I just got done reading a book called Talyn. It's written Holly Lisle, and judging by its contents, I'd say its genre is high fantasy. Interstingly enough, though, romance is an important part of it's plot. So I'd say, now that I think about it, that the genre is really more like high fantasy romance.
Alright, let's give a rough idea of what the book's about. It's about a young woman named Talyn. Talyn is a Shielder for the Confederate Forces of Hyre. They're at war with the Eastil Republic, which is at war with the Confederacy. At first, I really couldn't help myself from thinking that this was essentially an analogy for the American Civil War.
I mean, let's look at a rough description of the Eastil Republic and the Confederacy. The Confederacy is a series of taaks, which amount to politically sovereign provinces that are unified by their religion, culture, and goal to defeat the Eastil Republic. The Eastil Republic, on the other hand, is a single, unified, Constitutional Monarchy. It has no unified religion or culture, but is driven entirely by political unity.
Then the Feegash, a diplomatic and merchant society start interfering with the conflict. They manufacture a peace that neither military wants, but everyday people in the societies laud as heroic. Talyn is out of a job. Gair, a kind of secondary main character from the Eastil Empire, gets captured and experiences horrible torture by the hands of Tonks (the name of Talyn's people).
Around that time, Talyn gets romantically involved with a Feegash named Skirmig. Things seem almost too good to be true, but then the writer begins to make things seem a bit off. Talyn's thoughts become incoherent, which was obviously the author's deliberate intention.
Skirmig teaches Talyn some sort of special Magic she's never heard of before, and she gains an odd, sympathetic connection to Gair, who she only met once before, and eventually rescues from torture in prison. She nurses him back to health with the help of Snow Grell, another Eastil warrior, and Idrann, a local healer, against her better judgment and the wishes of her taak, which happens to be Beyltaak.
The Feegash peace turns out to be a sham, a hoax set up for the purposes of conquering the Confederacy and the Eastil Republic. Skirmig has some very real involvement in this. From this point on, the book becomes about Talyn's conflict of interest between her being a Tonk and wanting to be loyal to her ways, and her associating with non-Tonks such as Gair, who, after being nursed back to health, fought alongside her out of necessity, a sense of duty, and an overall concept of honor.
Now, I'm done detailing the plot for the time being, but let's talk about some of the parts of this book that just got under my skin.
First of all, there were certain things in this that were just terribly convenient. Convenient to a point that suspension of disbelief became utterly impossible. Like the time when Gair was magically turned from a thin, frail man, into a muscular he-man with magic and nobody noticed, or the time when Caavtaak, part of the rabidly xenophobic Tonk Confederacy--which, by the way, the author strongly stressed--not only accepted Talyn with her Eastil buddy into their fold as members of their military, but required Talyn to not sell Gair (her Eastil buddy) out into POW status as an unspoken test of her loyalty and honor.
There was also a lot of "I love him oh so much" and other bullshit melodrama going on here. It was kind of gross. I mean, I get that I described the genre as truly high fantasy romance, but it still just was more boring for me than most of it. Much of it wasn't even truly romantic to me, it was just shallow. I mean, like Twilight shallow, where she wrote four or five pages about how muscular and manly Gair was, or how, after a certain point in the story, Talyn started fainting from stress every time she used her super special magic, and Gair would hover around her, tenderly easing her back into comfort where they'd spend the night cuddling without sex. This happened over and over again in the book.
Now for a few things I really did like about Talyn.
I actually really liked how most of the book was written from the first person perspective, in Talyn's perspective. Part of this is because all of Skirmig's megalomaniachal magic really did amount to extreme sadomasochism, collectivism taken to a perverse extreme, and general mind games. It was actually a very interesting writing style to see Talyn clearly thinking one thing in a paragraph, and then in the next paragraph, without any warning from the writer, she just starts going off in the completely opposite direction like it was nothing.
On some level, I also liked Talyn's genuine internal conflict between remaining true to her Tonk religion and culture, while being compelled by circumstance to conspire with what she grew up thinking was her worst enemy. The fact that she was a bit flaky and fickle in some regards made the character human, rather than just another Mary Sue. Granted, Talyn did have some truly spectacular, over the top magical abilities that nobody else had, but that can be forgiven because she's the main fucking character.
On a one to five scale, I'd say this book is a three, meaning it's definitely worth reading, but not going to go down as one of my favorite books.
I'm not sure what book I should read next. Leave suggestions in the reply section below. If any of your suggestions appeal to me, or I get many requests for a single book, I'll read it.
Hi Macai
I read book Talyn it really nice book. Holly Lisle is good book right i never miss to read her novels. Her new books THE SILVER DOOR or Light Through Fog also nice. U must read it.
That was a very fantastic story I have ever read in our school library. Through him she discovers darkness within herself she’d never suspected and the mistreatment of prisoners of war, the creeping blackness sneaking through her land, the insidious evil that no one even suspected their peacekeepers of bringing. Now, she must weigh her life against her honor if she is to help her people regain their freedom.
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