2 Thumbs Up!
~from Pam and Shan
Steph's Review:
I picked this up because I needed something to read over my lunchbreak. I wasn't expecting much--lately all the epic fantasy stuff I've found tends to be either pedestrian and cliched or monstrously complex and spread over many volumes. Let's just say the book followed me back from lunch onto the subway, and was read intently for several hours before I turned the last page. The snow cast setting was immediately accessible and stunningly described. The main characters came to life as natural elements in the setting. The story wove skillfully from first page to last. This volume is actually made up of three stories, each about 150 pages long. The three tales tell the ongoing story of our band of heroes, but each is complete unto itself. I believe they were orginally published in Britain as three separate volumes: The Snow-walker's Son, The Empty Hand, and The Soul Thieves.
Gudrun, a strange and sorcerous woman of great power and cruelty, has one weakness. That weakness is her son, Kari. Almost no one has seen Kari since he was born, and rumors abound that he is some sort of monster. Exiled to a far northern fortress of Thrasirshall, he has been alone but for his guardian for years while Gudrun and her chieftan husband have tyrannized the people. Now two young people are sent to join Kari in his exile--Jessa and Thorkil. Will they meet a monster? An enemy? Or perhaps . . . a new ally against Gudrun? In this first book we meet a delightful cast of characters, some more developed than others. Most notable among them is Jessa, our young protagonist equipped with enough courage and wisdom to survive her adventures and see the truth and Kari, the Snow-walker's son, the strange being with a powerful and fearful inheritance he doesn't want and can't avoid. Note to readers, I'll outline briefly the plots two and three below, so be aware there will be mild spoilers.
Book two continues our story of Jarlshold. While Gudrun has been defeated, she is not gone, nor has she forgotten Jarlshold. A mysterious creature has arrived in the land, a creature of sorcery and hunger that kills without mercy. Rumors of distrust and betrayal run rampant as people begin to look at Kari with fear and suspicion--is he the one who has created this creature? It's going to take Kari's friends banding together with the help of a young man called Hakon the Empty Handed, to set things right in the hold. In Book three, Gudrun makes good on her threat to steal from the Jarl the thing he loves most, now Kari and his friends must journey beyond the edge of the world to Gudrun's hall in order to end Gudrun's sorcery once and for all.
It is through Jessa's eyes that we see a good portion of this story. She's a delightful character, confident, plenty of courage, and not at all conflicted about her role or who she is. While fantasy stories where the girls are working hard to be considered as good or better than boys are enjoyable in their own right, it's nice to read one where the girl in question has no doubt where she stands and neither do the men who befriend her. But, this isn't really Jessa's story. It's Kari's. Kari is the strange and sorcerous figure cursed with power and constantly having to face the price of that power. That said, these tales are not in-depth character studies, but adventure tales, full of action and event. Ms. Fisher's confident and elegant writing style never falters, providing an icily beautiful backdrop for her story. This is a tale that pulls strongly on the Norse legends and sagas without allowing them to overtake the plot. There are shades of Beowulf here as well--it was no surprise to find that the chapter opening quotes for book 2 are taken from Beowulf. The chapter openings for books 1 and 3 come from a collection of Norse Poems. Ms. Fisher has true grasp of her mythos and setting for this set of tales--the society is that of the holds and halls of Beowulf. It breaks the story out of the rather tired medieval mode with its more familiar kings and dragons and knights in armor. Given all this, it's a light read--with the books themselves only about 150 pages, no story can cover too much ground. The telling is tight and swift and definitely page-turning. The author never forgets to call in the setting at hand, and while the characters don't have the depth a longer story might call for, they aren't one-dimensional chess pieces either. The amount of graphic violence is pretty light considering the story--it's more concerned with the sorcerous struggle than any sort of warfare. I'd say this book would be appropriate for young teens and older readers, particularly those who enjoy fantasy adventure and may be looking for something new to whet their appetites.
This may not be for readers who prefer a more Harry Potter style school story fantasy, but for epic fantasy readers it should be a good fit. Those who enjoy this will probably also like the Underland Chronicles by Suzanne Collins and may also want to check out Goose Girl by Sharon Hale.
