SFF Author: Meredith Ann Pierce

The Darkangel by Meredith Ann Pierce

I picked up The Darkangel the first time at my school library when I was 13 and I stayed up past three in the morning trying to finish it; It was that captivating. It has all the components of a fairytale, and yet is worked into a fantasy novel that includes vampires, gargoyles and other strange and macabre creatures.

Don’t be put off by the word ‘vampire’ though; this book isn’t yet another vampire book of that most over-used genre,

A Gathering of Gargoyles by Meredith Ann Pierce

A Gathering of Gargoyles is the second of Meredith Ann Pierce‘s Darkangel trilogy, beginning with The Dark Angel and culminating in The Pearl of the Soul of the World, which together create one of the most beautifully crafted and presented stories that I have ever come across. As told in The Darkangel, the story is of Aerial, a simple slave in a wealthy household whose mistress Eoduin was captured by one of the dreaded winged vampyres,

The Pearl of the Soul of the World by Meredith Ann Pierce

As the last installment of the Darkangel trilogy, The Pearl of the Soul of the World had a lot to live up to, as well as a lot to wrap up. In the first book The Darkangel, slavegirl Aerial saved the darkangel Irrylath from the misery of his own existence under the power of the White Witch and returned him to his mother’s house. In A Gathering of Gargoyles she undertook another task,

Birth of the Firebringer by Meredith Ann Pierce

Meredith Ann Pierce is best known for her wonderful Darkangel trilogy, which sadly is not as renowned as it deserves to be. Even lesser known is Pierce’s Firebringer trilogy, based on stories she wrote and dreams she experienced as a young child, which chronicle the lives and adventures of a tribe of unicorns exiled from their home.

Legend tells of how the unicorns were driven out from their Hallow Hills by the serpentine wyverns, who by trickery,

Dark Moon by Meredith Ann Pierce

Ever notice how the second parts of trilogies are often the weakest? This is not always the case, but it often happens in both books and movies, and it definitely occurs here. Dark Moon is the second part of The Firebringer trilogy, which began with the fascinating Birth of the Firebringer and ending with the explosive The Son of Summer Stars. But smack dab in the middle is Dark Moon,

The Son of Summer Stars by Meredith Ann Pierce

In the last book in the Firebringer trilogy, we finally come to the event that the two previous books have been steadily building toward: the retaking of the unicorns’ ancestral home from the treacherous wyverns. As the prophesied ‘Firebringer’, Prince Alijan is looked to as the means of regaining their Hallow Hills and Jan is certainly up to the challenge. Having finally made peace with the marauding gryphons, and finding happiness in his beloved Tek and their twin children, Jan has readied his tribe to march out to their homelands and do battle.