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Julian May is well known for her epic fantasy novels and CONQUEROR'S MOON is the sub-title of book one in what appears to be a new series to be known as THE BOREAL MOON TALE. This new series revolves around four feudal domains with three of them owing allegiance to the fourth, Cathra. As expected there is political instability and fighting along the various borders is also relentless. Furthermore, Cathra is also constantly under attack from others including demonic woodland outlaws better known as Green Men. When the Sovereign King's younger son, who is also an apprentice alchemist, endeavours to help his older brother out of a an arranged marriage then a sequence of events occur that will lead to a disastrous civil war. This is a medieval fantasy tale and at the beginning we are given the impression that we will be reading the memoirs of a Cathran wizard. That wizard is Deveron Austrey who becomes known to all and sundry as Snudge. Snudge himself is unique, a one-time thief and now a spy, he has a wild magical talent, one which allows him to detect enemies spying on his prince and track them to where they are hiding. In the course of his duties he detects a spy who has a powerful tool, a stone that allows him to be invisible. This of course is a recipe for disaster. In CONQUEROR'S MOON we are presented with what seems to be standard fare of fantasy novels along with a system of magic where stones and crystals are their power base. Flanking this we also have characters that we can't (or at least I couldn't) be sympathetic towards with the possible exception of Snudge and even then it was struggle. The novel is dull and rather formulaic, but are nevertheless two unusual tracts, which do give it a unique twist. Firstly it is written in a way so that the reader is on the side of the aggressor, which is quite rare because as a rule the reader is on the side of those being attacked. And secondly it has a magical system, which calls for pain as a method of payment every time a piece of magic is learnt. Needless to say the stronger the piece of magic that you obtain then the more pain you have to put up with. However this is not sufficient enough to detract from the fact that the first few pages were a drag and had no spark in them, no hook to keep me reading. If there had been then it would have certainly encouraged me to continue reading it with a lot more enthusiasm. The author is bound to lose some potential readers who give up after reading the first few pages. As for me, even though I do not read all that many fantasy books, I was put off and will certainly not be reading book two. I found it a struggle to finish. This is certainly a book for dedicated readers of Julian May.
Reviewed by Ayo Onatade, October 2004
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