by Melanie Rawn
Publication date: March 7th, 1997
Pan Books, 928 pages
Source: Borrowed from a friend
"A thousand years ago, Mageborns fled prejudice and persecution to colonize the planet Lenfell--a perfect refuge for those whose powers were perceived as a threat by people not gifted with magic. But the greater the magic, the greater the peril. Lenfell was soon devastated by a war between rival Mageborn factions that polluted the land with Wild Magic and unleashed hideous specters called Wraithenbeasts. Now, generations later, someone is planning another war on the still crippled planet that will tear three Mageborn sisters apart."
- Goodreads.com
The short of it:
With the intricacy of R.R. Martin's popular series A Song of Ice and Fire, the spywork and cultural undertones of Tamora Pierce's Daughter of the Lioness series, and Melanie Rawn's own unique and very clever gender role reversal twist, The Ruins of Ambrai is a must-read, especially for lovers of strong female characters.
The long of it:
I did it! I finally finished this monster of a book. It took me a little longer than usual because my little one is teething and needs constant comfort and distraction...and, okay, I was stuck at the last 100 pages of resolution, to be honest. Once I knew how the climax, which had been building for about 700 pages, turned out, it was hard to find the motivation to keep going. But as soon as I finished it, I ran downstairs to go pick up the next book, because these books may be long, but so worth it. So let's get to the review, shall we?
The political plotting and covert operations, all set in the fantasy world of Lenfell, reminded me a lot of Tamora Pierce's Daughter of the Lioness series, which is one of my absolute favorites. However, The Ruins of Ambrai is definitely not a YA pageturner; in fact, the intricacy of the political and cultural webs rivals the now-popular A Song of Ice and Fire. That means that sometimes you have to get through chunks of world-building before getting to a bit of action, but, like in A Song of Ice and Fire, it's so, so worth it. And thankfully, Melanie Rawn is much more merciful with her characters than R.R. Martin.
Having compared this book to two other entire series, I'd like to go into what makes it totally unique from anything else I've ever read: it's set in a true matriarchal society. Sure, I've read books that called their societies matriarchal, but instead of women ruling like men have for centuries in the real world, these societies were just gender-equal, or attempted to be. It took reading Melanie Rawn's version to realize that they hadn't been very good imaginings of matriarchies. Here's what I mean: in The Ruins of Ambrai, men are constantly knitting. Knitting. And mending clothes. And decorating houses. And raising children. And arranging flowers. But it's not just that the men are doing all the "girly" things; Rawn even changes how people in the world of Lenfell perceive certain activities. Men are allowed to enjoy leisure activities like hawking and hunting, but these are considered the activities of the weaker sex. One of my favorite moments in the book is when a male character is being described as the perfect "modest male" for being covered in clothes from head to toe, including a hair-covering coif. It's just too funny.
Do you need to have some sort of perverse sense of feminist satisfaction to enjoy this book? Not at all! What I really enjoyed about this matriarchal world is the shock value of imagining this totally upside down society. I've always considered myself a woman-empowerer, but the fact that I was thrown off-balance every time a man sat down to knit in this book really opened my eyes to how deeply ingrained our patriarchal way of thinking is. So not only was the gender role reversal amusing, but it was also enlightening and thought-provoking.
Oh, and the magic and battling were super cool too.
My rating? 4.9 out of 5 stars.
