The Republic of Heaven

I looked back and couldn't find a topic on the works of this wonderful, and yet highly underrated author, so I thought I would start one.

One of her trilogies, 'The Age of the Five' trilogy, is one of my favourite trilogies ever. Her world building skills are truely awesome! Also, in these books I found her writing style paricularly interesting, as the way she writes and switches which character's point of view she is potraying, means that you are able to choose which of the opposing groups you wish to back. This is so very different and refreshing, compared to books like Eragon, where the author constantly potrays one side as 'evil', forcing you to support Eragon (even if you find him rather annoying).

So yeah, anyone else a fan of Trudi Canavan and her amazing work?

It's funny that you should start a thread about this - a friend and I were just talking about Trudi Canavan yesterday. She'd just finished the Age of the Five series and thought they were kind of pro-Christian. I can't really judge that, since I read Priestess of the White a few years ago and haven't read the others in the series. What do you think?

I remember my friend and I reading all the Magician's Guild books in my biology class in Year 12.

I personally didn't find them to be at all pro christian, after all they are very polytheistic. And especially as you get into the second and third books, the gods are presented in a very negative way. If I had to name a view which I thought they expressed regarding religion, I would have said they were more anti than pro.

I also can't wait for the magicians apprentice to come out - it's really soon!

My friend said that in the books, the polytheistic religion is said to be false (as you've said, the gods are presented in a negative way) and that they're one kind of Creator (of the 'gods') that is implied to be real/true. As I said, though, I've only read the first book, so I can't really agree one way or another.

Perhaps I should stay out of this thread until I've read all the books...

It's true that in the third book there is a minor character trying to spread the idea that there is a single creator, however I don't think that at any point it was particularly implied to be true. At the end of the third book several people begin to convert to this religion when their gods are gone, however I think more the point being made was the way that some humans have a physical need for religion, not that this religion was right or true.

But then that is just my view and take on things.

I read teh Black Magician trilogy and thought they were ok, but the first one built it up quite a bit and then the other two didn't deliver. They were entertaining enough but I wouldn't call them great.

I was the other way around with the black magician trilogy. I found the first book to be on the most part fairly annoying and repetitive, whereas the others were far more interesting.

I've only read the Black Magician trilogy, and... that was enough for me. The plotlines were, I agree, very engaging and generally addictive. The writing itself was absolutely terrible, though. I read the series in high school and it seemed that every page had something on it that could easily have been changed to improve the flow and overall quality of the narrative. I remember, for example, four uses of the word "murmured" on the same page, with no attempt to bring synonyms into the picture.
Also, the names bugged me. Pick anybody's name from any of the three books, tell it to someone out of context, and chances are they'll be able to say "that came from a poorly written fantasy book aimed at teenagers. Probably a trilogy." There are certain vowel sounds and letter combinations and alternate spellings that just scream "I wanted to write LotR over again but with more connection to meee or at least my Mary-Sue."

I agree with Blossom about the spoiler. All in all, by the time I got to the third book, I was deeply engaged in the story, and very angry with myself and with the author for wasting my time.

I liked Dannyl, though. That was pretty original. And Rothen was likeable if cliche'd.

Try the age of the five, it is, in my opinion, of considerably better quality.