When a series of books have been described as "the best Australian fantasy novel" a reviewer has ever experienced there has to be a hint of "SO!" when reading. However the description would work easily as well if you drop the Australian. This series is by far one of the best Fantasy series I've ever read.
The storyline concerns Axis who is the leader of the Axe-Wielders , the military arm of the religious faction known as the Seneschal. The Seneschal are devoted to Artor the Plough God who preaches that trees are evil and thus the land of Tencendor has been swept clean of all but a handful of forests. As the storyline progresses we are introduced to the other races of Tencendor, the Avar and the Icarii who the Seneschal refer to as the Forbidden. Once the three races lived in peace now they are mortal enemies. Slowly Axis begins to see that things are not quite the way that he has been brought up to believe. Thus begins his exploration of his own and Tencendor's heritage.
Sara Douglass has a wonderful way with the English language and such a smooth style that the books are quite literally page turners. Just when you think you know where she is going with a plot lline she twists it into something else.
Descriptions of bllodshed and carnage are always vivid and often make you squirm and there are moments when you actually get a lump in your thoat at the sorrow and loss the characters must endure.
I really cannot recommend this series highly enough. If you've never read it you're missing a real treat.
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Sara was my medieval history lecturer at La Trobe university in Australia. Her lectures were as vivid as her writing (I had to leave and throw up in the middle of one particularly graphic one). I have always enjoyed her writing and know she loves to do it (she retired from lecturing to write a few years ago - much to the loss of the university community and the gain of the reading public). I agree with your review. It is a shame more people haven't rated it.
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