Volkhavaar by Tanith Lee
Pages 192
Year 1977
I really loved Tanith's Lee novel. First of all it's a fantasy/romance kind of novel. We follow two characters - Volk the evil sorcerer and Shaina a slave girl. It's very interesting that one chapter is one , then it changes to the other (probably not in the same timeline).
What's interesting is that Volk is not born evil. He, has a boy that have a rough upbringing and so turn to evil by via of a strange god. The girl, who have lived most of her life as a slave meets a witch that says something will change drastically. All of these takes like 80/100 pages and they were marvellous. IF tanith lee is good at something is fleshing her characters.
Then the story evolved and we get more of Volk (which was my favorite character) and then we get a new character and the the culmination and meeting of the two characters and that I didn't enjoy that much. If Volk was so powerful in the dark arts how could a girl with the power of love and light defeat him so easily so anti-climatic... as a youtuber says "barely an inconvenience". I hope for more.... That's why I won't give this book 5 stars. Btw, the last two pages were also horrendus to the point of vomiting (I am kidding of course but in the 70's grimdark stuff didn't exist per se... yuo expected happy disney (old disney) endings... Oh well
Read it if you enjoy good characters development and how to make a evil character. Also a bit of new age stuff with all the gods/wicca (?) who knows what inspired Tanith.
Don't forget... the power of love and light will triumph over evil. 8/10
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