Douglass, Sara. The Wayfarer Redemption, Book one

Really good high fantasy with all the prerequisite elements is very hard to find. Tolkien spoiled Fantasy lovers with his remarkable benchmark and the other authors who did him justice like Eddings and Brooks are good but derivative. This Australian writer has given us a believable world, with deities, heroes, an intriguing prophecy, mysterious prophets (Sentinels), four myth-ridden races, and a main hero-to-die-for. The author's use of music as magic and the native American/aboriginal cultures which undergird the cultures of the "forbidden" is innovative and inspiring.

Douglass has written six in this series and they will all be released in the United States. The six books of the USA Wayfarer Redemption are sold in Australia as two separate trilogies: the first 3 books are contained in The Axis Trilogy (Battleaxe, Enchanter, Starman), the final 3 books in The Wayfarer Redemption Trilogy (Sinner, Pilgrim, Crusader). These 2 trilogies have been combined in the USA under the single title of The Wayfarer Redemption.. This first is really Battleaxe. I say they cannot come soon enough. The last author to capture my imagination so vividly and completely is Terry Goodkind with his Wizards First Rule, in The Sword of Truth series (Review). Douglass weaves a magically involved plot with enough mystery to hook the reader and answers the myriad questions being given in the nick of time. She also replaces one question with another, layering enigma over enigma.

The characters live and breathe as they figure out the lies from the truth. There are stereotypes but Douglass manages to shade the seemingly-hackneyed characters with hues that make many of the them pulse with their own individual rhythms. Axis and Faraday will intrigue the reader, just as the smug and reticent Sentinels will frustrate you. The evil is frightening, the good flawed, and the creatures in-between are combinations of brave, courageous, true, tenacious or mislead, diabolical and scheming.

Pick this book up, if you like Fantasy or just a good, long, well-told tale of intrigue, myth, and mystery with a bit of romance thrown in to make it real.

Leane M. Ellis, June 27, 2001.