I bought The Complete Morgaine omnibus by C.J. Cherryh a while ago, and while I would usually just review the entire thing, I figured each of the four books it contained merited a review. So that’s why I’m reviewing all of them separately. Well of Shiuan is the second book in the saga.
Plot:
Jherun knew her world, Shiuan, was doomed to be overtaken by the dark waters that rose every Hnoth eventually. The Gates of Shiuan were once ruled by kings, but they were long gone, and only their descendants still lived. They still lived, knowing that their world would one day drown. None knew how to use the Gates now, their sole means of escape if ever there was one. None but Morgaine, who’d come to her Shiuan to seal them
Opinion:
This novel almost immediately starts where the last one ended; Morgaine and Vanye on Chya Roh’s heels, landing on a different world than their own. But for the first few chapters, we’re not seeing things from Vanye’s perspective, but from Mija Jherun’s. And it is a bleak POV. In fact, this entire book is very bleak, though with tension strung throughout.
Through Jherun’s eyes we see just how desolate Shiuan has become, and how much gets claimed by the water every Hnoth. Stretches of land that were there a year ago are now completely submerged and the places where people can actually live and thrive are few. Jherun is a Barrow-dweller, and her future is nothing to write home about. She can look forward to a life of threatening water, abusive cousins–one of whom wants her for a wife–and a lifetime of being shunned by those who think her mad, or a witch. She longs to leave, but knows she’ll be hunted down by her family if she tries.
The world we’re introduced to isn’t one on which the reader, or the characters, want to stay. In this book you also get more of a sense of Morgaine’s ruthlessness, her single-mindedness, and the fact that she doesn’t care who she has to sacrifice to get things done: to get to her mortal enemy who has stolen Chya Roh’s body for himself, and to close the Gates. Even though the Gates, or Wells as the people of Shiuan call them, are the only hope of those of this world, Morgaine is determined to close them. After all, who knows what other world lays at the other end of the Gate, and can she inflict the entirety of Shiuan’s people on it?
There’s a distance between Morgaine and Vanye, that wasn’t there before, which means they both distrust each other more. It also means Vanye is more and more unsure of who, and what, Morgaine truly is. And yet he stays loyal, because what other choice does he have? To leave her to her momentous task all by herself?
Rating:
9.5/10
Whistling In The Dark 