The Sunbird.
Jul. 9th, 2012 21:56![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starladyWein, Elizabeth E. The Sunbird. New York: Firebird Books, 2006. [2004]
I've really enjoyed the first two books in this sequence, but I told myself that I had to read this one before I could even think of reading Code Name Verity, Wein's newest and completely different novel that will hopefully get these ones some renewed attention and which I am told is fantastic.
The Sunbird, though, continues Wein's Aksumite Arthuriana sequence, which she is now calling The Lion Hunters, a few years after A Coalition of Lions left off, with the viewpoint switching to Telemakos, Medraut's son and Goewin's nephew. The Plague of Justinian, a pandemic that originated in China and struck most of Europe and Asia and that is now thought to have been a strain of Y. pestis known, appropriately enough, as Antiqua, is on the march, and to save Aksum Goewin proposes a quarantine. The only problem is that someone is found out to be breaking it, and Telemakos is, willingly, sent by Goewin and the emperor to find out whom.
This book is short but very intense, partly because Telemakos is taken captive almost immediately and tortured either actively or passively for a long time, and partly because - as the epigraphs from The Odyssey on each chapter indicate - this is the story of a broken family, the depths of whose injury we know only at the end, when Telemakos decides that his entire ordeal was worth it because in the end Medraut breaks his self-imposed silence and speaks to him. Goewin, too, uses Telemakos harder than she can bear, and as much as I enjoyed the relationship between the two of them - she is still, in some ways, very young, and so is Telemakos - I couldn't help but feel that her own self-judgment was not too harsh in the end. Wein handles all of these things very realistically, and again like Megan Whalen Turner she has a wonderful economy of prose that nonetheless manages to convey a lot of impact in a few very sparse words. I really liked the portrayal of Sofya and Esato and their relationship too, and I hope that we see more of Sofya in the next book.
I've really enjoyed the first two books in this sequence, but I told myself that I had to read this one before I could even think of reading Code Name Verity, Wein's newest and completely different novel that will hopefully get these ones some renewed attention and which I am told is fantastic.
The Sunbird, though, continues Wein's Aksumite Arthuriana sequence, which she is now calling The Lion Hunters, a few years after A Coalition of Lions left off, with the viewpoint switching to Telemakos, Medraut's son and Goewin's nephew. The Plague of Justinian, a pandemic that originated in China and struck most of Europe and Asia and that is now thought to have been a strain of Y. pestis known, appropriately enough, as Antiqua, is on the march, and to save Aksum Goewin proposes a quarantine. The only problem is that someone is found out to be breaking it, and Telemakos is, willingly, sent by Goewin and the emperor to find out whom.
This book is short but very intense, partly because Telemakos is taken captive almost immediately and tortured either actively or passively for a long time, and partly because - as the epigraphs from The Odyssey on each chapter indicate - this is the story of a broken family, the depths of whose injury we know only at the end, when Telemakos decides that his entire ordeal was worth it because in the end Medraut breaks his self-imposed silence and speaks to him. Goewin, too, uses Telemakos harder than she can bear, and as much as I enjoyed the relationship between the two of them - she is still, in some ways, very young, and so is Telemakos - I couldn't help but feel that her own self-judgment was not too harsh in the end. Wein handles all of these things very realistically, and again like Megan Whalen Turner she has a wonderful economy of prose that nonetheless manages to convey a lot of impact in a few very sparse words. I really liked the portrayal of Sofya and Esato and their relationship too, and I hope that we see more of Sofya in the next book.
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