Product Description

Once there were three worlds, each with their own people. Then, fleeing out of the void, on the edge of extinction, came the Charon. And the balance changed for ever. With A SHADOW ON THE GLASS, Book One of A View from the Mirror, a major new fantasy epic begins. Karan, a sensitive with a troubled past, is forced to steal an ancient relic in payment for a debt. But she is not told that the relic is, in fact, the Mirror of Aachan, a twisted, deceitful thing that remembers everything it has seen. Llian, meanwhile, a brilliant chronicler, is expelled from his college for uncovering a perilous mystery.Thrown together by fate, Karan and Llian are hunted across a world at war, for the Mirror contains a secret of incredible power. More information on this book and others can be found on the Orbit website at www.orbitbooks.co.uk

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #90177 in Books
• Published on: 2000-05-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 608 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Magic pathways from world to world were a curse, making possible invasion and enslavement, and long ago those paths were closed leaving three worlds and the void between them a hopeless jumble of what had been and what is now. Ian Irvine's A Shadow on the Glass, first volume of his fantasy quartet "The View from the Mirror", takes us to one of those worlds and to two adventurers, a scholar and a psychic, who find themselves dragged into the conflicts of the mighty and the ambitious. Karan is blackmailed into helping steal a magic mirror, and finds herself on the run from warlords and warlocks; all that Llian wanted to do was find a great story to tell, and clarify some minor ambiguities in the archives of the college of storytellers--but he finds himself expelled and ostracised, and accompanying Karan on her breakneck journeys on high barrens and treacherous rivers. What Irvine brings to the mix is a sense of irony and some intelligent observation of character: Llian and Karan are not your average squeaky clean hero and heroine, and their opponents are hardly villainous, just people acting out the planned treacheries that seemed like a good idea. --Roz Kaveney

Review
'Irvine has built a history and wonderful culture for his vivid world. His first novel vibrates with originality' THE WEST AUSTRALIAN 'The complex cultures, detailed geography, and the palpable weight of history provide a solid background to an intense story that ... becomes increasingly compelling. This stands out as a worldbuilding labour of love with some truly original touches' LOCUS

About the Author
Ian Irvine lives in the mountains of NSW, Australia. A SHADOW ON THE GLASS is his first novel.

Customer Reviews

A mind-blowing start to a disappointing series.
This was the very first Irvine book I ever read and to this day it remains one of my favorite books of all time. The characters are well developed and the plot is exceptionally involved. Unfortunately, some people may be put off as this book has a rather slow start, however, once it gets going you will not be able to put it down for hours! Irvine gives his characters huge scope and manages to develop all of them to a remarkable extent, while at the same time keeping the story going, unlike in so many other books when one comes at the expense of the other.
The story follows Lliam and Karan, the one a chronicler (a sort of poet/ scribe) the latter a poor landowner. Karan is coerced into stealing the mirror of the Archim, and there the story begins. Lliam is the archetypal anti-hero, while Karan is halfway in between. In this first book, the characters compliment each other well and, by the end of the book you will find yourself halfway to your local library or bookshop to read the next in the series.
If there is any criticism I would make, it is that Irvine advances his characters too much in this one book, and therefore is forced to make them regress back to what they were at the begining at the start of the second book. This makes the latter books in the series very dissapointing and almost as if they were in a different series. Therefore, while I would definitely advise you to read this book, I would also suggest that you think twice before buying any of the later books in the series, which are, at best, dissapointing.

Great Potential Wasted
The premise for the world is great, it has the "history" and soundly thought out base to back up what should have been a great novel. It is disappointing on almost every other level of being a story, however.

Plotline: would be good, but not all that much happens - I won't sum it up here, but it *can* be summarised in 3 sentences without missing much.

Narritive: there is, as someone else said, too much time spent on the "between the action" scenes - yet another example of a travel guide for a fantasy land. The author has "let's cover the whole map" syndrome as well.

Thought lines: the author doesn't seem to have grasped that sudden unexpected changes in the line of thought that he is writing is not appreciated by the reader - luckily this is only apparent at the start, he seems to have worked himself out of this annoying trait by the half-way mark.

Character point of view: most authors tell a story consistently from one character's point of view until they make a clear change (such as a blank line, new chapter, etc) to another point of view. This author will gardually shift from one to the next, giving the thoughts of one character in one paragraph and the thoughts of another in the next (and in one appalling case, two characters' thoughts in the same paragraph). This leads the reader to at first become confused after the switch and then, once they realise what has happened, they have been broken out of their immersement in the world. Poor style.

Introduction of modern words - oddities appear every now and then totally jarring with the theme that the author has worked so hard to immerse the reader in. It pulls the reader out and disturbs the reading experience.

Characters: mostly good development but occassional behavior seems out of place. I'd say that the characters are pretty average for this genre - nothing special.

All-in-all, it's an OK read - not bad enough to make me stop reading midway through - but given this four-book series, I'm not going to read anymore from this author.

Oh... an advance warning - the plotline for the second book is even worse. The ending of the second book is easy to guess once you've read about half of this book, the middle is obvious from the start of the second. Only the start of the second is unguessable.

Do you really want to waste your money buying four books that seem to get progressively worse? I'd not start. I would recommend to go to a bookshop, read the first chapter there and then to only buy this book if you *really* like that.

Good premise, but execution is dull
All the elements of a good start to a fantasy series are here: a well-thought out world, clever plot devices, and an easy-to-read writing style. But something just doesn't work. Usually in this type of novel, you'll find lots of dramatic, plot-advancing moments, separated by transition periods. This author, however, seems to focus endlessly on the transition periods. Long, long stretches of text where characters struggle across the wilderness waiting to be caught, or sit captive in enemy fortresses waiting for something to happen...the plot is good, but there just isn't enough of it in any given chapter to keep the attention. A pity, because I think the basic idea is excellent. Worth giving it a try, but not if something better is available.