SFF Author: Katharine Kerr

Daggerspell by Katharine Kerr

As a young man, Nevyn’s inability to choose starts a series of events that leads to the death of his betrothed, her brother, and another man. At his beloved’s grave he swears to never rest until he has righted the wrongs he caused. The gods accept his vow, and he is gifted with immortality until he has fulfilled his promise. Daggerspell follows Nevyn’s attempts to pay the debts he owes as the spirits of the three people to whom he is spiritually tied are born and reborn.

Dawnspell: The Bristling Wood by Katharine Kerr

Note: In the UK, this book is titled Dawnspell. In the US it is The Bristling Wood.

Dawnspell: The Bristling Wood is my favourite of the series so far! In this book the modern day plot follows Jill and Rhodry as they are forced apart by circumstance, and ends on a real cliffhanger where Rhodry vanishes, and it is up to Jill and Salamander to try and find him.

A Time of Exile by Katharine Kerr

A Time of Exile, the first book in the second Deverry quartet, opens a number of years after the events in Daggerspell. Rhodry is getting older, but his Westfolk genes have given him long life and people are starting to mutter dweomer when they look at him. He stages his own death so that he is able to slip away from his life in Aberwyn. He meets Jill again when he heads into the lands of the Westfolk,

Days of Air and Darkness (A Time of Justice) by Katharine Kerr

With Days of Air and Darkness / A Time of Justice, Katharine Kerr wraps up The Westlands Cycle. It is a fairly decent final book, bringing a number of ongoing stories together and finishing things decently. With that said, it felt a little soulless to me — with her first four books, Kerr made the characters come alive and I had a lot of interest in their doings. Gradually I am losing interest in Rhodry and co.

The Red Wyvern by Katharine Kerr

The Red Wyvern is the first book in a new cycle of novels set in Deverry by Katharine Kerr, and as such new readers can start out at this point. I would recommend vehemently, though, that they do not since a number of storylines from prior novels come together or are referenced in this novel.

For the first time we drift in time forwards rather than backwards, albeit for a short time, when we discover that Haen Marn is adrift in time as well as space.

The Black Raven by Katharine Kerr

The Black Raven is the second book in the Dragon Mage sequence of Deverry from Katharine Kerr. Once again, we spend the majority of the book in the past, exploring Lillorigga’s burgeoning dweomer power and her relationship to the various souls she is destined to encounter again when she becomes Niffa in the future. At the moment, it is fairly confusing trying to keep straight who is who in both the past and the current incarnations.

The Fire Dragon by Katharine Kerr

In The Fire Dragon we spend about half of our time in the past, concluding the storyline concerning Lillorigga, princess Bellyra, Maddyn the bard, and the prince Maryn. The second half of the book shifts the plot forwards concerning Rhodry, Dallandra, Niffa, Raena, and the dragon Arzosah.

In my opinion The Fire Dragon is by far the best book in the whole Deverry series. I was gripped throughout. Of necessity (considering the curse of the dweomer tablet),

The Gold Falcon by Katharine Kerr

With The Gold Falcon, Katharine Kerr is starting a new phase in the Deverry series. We move on fifty years or so from the climactic ending of The Fire Dragon, and times have changed. The Horsekin have started marauding the Deverry border, killing the men and enslaving the women. There is a fragile alliance between the Deverry folk, the Rhiddaer, and the West Folk (Kerr’s version of elves). And Alshandra’s repute as a goddess is growing,

The Spirit Stone by Katharine Kerr

The Spirit Stone is the fifth book in the Dragon Mage sequence by Katharine Kerr. The events in this book follow on directly from those in The Gold Falcon. The joint armies of Westfolk, Deverry men, and Mountain Folk are mustering in order to put Zakh Gral (the Horsekin fortress) to the sword. This time round we leave the stories of Branna and Neb, who remain behind at the dun. Instead Salamander and Dallandra come to the fore — dealing with a group of Gel da Thae who have been banished for using dweomer by those who follow Alshandra;

The Shadow Isle by Katherine Kerr

We’re finally reaching the end of the Deverry saga with The Shadow Isle, the penultimate book in the series. There is a sense of Katharine Kerr pulling together all those strands to finish off the series effectively, but some mysteries are still to be resolved. One thing I am glad of is that I don’t actually know what Kerr will do to finish the story — although the Horsekin are currently ‘evil’, there has been enough switching sides and distinctions made between Horsekin and Gel da Thae for us to realize that no one is outright evil and everybody can be redeemed.

The Silver Mage by Katharine Kerr

In The Silver Mage, the fifteenth book in the very long-running Deverry series, Katharine Kerr seeks to wrap up those last few plot points and bring the sequence to a resounding end.

Oh dear. I’ve followed this series faithfully, to the extent of doing a full re-read in preparation of the release of this final book, and I am more than disappointed with the way Kerr has finished things off.

This series has been limping along for a while,

License to Ensorcell by Katharine Kerr

Nola O’Grady is a psychic who works for a government agency that officially doesn’t exist. Her agency is called in when there’s a case involving the forces of Chaos – like the one that Israeli agent Ari Nathan is currently trying to solve for Interpol. Someone is murdering werewolves, and somehow traveling between the scenes of the crimes without being seen by any witnesses. Nola and Ari are thrown together on the case and soon learn that the victims all knew each other and that Nola’s late brother Patrick was murdered by the same culprit.

Water to Burn by Katharine Kerr

Katharine Kerr’s License to Ensorcell was an uneven but unique entry into the urban fantasy subgenre. It began as an interesting paranormal whodunit with some annoying acronyms, then took a sharp turn and became a story of alternate universes (also known here as deviant world levels). The addition of the alternate-universe material made License to Ensorcell more original than many of its peers and introduced a poignant subplot involving the heroine’s teenage brother, but also made the mystery make less sense.