Ciara’s Song - Discussion

[Marron4Gateau]

https://www.tor.com/2022/02/28/missing-t...aras-song/

[Taliesin]

I don't always read Judith's blog posts, but I read yesterday's and disagree with her. I love Ciara's Song, which was really written by Lyn McConchie. The biggest reason? The development of the characters. I like the Witch World series, but much of the time Norton's characters seem rather flat. Ciara and her family seem more like real people, with real issues. They actually show emotion and love. I think most of the Witch World books lack that. Lots of things happen to the characters, and at the end of the story, BAM! Two of the characters are now a couple. Simon and Jaelithe work well together, but there really seems to be no romance there. All of a sudden they're married.

End of poorly written rant.
Mike

[Michael]

I would agree that most of the WW books lack real emotional expression. They're not really love stories. It's hard to place them in any kind of niche, in my opinion. They're historical narratives that - in most of the books I read - tried to fill in the gaps. Andre sort of wound up on a treadmill of trying to please fans like me who fell in love with the world (sometimes also the characters).

We wanted more of the Witch World, and sometimes more of certain characters. So books like Gryphon's Eyrie were written more to provide follow up to reader requests than to continue any real character journey.

For me, The Jargoon Pard was an amazing story. But I didn't really feel much for the relationship between Kethan and Aylinn so much as I wanted to know more about the politics of Arvon. Of course, I'm just one reader, but I remember a friend of mine - who was quite close to Andre - telling me that Andre struggled to keep up with the demand for WW stories. That was one of the 2 primary reasons she opened up the world to other authors (the other primary reason being that she wanted to help women writers, who struggled to compete with male writers for A-list opportunities in science fiction and fantasy).

[Jerrie]

_Ciara's Song_ is one of my favorites among the Norton collaborations.  There's so much depth, of character, background, world-building, relationships.  The sheer wonder of exploring new [and dangerous] worlds and finding friends and allies there, the truly alien points of view, are a quintessence of Norton to me.

Jerrie

[Marron4Gateau]

_Ciara's Song_ is one of my favorites among the Norton collaborations.  There's so much depth, of character, background, world-building, relationships.  The sheer wonder of exploring new [and dangerous] worlds and finding friends and allies there, the truly alien points of view, are a quintessence of Norton to me.

Jerrie

Sadly, it doesn’t fit the established timeline of events Andre laid out in her novels. The Turning took place 24 years after The Horning as mentioned in Three Against the Witch World. Ciara’s Song stretches that to 48 years, a huge, glaring error which really pulled me out of investing in the story, sadly. And the ending where Neevor is the one to welcome her to the Valley of Green Silences…! (He’s from Arvon.) Bizarre. For the rest, I was intrigued at the politics and history of Karsten which she fleshed out and thought that was rather well done.