Southern Fire

The Aldabreshin Compass #1

by Juliet E. McKenna

Their coming had not been written in the stars, and no augury had foretold the terror they would bring. The first sign was the golden lights of the beacons, a clear message from every southern isle that a calamity had befallen them.
Daish Kheda, warlord, reader of portents, giver of laws, healer and protector of all his many-islanded realm encompasses, must act quickly and decisively to avert disaster.
But the people of the Aldabreshin Archipelago not only fear magic, they've abjured it. So what defense can Kheda offer against the threat of a dark magic that threatens to overrun every island of his domain?
A new tale from the writer who has already gathered many fans with the five volumes of her Tales of Einarinn, Southern Fire is an engrossing epic of magic, intrigue, culture, and politics, in a fantasy setting as colorful as the south seas, as bracing as the ocean wind, and as alluring as the hint of spices in the air of an exotic port.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Magic, Science Fiction Fantasy

512 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 4, 2003

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

[Janny]

This is an excellent read with a non-European backdrop and a wide view of cultural diversity. I still recall the quality of the characterization and story line, years down the line. Well worth looking up for a read written ahead of its time.

[J C Steel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read. Kind of saw the final twist coming about halfway through, but it was a valid plot move.

[Susanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was hard to read. Normally I can zoom through a book in a weekend and this one took me nearly a weekend to read a chapter. But I had checked it out from the library and 'judged a book by its cover' got the whole series and was determined to read it.

Considering how big the book was, very little actually happened. There was so many conversations, descriptions and internal dialogue that didn't really add anything to the book but took up lots of pages and made it very hard to get into.

Considering the whole book was about finding a way to battle the wild magic men, that battle lasted less than a chapter.

[Geoff Battle · Rating 5 out of 5]

New to McKenna's work I was pleasantly surprised to discover a tight fantasy read, with great fleshed out characters, including a heroic leader and a likeable anti-hero. In epic style, there is a kingdom faced with unknown peril from foreign lands, and McKenna balances character development, action and mystery in excellent style. The setting of warlords ruling archipelagos is fresh and although the central plot is self-contained within this book, there are clearly strands which will propel readers in to future episodes. Impressive and original, Southern Fire is the start of a series in which any fantasy fan can easily become involved in.

[ABIGAIL GRAY · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was very sceptical about this book and almost thought it was too confusing to continue. I'm so glad I persevered and have made an account here purely to review this book! Don't give up! Juliet E McKenna's website has really useful maps and info on the different domains and politics of the region that really helped to make sense of the first 100 pages or so. This is one of the best fantasy books I've read in a long time with loads of epic descriptions of both magic and non magic battles and very well formed characterisation! Super super book with an epic world. I cant wait to read the next 3 and will be looking at her other books for sure !

[Nicola Gray · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF

I loved Juliet McKenna’s Green Man series but boy was this slow!!! Nearly 200 pages in and I still have no idea who any of the main characters are as there are far too many of them. Horrendously confused by men having many wives but hiding or murdering their own children if they have more than 1 boy. No idea what is going on as there was no plot and far too many inner monologues that just didn’t really progress anything along. Have the other books in the series but am likely to sell them all on. I’ll stick to another read through of Wheel of Time I think !

[JL Henker · Rating 4 out of 5]

While it's true, it took me a while to get into the story, and I was a bit distracted by the density of detail, I'm glad I persisted. This is a chewy book, full of rich detail and amazing world building. Plot was interesting and characters strong. I found it a rewarding read and well worth the time to allow the story to unfold on its own time and on it's own way.

[Michael Marin · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF

[kit · Rating 5 out of 5]

took me a little bit to get hooked, but once i did...yep. super fun series.

[Steven Poore · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's a good case for saying that Juliet E McKenna's follow-up series to her Tales of Einarrin - which in itself was a solid, well-constructed epic narrative with some astoundingly brutal moments - was actually ahead of its time when Southern Fire was first published. Certainly the great archipelago of tropical islands, with a tribalistic culture reliant on astrology and other omens, and highly distrustful of sorcery, bears little relation to much that was being published at the time. This is not your standard, medium-sliced loaf of white bread European medieval fantasy, and it is much better for it.

The borders of Daish Kheda's domain have been invaded by magic-wielding warriors, and Kheda must find a way to drive them out of his waters before they taint everything. But the only way to fight sorcery itself... is with more sorcery.

If the story takes a while to bed down, if it seems slow to get started, then perhaps it's because McKenna is having to reintroduce us to the Aldabreshi, who we last saw in the second book of the Tales of Einarrin, introduce us to an expanded version of their culture, and bring in a new cast of characters too. We need to get into Daish Kheda's mindset to understand the scale of the peril he finds himself in by the time this book reaches its climax. It's slow work, but the build-up is well worth the effort, despite wishing several times that Kheda would just hurry the heck up. The Aldabreshi are careful people, and so it makes sense that their story is constructed the same way. The final explosive confrontation has the feel of a line crossed, a step taken that can never be retracted, undoubtedly what McKenna was aiming for all along, yet the coda and Kheda's return home after that are even more powerful, scripted by Aldabreshi honour and culture.

This is bloody good stuff, and all praise to Wizard's Tower Press for putting out this new digital edition of Southern Fire, complete with a stunning new cover. The fact that I read this in five days flat should tell you just how much I enjoyed it. The fact that, here in 2016 with so many great new books on the horizon, I'm queuing up Northern Storm ahead of almost all of them, should tell you just how good McKenna's writing is.

