Book review: The Jasper forest by Julia Gray

I was very happy with “The Dark Moon”, the first book of the Guardian cycle from Julia Gray. And so it was with high expectations that I started the second one in this serie: “The Jasper Forest”…. and unfortunately in my opinion it fell flat.

The story left out where Dark Moon ended, with an exiled Terrel drifting on his raft towards the continent of Macul, nearly dead from dehydratation. The first part of the book relates the story of his rescue by the residents of a small village named Fenduca on the continent of Macul, and how they gradually overcame their distrust of him by using his much needed healing skills. Only one thing matter to Terrel however: to hold his promise to his beloved Alyssa to come back for her, and thus, Terrel is desperate to find a way to go back home in Valdanis. However his role in an ancient Prophecy is not over yet, and his ghost friends as well as his dreams of incoming destruction will make Terrrel reluctantly realize he has still a role to play on this continent before being able to come back home. Indeed, similar to what happened in Belancuria in Valdanis in the Dark Moon, there is apparently an elemental force in the royal city of Talazoria that threaten to destroy everything on the continent, and the aftershock would even send a wave of destruction on the ocean towards Valdanis. Terrel will then leave Fenduca and travel across the continent to Talazoria hoping to use his past experience of dealing with elementals to stop the incoming destruction.

Personally I think that the first part of the book was too long. There is not enough stuff going on around a small insignificant village like Fenduca to write 200 pages or so about it. In contrast, the Valley of Darkness was probably the best part of the book, and Terrel’s walk into the mist at night, trying to run away from the Valley, was gripping. Another problem is that the entire book is devoted to Terrel, and his strained relationship with Jax was not exploited very much. I would have liked parallel chapters with Jax’s or the seers’point of view of what is happening in Valdanis, just like it was with Dark Moon.

In conclusion, I liked reading this book, but not as much as I did the first one. My concern right now is that I know there are 3 more books in the serie, and I hope these are not fillers to reach the conclusion of the serie.

Randonnée: Mt Seymour

La ville de Vancouver est située en bordure d’une chaîne de montagnes côtières qui représentent la partie ouest des montagnes Rocheuses. Cette chaîne de montagne ajoute un charme indéniable à la ville, et inspire à ses habitants une qualité de vie remarquable axée sur un bel environnement et les activités plein-air.
Trois de ces montagnes attirent l’attention pour les activités de plein-air, soient le Mont Seymour, le Mont Grouse, et les Monts Strachan et Black Mountain, qui sont mieux connu sous le nom Cypress Mountain, un site hôte des derniers Jeux Olympiques d’hiver de Vancouver (2010). Aujourd’hui cette chronique aura pour objet le Mont Seymour.

Le Mont Seymour domine Vancouver du haut de ses 1500 mètres. Il fait partie d’un parc provincial, le Mount Seymour Provincial Park. Un centre de ski a été aménagé au sommet, d’une faible dénivellation de 330 mètres, soit un peu moins de la moitié du Mont Ste-Anne. Il faut comprendre que l’hiver à Vancouver il fait aux alentours de 5-7 oC et par conséquent, la neige ne se retrouve qu’au sommet des ces montagnes. Le niveau de difficulté de ce centre de ski est bas, plus pour les débutants-intermédiaires. Cependant, l’été, l’ascension du sommet du Mt Seymour est très agréable, et offre une vue imprenable sur la ville de Vancouver elle-même, ainsi que ses environs. Par beau temps on peut observer le fameux Mt Baker, un volcan dont la silhouette blanche à l’horizon est une signature de la région. Une particularité de la randonnée est de marcher dans la neige même au mois de Juin, alors les bottes de randonnées sont de mise! Il existe un stationnement au bas du Centre de ski, à 930 mètres d’élévation, par conséquent la randonnée est d’une dénivellation de 600 mètres environ pour se rendre au premier pic. Je considère cette randonnée comme étant moyenne en difficulté, dépendant s’il y a neige au sol ou pas, et le dernier tiers est plus escarpé. Environ 4-5 heures aller-retour.

Book review: Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay

I am a big fan of Guy Gavriel Kay, ever since I read his first trilogy “The Fionavar Tapestry”. Although his following books were less and less fantasy and more and more historical-based, his prose is always beautiful and emotion-driven, and there is always that little mystical side in his stories, not always explained but part of the environment and makes it richer. Although most of his books occur in imaginary worlds, Kay is usually setting up their story based on the historical background of several countries, e.g. medieval Italy “Tigana”, medieval France in “A song for Arborne”, medieval Spain in “The Lions of Al-Rassan”, ancient Constantinople emperor Justinian in the Sarantine Mosaic, and the Vikings invasion of England in the “Last light of the sun”. In this new book, Kay continues the pattern and explores the ancient dynasties in China.

For those familiar with The Sarantine Mosaic, you will soon realize Under Heaven follows similar patterns. The story figures Tai, the second son of a famous general father. After the death of his father, Tai decides to spend his two years of mourning to a far-off battlefield where some fourty thousands of Kitanand Taguran soldiers died in battle. The ghosts of these soldiers, both Kitans and Tagurans, are still haunting this ancient battlefield, moaning and crying at night, and so Tai spends his two years burying these soldiers properly so that they can be at rest. This earns him the gratitude of both the Kitan Emperor and the former Taguran enemies. Unexpectedly, the Taguran queen offers him 250 Sardian horses. To understand the value of this gift, here is a quote directly from the book:

So precious are these horses that you gave a man one … to reward him greatly. You gave him four or five of those glories to exalt him above his fellows, propel him toward rank – and earn him the jealousy, possibly mortal, of those who rode the smaller horses of the steppes.” Obviously, this “gift” of 250 horses makes Tai a marked man, and thrusts him back in the reality of life to become an important player in a political game where he has little or no experience. He has no choice but to travel to the Kitan’s capital to meet with the aging emperor and his beautiful and powerful concubine, to decide what to do with this gift, or curse. Kay’s readers will recognize a pattern of the Sarantine mosaics here with Crispin going to Sarantinum, to meet the emperor and his beautiful wife, bringing political changes in his wake into the empire.

Then in parallel we have the story of Tai’s sister, Li-Mei, which has been sent as an imperial bride to the nomads by their politically connected ambitious older brother. She will be rescued by a renegade shaman, a side story that will bring up the magical side of the book. Indeed, as opposed to Tai and the political intrigues in the city, in this part of the book we get to learn more of the country outside of the Great Wall of Kitan, with their superstitions and myths.
And finally, on top of all this, this is the story of events that led to a revolution that brought the 9th dynasty to its knees, because of a feud between the first minister and the most favored general. And who benefits from Tai’s horses may possibly get the edge that will be the deciding factor in this conflict.

When Kay published Ysabel a few years ago, I was a little disappointed by this book; I thought there was something missing, without being able to put my finger on it. No such problem here with Under Heaven. Very reminiscent of the Sarantine Mosaic in its scope and story, and characters. I would say that it was maybe a little too similar, when I first saw the beautiful and powerful concubine I rolled my eyes to the ceiling. On the other hand, I liked the Sarantine Mosaic so much I did not mind too much the similarities in this new book. “Under Heaven” is a beautiful read, not really fast paced, not too slow either, and characters such as Tai and Li-Mei evolve alongside the story, which is always a good thing. I thought the end of the story was a little bit rushed, but I think that is because the point of this book was not the resolution of the conflict, which could have gone one way or another according to Kay’s philosophical comments in the end of the book, but rather how events could change someone’s life and have impacts on a larger scale.