Helpful Score: 2
delightfully written, like all of kushner's work. she makes great use of shifting first person viewpoints (hard to do). but she's uncertain with plot, and doesn't know where a story ends or how to end it.
Awesome fantasy! I read it cover to cover in an afternoon, couldn't put it down!
Kushner's Mythopoeic Fantasy Award-winning novel adapts the ballad of True Thomas into a wonderful medieval fantasy about an ambitious young bard who falls in love with a feisty village girl, but allows himself to be seduced by the elf queen. Forced to spend seven years in her kingdom, never speaking except in song, upon his return he finds a changed world... and bears the curious gift (or curse) of always speaking the truth. Can an artist always be truthful? Can any man?
Award-winning author and radio personality Ellen Kushners inspired retelling of an ancient legend weaves myth and magic into a vivid
contemporary novel about the mysteries of the human heart. Brimming with ballads, riddles, and magical transformations, here is the timeless tale of a charismatic bard whose talents earn him a two-edged otherworldly gift.
A minstrel lives by his words, his tunes, and sometimes by his lies. But when the bold and gifted young Thomas the Rhymer awakens the desire of the powerful Queen of Elfland, he finds that words are not enough to keep him from his fate. As the Queen sweeps him far from the people he has known and loved into her realm of magic, opulenceand captivityhe learns at last what it is to be truly human. When he returns to his home with the Queens parting gift, his great task will be to seek out the girl he loved and wronged, and offer her at last the tongue that cannot lie.
contemporary novel about the mysteries of the human heart. Brimming with ballads, riddles, and magical transformations, here is the timeless tale of a charismatic bard whose talents earn him a two-edged otherworldly gift.
A minstrel lives by his words, his tunes, and sometimes by his lies. But when the bold and gifted young Thomas the Rhymer awakens the desire of the powerful Queen of Elfland, he finds that words are not enough to keep him from his fate. As the Queen sweeps him far from the people he has known and loved into her realm of magic, opulenceand captivityhe learns at last what it is to be truly human. When he returns to his home with the Queens parting gift, his great task will be to seek out the girl he loved and wronged, and offer her at last the tongue that cannot lie.
"True Thomas lay on Huntlie bank,
A ferlie he spied wi' his ee,
And there he saw a lady bright
Come riding down the Eildon tree"
Abducted by the Queen of Elfland, True Thomas, the brilliant Rhymer, lives unaging with her in Faerie's inhuman splendor for years beyond count.
Finally, dazed with enchantment, Thomas is returned to the world of dirt and work and passing time. Tormented by his memories and desiring nothing but mortal life, he has only his harp and the Queen's parting gift: the inability to speak anything but the truth.
By the acclaimed author of Swordspoint, Thomas the Rhymer is a compelling tale of magic and mystery which will live in it's reader's hearts for years to come.
Pages: 247
A ferlie he spied wi' his ee,
And there he saw a lady bright
Come riding down the Eildon tree"
Abducted by the Queen of Elfland, True Thomas, the brilliant Rhymer, lives unaging with her in Faerie's inhuman splendor for years beyond count.
Finally, dazed with enchantment, Thomas is returned to the world of dirt and work and passing time. Tormented by his memories and desiring nothing but mortal life, he has only his harp and the Queen's parting gift: the inability to speak anything but the truth.
By the acclaimed author of Swordspoint, Thomas the Rhymer is a compelling tale of magic and mystery which will live in it's reader's hearts for years to come.
Pages: 247