Buy it. End of.

[Arminion · Rating 1 out of 5]

Someone once said that if the book doesn't grip you by the page 50, it probably never will. Sometimes, however, I don't even need to go that far as 50 pages... I can just tell from the first few pages/chapters that the book isn't for me.
Where to start? First of all, this is the first time I have read McKenna. This isn't her first book, but it is the first book in a trilogy. That being said, I had the feeling like I was reading book 2 or 3. So many characters... so many descriptions and so many expositions, pointless descriptions of constellations... Am I missing something? Who are all these people? Characters come and go, daughters, sons, slaves, wives... after a while, I didn't even bother with trying to remember this huge cast of characters.
If someone didn't told me the sex of the author, I would have guessed it anyway. McKenna writes about the usual "girly" stuff; clothes, dresses, pregnancy, babies, marriages, wives, husbands, family life... ugh, boring. I also hated how the characters talked, wives calling their husband "my lord" or just "husband" and similar nonsense.
I was just waiting for something to happen, but it was just one pointless dialog after another; people talking about some other people and places as if the reader already met them. As I said, it didn't feel like the first book in a trilogy.
Maybe I was being too harsh... maybe I didn't give it enough time, enough credit, but c'mon, with thousands of other books waiting for me, I think I will pass this one.

[Althea Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although this is the first book in a series, it's apparently set in the same world (just a different part of it) as her previous series. Not sure how much background I lost for not having read any of the previous books - this is the first book by McKenna I've read.

It introduces a tribal, island-based culture where life is lived by portents and omens, but magic is despised and feared. When a neighboring tribe is decimated by mysterious, magic-wielding invaders from the south, the warlord Kheda fakes his own death and goes on a quest to the north, because it is rumored that the peoples to the north know how to fight magic. But if word gets out that Kheda has even investigated magic, he could be considered 'tainted' by it...

I like how McKenna sets up a convincingly foreign culture, with its own sets of rules and taboos, and portrays people from that culture on their own terms. However, especially at the beginning, it felt like there was a bit too much 'setting the scene' and not enough story. Kheda, who's the main character, never really intrigued me. When Dev (a self-centered, amoral, renegade(?) wizard from the north) suddenly appeared, his chapters were instantly more compelling. I wanted to know more about his background! Kheda just seemed kind of boring in comparison.

The writing here was pretty good; I'd read more from this author, but I'm not feeling compelled to go order more books in the series right now...

[Nicholas Whyte]

http://nhw.livejournal.com/703766.html[return][return]The first of the second series of fantasy novels by McKenna, set in the same world as the first series but in a different part of it, among the lascivious island race visited briefly in a previous book. I said in a previous review that I would have liked to have heard more about these people; well, you should be careful what you wish for, because you may get it - I found the first third of the book awfully slow going as we learnt loads and loads about the Aldabreshin culture, a worthy attempt to create a fictional society which practices polygamy but where women are nonetheless pretty emancipated. Fortunately it really picks up after a bit and I found it impossible to put down once I had reached roughly page 200, when our lead character puts his heritage aside and sets off on a quest for knowledge which may save the archipelago at the cost of his life (or his lands and family at the least). Also McKenna pulls off the impressive feat of describing the climactic showdown between good wizard and evil wizard twice - once in anticipation and the second time for real - and making it work both times.

[Cognatious Thunk · Rating 2 out of 5]

As usual, my rating is subject to change after reading the next book in the series. However, if McKenna puts me through another half book of worldbuilding, this is going to immediately drop to one star out of sheer exasperation. Hopefully, the momentum built at the end of this book will continue into book two, because I refuse to slog through that much meaningless prose about characters who only stick around for a chapter or two again.

Edit: The second book is a tedious repetition of the plot of the first, with the same fundamental issues of unlovable characters populating an interesting world, all drown in overly elaborate prose. From what I can tell, the third book appears to be yet another installment in the same plotline and I have no interest in reading something that wasn't great two times over. Looks like this series is headed to the resale shop.

[Martin Stewart · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a slow reader so if a book isn't immediately drawing me in I get a bit ratty. I'm glad I persevered with this book, after initially setting the scene Juliet McKenna introduces an interesting character that really had me hooked. A lot of fanasy novels can't resist the lure of making any problem one of massive import, "only the One can prevent the universe from being destroyed" style. It's the realistic approach that made this readable for me. I think after struggling initially I really enjoyed the book and will have to find a copy of the next in the series now.

[Brittany · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars, overload of world building for the first 200 or so pages. After that it gets better and the main character goes to find a solution for his domain and do what he believes is right. These people rely heavily on portents and omens using animal entrails, shells and particularly the night sky to tell them what should be done. For me although this was interesting there is a bit too much of it for my enjoyment. I will definitely still read the next book

[DaNela · Rating 5 out of 5]

*BIB*

[Pers · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd forgotten how intense this tale gets - it's very gripping.

[Stephanie Griffin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Please read my review here: http://realbooks4ever.tumblr.com/post...

[Annika · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book didn't grab me. I felt I had to force my way through parts of it. I am curious if the next book in the series will be any better.

[Lynn Orser · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fantasy book with an unusual story line. to often it got dragged sown in detail but there were excellent action sequences.