My life in books

I recently had the interesting experience of reading over a fairly short period of time seven books written by Judith Tarr under three different names – Judith Tarr, under which she has written primarily historical fantasy/alternate history, Caitlin Brennan, under which she has written a romantic fantasy trilogy for Luna Books, a subsidiary of Harlequin, and her newest pen name, Kathleen Bryan, which she appears to be using to write high fantasy, something she’s done little of in recent years outside of the two Avaryan trilogies.

It was rather interesting looking at the differences – and similarities – in the books written under the three names.

Rite of Conquest
King’s Blood

These two books make up a duology, written as Judith Tarr, set around the time of the Norman Conquest. Tarr has taken as her starting point a speculation that has been batted around the world of “occult interpretations of historical events” for quite some time – that the mysterious death of King William II (William Rufus) of England was in fact a ritual sacrifice intended to bind the royal line of Normandy to the land. In creating this fantasy about the mystical nature of kingship, Tarr closely follows the known historical events, but weaves a story of power and responsibility, commitment and sacrifice, placed against a background of struggle between the narrow faith of the Christian Church and the older pagan beliefs and magics.

This was classic Tarr at her best, and I enjoyed it greatly.


The Serpent and the Rose
The Golden Rose

In these books, the first two novels of a (presumed) trilogy, the War of the Rose, written under the name of Kathleen Bryan, Tarr’s voice is very similar to that of the novels written under her own name. Set in a fantasy world not altogether unlike France during the feudal era, the story explores one of Tarr’s recurring themes - struggle between systems of magic, religion, philosophy and belief - through the adventures of Averil, a young noblewoman raised to dual expectations as the heir of a major duchy and as a student of her culture’s dominant system of religious magic, which has a number of resonances with Christianity.

Assisting her fight against a king corrupted through the adoption of the long-suppressed worship of the serpent is Gereint, a fatherless peasant boy with great magical promise who bears more than a passing resemblance to the Arthurian figure of Parsifal. What lifts this well above the standard heroes versus villians battle of magic are the persistent hints that there is a relationship between the Young god of Averil’s religion and the ancient Serpent that is far more complex than that of a conquest of good over evil, and the introduction of a third system of wild magic and the being who are part of it, who stand outside the clear-cut dichotomy Averil has been raised to believe in.

While many of the elements of this story are very familiar, Tarr in her voice as Kathleen Bryan seems to be putting them together in an interesting and far from formulaic fashion. I'm looking forward to seeing where she's taking her heroes.


The Mountain’s Call
Song of Unmaking
Shattered Dance

In this trilogy written under the name of Caitlin Brennan, marketed as romantic fantasy or supernatural romance or some such category, Tarr’s voice seems furthest from what I’ve come to expect from her, and I suspect it has much to do with the fact that she is writing for a publisher with a history of wanting a very specific product in terms of the romance aspects of the book – which in my mind were definitely the weakest and least characteristic elements.

As with the War of the Rose books, this trilogy is set in a fantasy world that bears strong resemblance to a specific period of European history, in this case, a variation on the late Roman empire, surrounded by barbarian tribes seeking to destroy its power. The protagonist is a young woman called to become a priest-adept, a role which has until now been reserved for men, and as the story progresses, she will be a significant player in the struggle hold back the peoples, magic and gods of the northern barbarians, while renewing the spirit of the Empire, both at a political and a mystical level.

What makes the religious magic of these novels so interesting, and where Tarr’s passion for the story is strongest, lies in her vision of the divine protectors of the Empire as gods and goddesses come to earth in the form of horses, and whose powers are made manifest through the sacred dances performed by the gods while they are ridden by the priest-adepts. (It should be noted here that Tarr is a breeder and trainer of Lippizaner horses, famed for their abilities to perform the “airs above the ground.”)

Unfortunately, Tarr’s attempts to weave a traditional Harlequin-type love story into the narrative were much less interesting. Not that Tarr doesn’t write good love stories – to the contrary, many of her other books have wonderful love stories woven into them. It’s just that Tarr seems to be at her best when writing about heterosexual relationships when they develop organically out of the shared experiences and passions of her characters. Most of the women in her novels are women with life experience, power, either political, magical, or both, and strong, well-formed characters. They usually work together with the men they become involved with, sharing risks, dangers, and in some cases they are even the leader or teacher in the partnership.

The romantic plot of the trilogy required the protagonist, a young woman still learning her power and unsure of her authority, to be torn between two men – one, a priest of her order and mentor figure who has a dark and tortured past, who saves her from assault early in the story, and with whom she has massive angst-ridden failures of communication, and the other, a bold, open-hearted barbarian lord who m she meets while he is a hostage to the Empire, and who has a great deal of openly expressed admiration for her abilities. The problem is that the one she seems most suited with is the one she can’t end up with, and the story suffers from trying to force her into finally choosing the man that I most wanted her to run like hell from, while forcing the other man to behave in uncharacteristic ways in order to make him not worthy of her. The love triangle simply did not seem believable, and it ended in a way that seemed just plain wrong.

While I enjoyed the broader story, this was disappointing. Still, disappointing work from Judith Tarr, no matter what name she’s using, is better than the best that many others can achieve.