Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #115228 in Books
• Published on: 2006-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Customer Reviews

Flawed Hero.
I must confess I was looking forward to this book, perhaps a bit too much. It seemed an interesting premise of magic users working as pairs (Shield and Source) to act as a type of preternatural disaster fighting duo. And to be fair, it is competently written and does deliver on plot in a faux-Victorian setting, if rather plodding at times with some moments of light humour thrown about. What I found lacking was the rather cardboard characters. The heroine's special skill seems to be glibly ignoring all sense of personal danger whilst the eponymous hero, seems to be drawn directly from 2-D misunderstood types R'us. As there is a sequel to this, perhaps the characterisation might be improved upon by the author.

If only for the sake of balance...
Apparently unlike the rest of the reviewers I found this book dull and predictable.

The idea for the Sources and Shields was undeniably interesting and even the obviously stereotypical beginning sounded like a fun read.

The plot just seemed too obvious, and the characters. Every scenario was reacted to exactly how you would expect. The interesting plot points were quickly discarded, the scenes seemed almost random.

Despite much of this the story carried just enough that I bought the sequel.
Advice: Never read a book to find out how the story ends, you will only be tormented with endless annoying sequels.

Much better than the title suggests
The title of this book was a little offputting, as was the cover art, but it was actually a very enjoyable read. It's rare to start a fantasy that seems to have such an original plot and whose characters are quite unformed and young but who grow up rapidly during the events of the book.

The heroine, Dunleavy Mallorough, is a Shield. This is someone with a supernatural ability to help those people who are Sources and who are able to direct the weather and reduce natural disasters on the planet on which they live. However Shields and Sources bond to each other as a once-in-a-lifetime bond and to ensure that Shields don't bond to the wrong people they are kept entirely separate their entire youth. Dunleavy has been at the Shield academy since she was four years old and as the book starts she is twenty one years old and about to attend a bonding ceremony where she might, if she's lucky, find the Source with whom she will bond. This bonding is by no means all good, however; once bonded if one of the pair dies then the other also dies. Lee is also unsure about being bonded to several of the possibilities; there are some good men and women who are sources, and there are two in the line-up that she would like, but there are also some bad ones - Creol who has a reputation as a rapist and generally unpleasant man and Lord Shintaro Karish whose womanising ways and general notoriety overcome his physical appeal and charm to Lee.

Of course Lee ends up stuck with Shintaro and they get sent almost immediately to the town of High Scape, a town that needs a great deal of Source and Shield Pairs to keep it safe. But almost as soon as they arrive they discover something dangerous in the offing which kills several of the Pairs. Lee and Karish's lack of harmony in their pairing doesn't help, especially when Karish is attacked and then abducted. Can Lee do anything to find him? She is so young and their pairing is so untested, can they make any difference against the evil that she begins to sense.

There were some moments in this book when the pacing was a little off but generally it was a very enjoyable read. There are some lovely touches, such as Lee's susceptibility to music, and there's a very, very small romance in the story, but most of the attention is on the lives of Lee as a Shield, the evil they work against, but also the evils of the Shield and Source training system. I enjoyed the story very much and have already ordered the follow-up which continues the stories of Lee and Karish.