Daggerspell

Once upon a time there was a selfish prince. He thought he was in love with a beautiful lady, but then he discovered the dweomer - that's magic, kiddies - and he decided to run away from home and become a penniless, scruffy magician instead. But when he abandons the pretty lady, her brother swoops in and gets all Flowers in the Attic with her. Her brother's best friend, who's also in love with her, gets mad at him. Brother kills friend, friend's little brother kills brother, and pretty lady kills herself. Then the selfish prince finds out that what he was supposed to do was marry the pretty lady so they could both learn dweomer together. By leaving her, he failed all three of them - the lady Brangwen, her brother Gerraent, and his friend Blaen. The prince, now named Nevyn, or "no one," vows to right his wrong. And so he lives, not very happily, ever after. And ever, and ever.... Four hundred years later, poor Nevyn is still kicking around. And now, all the players in the old drama have been reborn into the land of Deverry. Reincarnation is pretty much the backbone of this entire series. Kerr has created an incredibly complex web of past lives, with dozens of characters meeting in varying combinations over the course of centuries to work out their fate, or Wyrd. Moreover, her tale is not sequential. Timelines weave in and around each other - Kerr has used the metaphor of a Celtic knot to describe the pattern - so that the reader can immediately see the causes and effects of various actions taken over the years. While this could get complicated, Kerr provides two aids to the reader. One is the table of incarnations found in (almost) every book, which grows with new columns and rows each time a new character or event is added. Second, Kerr is masterful at making (most) of her characters completely recognizable from one incarnation to the next. This is especially true of secondary characters, who could, admittedly, clog the gears a bit. But Kerr makes it clear that they always serve a purpose - they are, indeed, part of the larger pattern. In Daggerspell, the first book in a series that looks like it's going to stretch to 15, things remain relatively simple, with only three timelines and a handful of characters to worry about. These include Nevyn, of course, who's a delightful mainstay of pretty much the entire series. Yes, he's a powerful, seemingly immortal wizard. He's also avuncular without being condescending, smart, has a sense of humor, and is refreshingly practical. He's still trying to bring Brangwen to the dweomer, so of course he's thrilled to meet the tomboyish Jill and her father Cullyn, a notorious mercenary. Then the dashing young lord Rhodry Maelwaedd gets involved, and Nevyn realizes that once again, these three will have to work out their Major Issues before Jill can fulfill her Wyrd. Along the way, Jill, Rhodry, and Cullyn get involved in a battle that seems straightforward but soon reveals itself as a part of a larger dweomer w

Daggerspell is the first of a series of -thus far- 13 books. If you start, start with the first one. In some series it doesn't really matter which one you start with, but here it does. It's a complicated story, not really one story, but a bunch of stories bundles in to one, starring the same main "characters" in different lives. Their fates or karma are woven together throughout their different lives and they keep getting reborn until they can live in peace with eachother. I love they way Katharine Kerr use the different timelines. In each different time you get a new set of characters who are different, but also the same - except for Neven, the sorcerer, who lives through all these different times and centuries. It's because of a mistake he made when he was youg that he binds his soul with those of the peoples that died because of him. He vows not to rest until the dammage he did will be undone - little did he know it would take him severel centuries !!! If you don't like to read a lot, or don't like long, complicated stories, don't start with this one, because there are 12 more that follow !

Skimming through some of the other reviews I was upset by some of the comments. I just don't think that these reviewers really understood what was going on. Kerr didn't place the stories of past incarnations in between sections to annoy the reader. They give insight as to how far along one character or another has come along; what they've learned, and what they continue to ignore. Masterfully written that was a welcome change to Jordan's ridiculously pithy Eye of the World series. Overall a very clever book and perhaps my favorite in the series. While other authors tend to get bogged down in characters or overly intricate plots as their series progress, Kerr stays focused.

One of the best books I have read in a long time. Kerr pulls off the somewhat twisted timelines with ease, wonderfully written. The plot has enough twists to keep it interesting... I just can't stand a book that lets me guess the ending by page 32. Deverry is a wonderfully created psuedo-Celtic world, with believable three-dimensional characters that the reader truly comes to care about. The currents of dweomer-magic and just a hint of Wiccan beliefs make the book very hard to put down. I recommend it to anyone who loves fantasy, but be warned- you won't be able to resist hunting down the rest of the series!