I picked this up because I needed something to read over my lunchbreak. I wasn't expecting much--lately all the epic fantasy stuff I've found tends to be either pedestrian and cliched or monstrously complex and spread over many volumes. Let's just say the book followed me back from lunch onto the subway, and was read intently for several hours before I turned the last page. The snow cast setting was immediately accessible and stunningly described. The main characters came to life as natural elements in the setting. The story wove skillfully from first page to last. This volume is actually made up of three stories, each about 150 pages long. The three tales tell the ongoing story of our band of heroes, but each is complete unto itself. I believe they were orginally published in Britain as three separate volumes: The Snow-walker's Son, The Empty Hand, and The Soul Thieves.
Gudrun, a strange and sorcerous woman of great power and cruelty, has one weakness. That weakness is her son, Kari. Almost no one has seen Kari since he was born, and rumors abound that he is some sort of monster. Exiled to a far northern fortress of Thrasirshall, he has been alone but for his guardian for years while Gudrun and her chieftan husband have tyrannized the people. Now two young people are sent to join Kari in his exile--Jessa and Thorkil. Will they meet a monster? An enemy? Or perhaps . . . a new ally against Gudrun? In this first book we meet a delightful cast of characters, some more developed than others. Most notable among them is Jessa, our young protagonist equipped with enough courage and wisdom to survive her adventures and see the truth and Kari, the Snow-walker's son, the strange being with a powerful and fearful inheritance he doesn't want and can't avoid. Note to readers, I'll outline briefly the plots two and three below, so be aware there will be mild spoilers.
Book two continues our story of Jarlshold. While Gudrun has been defeated, she is not gone, nor has she forgotten Jarlshold. A mysterious creature has arrived in the land, a creature of sorcery and hunger that kills without mercy. Rumors of distrust and betrayal run rampant as people begin to look at Kari with fear and suspicion--is he the one who has created this creature? It's going to take Kari's friends banding together with the help of a young man called Hakon the Empty Handed, to set things right in the hold. In Book three, Gudrun makes good on her threat to steal from the Jarl the thing he loves most, now Kari and his friends must journey beyond the edge of the world to Gudrun's hall in order to end Gudrun's sorcery once and for all.
It is through Jessa's eyes that we see a good portion of this story. She's a delightful character, confident, plenty of courage, and not at all conflicted about her role or who she is. While fantasy stories where the girls are working hard to be considered as good or better than boys are enjoyable in their own right, it's nice to read one where the girl in question has no doubt where she stands and neither do the men who befriend her. But, this isn't really Jessa's story. It's Kari's. Kari is the strange and sorcerous figure cursed with power and constantly having to face the price of that power. That said, these tales are not in-depth character studies, but adventure tales, full of action and event. Ms. Fisher's confident and elegant writing style never falters, providing an icily beautiful backdrop for her story. This is a tale that pulls strongly on the Norse legends and sagas without allowing them to overtake the plot. There are shades of Beowulf here as well--it was no surprise to find that the chapter opening quotes for book 2 are taken from Beowulf. The chapter openings for books 1 and 3 come from a collection of Norse Poems. Ms. Fisher has true grasp of her mythos and setting for this set of tales--the society is that of the holds and halls of Beowulf. It breaks the story out of the rather tired medieval mode with its more familiar kings and dragons and knights in armor. Given all this, it's a light read--with the books themselves only about 150 pages, no story can cover too much ground. The telling is tight and swift and definitely page-turning. The author never forgets to call in the setting at hand, and while the characters don't have the depth a longer story might call for, they aren't one-dimensional chess pieces either. The amount of graphic violence is pretty light considering the story--it's more concerned with the sorcerous struggle than any sort of warfare. I'd say this book would be appropriate for young teens and older readers, particularly those who enjoy fantasy adventure and may be looking for something new to whet their appetites.
This may not be for readers who prefer a more Harry Potter style school story fantasy, but for epic fantasy readers it should be a good fit. Those who enjoy this will probably also like the Underland Chronicles by Suzanne Collins and may also want to check out Goose Girl by Sharon Hale.
Happy Reading! ^_^ Shanshad
Snow-Walker
Accelerated Reading level : 4.3
- Paperback: 640 pages
- Publisher: Greenwillow Books (September 20, 2005)
- ISBN-10: 0060724765
- Look Inside
- amazon
Technical Stuff
Word Count: 125,211
Reading Level: 4.3
Interest Level: Middle-grades and YA
AR quiz: 111476
Lexile: 600L
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Snow-Walker reviewed by Pam
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