Talyn by Holly Lisle

Alright folks, you are fortunate enough to be the recipients of my first ever online book review (you lucky bastards!) As you may know, I was recently received an Advanced Reader Copy of Holly Lisle's forthcoming novel "Talyn" which means I am one of the first folks around to get to read it (a very cool thing!) and I thought I'd let you all know what I thought about it (I hope Holly doesn't mind - I won't include any spoilers here).

I always feel the best way to judge a book is on its "Put-It-Down" factor. This is my measure of how friggin late at night you stay up to read the book before your eyes and brain just plain give out. If a book is good, I'm willing to stay up till about midnight (okay, I'm an old fart . . . deal with it!) if it's exceptional I'll push beyond. I started reading "Talyn" on Friday night, about 8:00 p.m. I figured it would be nice fill in for the holiday weekend. The plan was to read till about 10:00 or so, then head to bed early because I had a very busy schedule on Saturday. Well, by the time 3:30 a.m. rolled around and my butt was still parked on the couch reading, the wife finally came out and dragged me off to bed because I had to be up at 6:30 a.m. The fact that I had no idea what time it was (the wife swears she told me at least four times to come to bed but I ain't buyin' it!) tells you all you need to know about the quality of writing here.

"Talyn" has a powerful edge to it. It is the kind of hard driving fantasy that is frightening in its believability and in the way it transports you to the book's setting. Holly plays brutally fair with all her characters -the good and the bad- and you get a remarkable level of understanding and sympathy for each of them. This is no "touchy-feely-everybody's-okay" sort of novel though. You know and understand the villains completely but that only serves to make them seem even more evil. (The only other writers I know who can work so well with such an edge Are L.E. Modessit and George Martin.) Holly is heartless when it comes to putting her characters through the wringer. The good guys never escape unscathed, their plans never work out as they hope and every action has a very real -and often unpleasant- consequence. Forgive the oxymoron, but "Talyn" is one of the most realistic fantasy novels I've ever read.

The writing is wonderful, the story powerful, but the most remarkable aspect of the book is the stunning cultural landscape Holly has painted it on. "Talyn" deals primarily with the Tonk, a quasi-tribal culture with a richly textured religious and social structure that has been at war with the neighboring Eastils for three hundred years. Holly has built a very detailed and touching society with the Tonks. The threat of extermination that hangs over them becomes poignant to the reader. You want desperately for them to survive and to do so in a way that won't mean losing their culture.

All in all, "Talyn" is a fantastic novel. How fantastic? Well, to give a small clue: I sat up AGAIN on Saturday night until 4:00 a.m. and finished it late Sunday night. (How's that for a recommendation, eh?) "Talyn" is one of the best novel's I've read in a very long time and I strongly recommend you go ahead and pre-order it now. About the only complaint I can lodge against this book is that it seems written as a stand-alone novel. I would very much like to see more of Talyn and Gair (Okay, so I'm a trilogy geek. What of it?) and I hope Holly thinks about continuing their story.

So there it is: my first review. Hope it wasn't too painful on y'all!

As for me, I was limited on the writing this weekend (I was too busy reading & doing the whole 4th of July BBQ/Beer thing!) but I did get some more work done on "Fish". I'm into the final scene and it's moving pretty well actually. I just have to stop thinking about plot so much and let the novel work itself out. The synopsis for GS is done and I'm ready to start sending out the queries to my prospective agents. I just need to get a better printer before I do so. The six year old Lexmark Inkjet just ain't gonna cut it, ya' know? It streaks, skips, and generally fades to grey whenever it damn well pleases. I also need to grab the 2005 Agents/Publishers guides from the bookstore (hopefully tonight!) I have a short list of agents I want to work with but I realize the chances of snagging one of them as a first time writer is slim, so I'll be sending queries to a reasonable number of others as well.

The weekend was good - much relaxation and family time. We were busy but it was all running to get to places/things we wanted to do. I needed that break. I feel recharged and ready to go at the writing (and the job too, though that is of much less importance of course!) full force. There should hopefully be much more progress than you've seen over the last month or so.

Later!