travel, photography, reef culture, Mariners baseball, and, a late passion, figure skating: she intends to compete in the adult USFSA track. She began with the modest ambition to learn to skate backwards and now is working on jumps. She sketches, occasionally, cooks fairly well, and hates house work; she loves the outdoors, animals wild and tame, is a hobbyist geologist, adores dinosaurs, and has academic specialties in Roman constitutional law and bronze age Greek ethnography. She has written science fiction since she was ten, spent ten years of her life teaching Latin and Ancient History on the high school level, before retiring to full time writing, and now does not have enough hours in the day to pursue all her interests. Her studies include planetary geology, weather systems, and natural and man-made catastrophes, civilizations, and cosmology…in fact, there's very little that doesn't interest her. A loom is gathering dust and needs rethreading, a wooden ship model awaits construction, and the cats demand their own time much more urgently. She works constantly, researches mostly on the internet, and has books stacked up and waiting to be written.

Reviews

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep

Fast-forward fifteen years. Pyetr and Eveshka and Sasha have been living more-or-less in peace in the forest since the conclusion of Chernevog; there's also now a daughter, Ilyana, herself a budding wizard (and so potentially supremely dangerous, especially to her poor, non-magical father).

And into this comes a young man, Yvgenie, disturbing the careful balance and quite possibly impelled by wizards' wishes. (For wizards change the world by wishing at it. Which can be incredibly dangerous since there are always unintended consequences; and unfulfilled wishes can accumulate over the years until something finally triggers them.)

And now, finally, we get to see the culmination of the whole, careful plan that's been playing out over the course of the three books (not, to be sure, entirely as its architect has intended), and we get to journey to the ultimate, impossibly dangerous heart of the forest.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the other two books in the series and this one wasn't horrible but I just really couldn't get over the ending. It was too wtf. I'm still not quite sure what happened. The whole Chernevog/ Yvgenie mixup was really confusing and never quite fully explained. Also, Pyetr's second daughter definitely came out of nowhere and it's never quite resolved what happens with her either. I guess she hooks up with Sasha and they have kids. And we're supposed to just assume that Sasha having a younger wife just magically fixes all his hermity problems and there's no awkwardness at all about Sasha hooking up with his best friend's daughter. :/ Does Eveshka dip into the deep, dark magic she's not supposed to? Wasn't quite sure on that point either. So much vagueness in this book. I did like the character of Ilyana though; she was a nice touch. The way she was raised and her reaction to it was very realistic and believable. She also came into her own when things picked up and earned respect for it. I guess she just ends up with the Yvgenie/Chernevog duo and everyone's okay with that? Also, its never really explained what the deal is with the leshys either. Where did Mishigi go? He just died and no one knew? He wanted Ilyana but resurrected Chernevog to go get her? Too much of this book was just random and started but never wrapped up. Seems like Cherryh should have added a couple more chapters to wrap up all these loose ends and it would have been a much better read.

[Unwisely · Rating 3 out of 5]

Once upon a time at some point about 20 years ago, I owned both Rusalka and Chernevog. I didn't know there was a third book. At some point in the last year I discovered its existence, and one night, with the questionable assistance of bourbon, I ordered it.

Maybe I should have reread the other two to prepare myself; I remembered broad outlines but not details.

In any case: the atmosphere is the same, and I enjoyed that. But...well. It didn't do a great job of giving me enough clues to figure out what was going on, and I really, really disliked the ending. 1. cop out - have everyone be related! 2. age difference, eww. 3. Yeah, sure, end with a marriage, why not

I'm not sorry I read it, exactly, but maybe I would have liked it better had I read it around the same time as the others. Bet I still wouldn't have liked the ending, though.

[Tanya · Rating 2 out of 5]

... wizards he knew about sold curses and told fortunes. They did not crawl about inside one's heart and talk from other people's mouths and compel them... [loc. 2560]

Reread: I first read this in the 1990s, I think, and recall liking it: this was before I reviewed everything I read, so I don't know what I thought about it then. This time around, without having reread the two preceding novels of the 'Rusalka' trilogy, I was confused and unengaged.

Ilyana is fifteen and has a secret friend, of whom her overprotective mother Eveshka (a wizard) would absolutely not approve. The friend happens to be a ghost, and he has history with Ilyana's parents and her uncle Sasha. Meanwhile, a young aristocrat -- the eponymous Yvgenie -- appears in the middle of a storm, just as Sasha's house burns down.

Cue lots of running around in dark woods and 'wishing' -- magicking -- possibilities. The novel seemed to ... just stop, and there were some rather troubling plot developments, too, including a potential romance between Sasha and a very young woman connected to Ilyana's family.

