The Golden Key

A brilliant painter's ambition to become the greatest artist who ever lived - and unnaturally extend his life long enough to do so - causes him to pervert his family's magics in this wonderful and highly original fantasy from bestselling authors Melanie Rawn, Jennifer Roberson, and Kate Elliot. In a setting similar to medieval/Renaissance Spain or Italy (one of my favorite historical periods), the authors create here a magnificent canvas of beauty, love, bravery, cruelty, treachery, jealousy, political infighting, religious pageantry, war, plague, revolution, and, of course, artistic genius. As others have commented, this is not the standard 'hero/heroine on a quest' or 'wizard waves wand' fantasy, and all the richer for it.In the duchy of Tira Virte works of art are not only valued for their beauty, but are used in lieu of written legal documents for treaties, wills, marriages, etc. One family of painters, the Grijalvas, have the secret of using magic to alter the reality that they depict in their paintings. The Gifted Limners (all male, with one exception) who have this power use their own body fluids to activate the spells, so they age and die very quickly, and are sterile. The Grijalvas also have to endure popular prejudice and religious discrimination because are descendants of Tza'ab bandits who raped Tira Virtean noblewomen. As well, they have to put up with the machinations of their rival family, the Serranos. Still, the Gifted Limners use their skills to bring peace and prosperity to Tira Virte and to support the rule of the do'Verrada ducal family. Then one young Limner, Sario Grijalva, obsessed with finding out how the magic works after seeing another family member disciplined by it, learns secrets hidden even from the leaders of the Grijalva family from an ancient Tza'ab mystic, whom he murders. Using his extraordinary artistic talent and his new powers he not only imprisons his adored cousin Saavedra in a portrait in a fit of jealous rage, but also steals the bodies of the most talented Gifted Limners of the next 360 years. Despite his powers, he is constrained by both his need to keep his identities secret and by the quirks of fate. Over this time Sario also tries to use his talents to control Tira Virtean politics. First he becomes involved in the marital warfare between a saintly Duchess and her husband, who remains loyal to his mistress (not coincidentally, the mother of a brilliant Limner whose body Sario wants to steal), and then attempts to thwart a democratic revolution by painting a dead princess back to life. After all this time, will a prodigiously talented but magically un-Gifted young painter be able to finally thwart Sario's schemes and free Saavedra?Rawn, Roberson and Elliott create not only a large cast of unforgettable characters and an extraordinarily intelligent and perhaps unique magic system (based on floral symbolism), but an entirely believable society rich in detail from the grand sweep of history to the subt

Melanie Rawn, Jennifer Roberson, and Kate Elliott collaborate here to create a novel that is very hard to put down--despite its formidable length and flattish characters. What drew me in was the carefully designed world, the totally believable magic, the overall mood, and the centuries-spanning plot. This novel is set in Tirra Virte, an Italy-ish province where all official ceremonies and transactions are recorded not with words but with paintings. I thoight for a moment--"Hey! That can't be reliable! The artist can paint something that didn't really happen!" But then it made me realize just how unreliable words, too, can be. A scribe can write lies as easily as an artist can paint them. This art-centered world, of course, requires artists. This novel follows the rising and falling fortunes of one family of artists, the Grijalvas, who are almost indisputably the best artists in Tirra Virte. However, they are also decimated by a past plague, feared for their reputed sorcery, and shunned for carrying the blood of foreign rapists in their veins. A young Grijalva boy wants nothing so much as to be acknowledged "Gifted", an heir to the Grijalvas' genetic talents, but the art and magic come with a terrible price.WARNING: possible SPOILERSThe book is divided into three sections, taking place in three different time periods. The sections are different enough in tone and style that I suspect each author wrote a section mostly by herself, with little collaboration except in world-building. However, I'm not familiar enough with the authors to guess who wrote what.The first section is my personal favorite because of its brooding and menacing mood. Two Grijalva children, the male Sario and the female Saavedra, witness a terrible punishment meted out by the family elders, and come to realize what Grijalva power really means. The two grow to adulthood--Sario becoming an acclaimed artist and lusting for more and more power, and Saavedra's skills ignored because she is a woman. When Saavedra finds love outside the family, passion and jealousy erupt, and a terrible magic is performed upon her...The second section is more of a romance, featuring a beautiful, naive, and Generically Nice princess who marries into Tirra Verteian nobility, only to be cruelly rejected in favor of her husband's Grijalva mistress. Princess Mechella does her best to make a happy life for herself despite all of this. I do like the fact that she eventually grew a spine, but I don't like the fact that the "happy ending" to this second story took place with absolutely no action by Mechella. She never even knew half of what was going on. Sigh...The third section is a story of liberty. The lower classes of Tirra Virte are in revolt. At the same time a young Grijalva woman, groomed to be a compliant daughter and an acquiescent royal mistress, sets out to make her life and art her own. And it is she who notices something strange about the portrait of Saavedra which hangs in

I'm quite a big fan of Melanie Rawn, and after reading the first two Exiles books, I picked this one up. It is superb, a true epic which has a cast of thousands (well not quite) but still portrays each one brilliantly. No character is totally good or evil - they are all shades of grey (something which is missing from the Exiles books) - combine that with one of the best fantasy endings ever, and you get an awe-inspiring novel. Defintely the best Rawn book, and infinitely more envolving than the entertaining and oft-mentioned Exiles books.

I almost forgot I'd read this book, but reading these reviews brings it all back. This was such an amazing novel that I still can't quite believe how good it was. I've rarely come across such complex and realistic worldbuilding, or character definition, or plot complexity and reality. Sario and Saavedra, as well as certain of the others, will always be etched in my consciousness, but I think even more deeply I will carry the conjured memories of Grijalva art. I think these three brilliant women touched on something very true in this book when they limited their magic theme to the magic of art. I don't really believe in spells and magicians etc but I definately believe that the creative font of humanity if magical, and the more people that realise that the better.For those who found the alternate European world entrancing, I recommend Guy Gavriel Kay's books. While best known for his Fionavar Tapestry, his stand alone novels are his best work. These are set largely in alternate Europes - Spain at the end of the Moorish tenure, France on the eve of the Albigensian crusade, Italy at the close of the Renaissance, and Byzantium in its heyday are some of the realities he takes and creates something new and amazing from. Additionally, those fascinated by the artistic focus in Golden Key may be fascinated by the role that music and poetry play in Kay's novels. The religion query of another reviewer bought to mind Tad William's Memory Sorrow and Thorn trilogy, but the religion in that series was never so emphatic as in Golden Key. Any responses to this review are welcome!