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Reviewer Rating: * * *
Title:
Children of the Grove
Category: Fantasy Fiction
Author: Robert Halmo
Publisher:
1stBooks Publishing
ISBN: 0-75962-316-3
Release Date: Available Now
Robert Halmo's lush depiction of place immediately puts the reader
into a fantasy world where spring is forever. In the forays by the
brothers into the "real world" of winter
snows and suffering, Halmo gradually draws us out of the
peace of that mystical Garden of Eden.
"Trees sprouted like the masts of sailing ships dusted by
starlight."
Fear for the boys is never an issue, they are magical. But
the landscape and the inhabitants of the world outside
drive us further into this fantasy land.
"Long white hair trailed onto his shoulders like the
strands of morning falling across a darkened land."
The birth of two babies to Ruisme who is an ashterim, the
Lady of the Grove is attended by the magical inhabitants of this
world. Unexpectedly these babies are human, brought forth from the trunk
of a tree by their mother, Ruisme.
The story develops around the two boys, Eri and Nithell,
their training and growth until they began to explore outside the grove
on their own. Eri seemed to have been
born with magical powers that his brother didn’t posses.
But after his mother gives Nithell a stone on the day of
his bonding rite, he seems to develop magical powers not
explored in this novel.
Their mother, Ruisme, takes the forces of evil that are
attacking the Grove, wraps herself in them, and disappears. The boys are
taken to a nearby city and this novel ends.
Called Book One of Lords of Darkness, Lords of Light, the ending
promises more to come.
I wished the story had been told all at once with less time
spent waiting for the boys to grow up. In spite of the
abundant poetic metaphors and similes, reading the first
two-thirds of this book was like wading on the bottom of an ocean. The
obvious love of words slathered over the
simplest emotions throwing a blanket of vagueness over
everything. And this was a very minor character in the
beginning of the book. I ask you, is it perhaps
overwritten?
"After a time, the wizard’s mind began to reassert its
control. He forced himself to draw upon whatever powers of reason
he could summon amid such overwhelming emotion."
Copyright © 2002 by Mary E. Dana
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