I considered rereading the first two -- which I also recall enjoying -- and then giving this another try. Frustratingly, I then discovered that Cherryh effectively rewrote this novel back in 2012. But... the publisher website is 'offline indefinitely': and Cherryh (who's in her eighties now) has posted about illness: and there is no trace on the internet of this new revised version, for which I would happily pay money.

sob

[Brian Mlazgar · Rating 1 out of 5]

CJ Cherryh is one of my favourite fantasy/sci-fi authors, and as such, it pains me to write this review. I enjoyed the world she created in the "Russian stories," and her spin on Slavic folklore. The first two books, "Rusalka" and "Chernevog" were quite enjoyable. But then, unfortunately, came "Yvgenie." I have no idea what this book is about, and I suspect the author doesn't either. It seems as though Cherryh got bored with her story, and simply walked away from it. The ending makes no sense, and she should have added another chapter or two that would have wrapped up the various story threads. Or, perhaps she originally intended to write one more book in the series, and never got around to it.

The most interesting relationship in all three books is that between Sasha and Pyetr. I had the distinct impression that theirs was the true love story (not that between Pyetr and Eveshka), but that Cherryh, or perhaps her publishers, couldn't bring themselves to publish a "gay" storyline back in the 1990s. If so, that is a real shame, for with a bit more honesty, acknowledging this would have resulted in a much better series.

[KJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I definitely considered this series a duology, and wasn't interested in it continuing, but when I saw Yvgenie at a thrift store (libraries having failed me for years) I thought, might as well at least find out. That was like a year ago. I've finally read it - in one blurred sitting, wow - and I'm delighted to say it lives up to how much I loved the first two.

Like how much everyone loves Pyetr, forever.

[Michael Nalbone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Swirling, Swirling, Swirling. take notes, this volume has loops of plots.

[Mely]

First read of the revised edition.

[Megan]

DNS 10/27/23

[Kaye · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was full of mystery, ghosts, and betrayal. It kept me reading, even though it was hard to keep track of all the magical wishes.

[Joey Brockert · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a fantasy story set in ≈ 1800's Russia. There are wizards who only have to wish to make it so. They have learned to not wish carelessly and that even if a wish does not come true right now, it is still there to become manifest when conditions are right. They are living near a river away from everyone else so their daughter, Ilyana, can grow into being a wizard without distractions village life would have had.
The problem is that she, as a child, is given the freedom to go places and explore and play as any child might do. But, down by the river she meets a boy a bit older than herself and plays with him. He is only a spirit and he can not make any noises. They grow up and when she is fifteen (15) years old, he starts to talk with her. She just wants to make her parents happy and be a good girl for them, but they just do not understand this other boy. Only they do know this other boy, he is one they dealt with, badly, in the past before she was born. This spirit takes control of another boy, Yvgenie, and has Ilyana go on an expedition into the woods. They are chased by her parents and faux uncle because they are afraid that evil mischief will ensue if this spirit does as he intends.
I got 150 or so pages in and just put it down. It was not all that enthalling.

[Randi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love this series enough to forgive any number of failings. Sure, most of the time I have no idea what's going on, and neither do the characters, but somehow I don't mind.

Still, the end of this book left too many questions hanging in my mind. Too many lingering mysteries. Perhaps the answers would be there if I cared to look back through and decode all the thoughts, conjectures and revelations of the characters. But I won't -- at least not until much later, if I re-read it for the sheer pleasure of hanging out with Pyetr and Sasha again.

Two questions I especially wish would have found some closure:

-How did getting rid of Hwiuur solve all their other problems???? And what about Ilyana made the leshys want to do whatever it is they wanted to do to her? (OK, that sounded weird, but if you've read the novel I think you know what I mean.)
-HOW is this weird mixture of Kavi and Yvgenie going to continue? I mean, does rusalka-Kavi continue having to suck the life out of people? Or did Babi's eating Hwiuur somehow take care of that, too?

Maybe I'd know the answers if I'd read Chernevog. =/

Anyway, like I said...even major "dangling threads" can be forgiven because I just love the characters, the world, the interesting take on Russian folklore, and the refreshingly nuanced treatment of magic. I'm glad I found these books!

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yvgenie manages to bring Cherryh's The Russian Stories full circle to a kind of resolution - at least as much of a resolution as is possible with such a tangled skein of wishes and loyalties and loves. The setting is the same, and again the characters are stumbling about amid the forest and flying wishes, against unknown antagonists, but the author manages to bring in some additional characters with enough of a twist to make the story compelling one final time.

[Amanda Kespohl · Rating 4 out of 5]

See my review for THE RUSALKA. Additional note: this was my favorite book of the series and I found the plot more compelling than the others. It was still hard to follow in places (especially because I read the books out of order), but it merited an extra star because I was still engrossed.

[Brett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fantasy

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The sequel to Chernevog. A strange young man, Yvgenie, shows up at Pyetr and Eveshka's home, but is he there to threaten their daughter Ilyana?

[Mel Nevergold · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good read at 12 years old and again in my late 30's.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the atmosphere in this series!

[Vader · Rating 3 out of 5]

5 star - Perfect
4 star - i would recommend
3 star - good
2 star - struggled to complete
1 star - could not finish