Product Description

When Wyl Thirsk, General of the Morgravian Legion, is forced to watch the torture of Myrren, a young woman accused of witchcraft, it seems little enough comfort to speed her passing. But Myrren is grateful for even this small mercy and promises Wyl a gift. He thanks her but dismisses the notion - what could this poor, doomed girl have to give him? It is only years later that Wyl, shorn of his friends and allies, betrayed by his king, and forced to make an impossible choice, remembers the dying words of the young woman about to burn for the crime of witchcraft. As his enemy's sword draws closer, Wyl finally understands the meaning of Myrren's dying words, and he wonders: had he known what that one act of kindness would bring, would he have behaved otherwise? Gripping the reader from the very first page, Myrren's Gift marks Fiona Mc Intosh as one of fantasy fiction's most gifted storytellers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #49019 in Books
• Published on: 2005-01-20
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 672 pages

Customer Reviews

Interesting idea, taken in non-interesting directions
I'd been toying with the idea of buying this for a while. The cover blurb was interesting, and I liked the cover. (So I'm shallow.)

I think the title of this review sums up my reaction to the book. McIntosh demonstrates several "first novel" problems -- poor to 1-dimensional characterisation; multiple confusing point-of-view shifts, often changing every paragraph (and no, it wasn't meant to be omniscient); info-dumping -- and these added up to marked lack of appreciation for her prose. Still, the story itself is quite interesting, even if some of the plot twists are telegraphed rather obviously. I do think it would be a better book were it edited severely, and marketed as a YA fantasy. For those of us fantasy addicts awaiting the newest Bakker or Erikson, "Myrren's Gift" is not enough to tide us over.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear
I'm always hesitant to start reading more fantasy, not least because a trilogy is now the minimum requirement and multiple trilogies are becoming standard. The potential for spreading thin plots even thinner is high. Nevertheless, I decided to try a few "Part One's" including Myrren's Gift. Definitely one of the worst books I've read for a long time - hackneyed fantasy stereotypes whose motives can't be explained by the author through narrative or dialogue so she just tells us "X is brave", "Y is evil", etc. Bad characterisation, bad writing, bad plot, bad structure. Bad, bad book.

The contrast with Greg Keyes' Kingdom of Thorn and Bone or George R R Martin's Song of Ice and Fire couldn't be more stark. There is good fantasy out there but Myrren's Gift isn't part of it.

Avoid at all costs
I liked its cover, I liked the blurb on the back, and I especially liked the author's thanks to Robin Hobb for her support. Well, I thought, if no lesser light than Ms. Hobb thinks Ms. McIntosh is worth supporting, then this must be good. More fool me. Without question, this is the worst book I have read in many a year. There is nothing to recommend in this book, and by the time I was a quarter of the way through I was skipping paragraphs, and then at the end whole pages. the only descriptions worth anything are of interior décor, and they are painfully twee in any case.

Added to that are the non-existent characters and the way her characters either discover boundless depths and qualities in each other that they can respect, or else fall in love with each other within five minutes of meeting, there is the plot that staggers from east to west, back again, then north, then south, then back east, the ridiculous politics, and the dizzying change of character viewpoints, often within the same chapter or even paragraph. For example, in Chapter 13, from the POV of a mercenary launching a sneak attack we lurch to the motives of the king who ordered it, and then lurch again to those defending against it. The 'Quickening' has a huge logical hole in it (i.e. how did Wyl remain Wyl when Myrren gave him the gift of it?) and the 'twist' at the end was visible a mile off. It was just a coin's toss whether Wyl would end up as Celimus (caricature of a one dimensional matinee villain) or the assassin. Really quite dreadful.