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Of The Amazons by Judith Tarr check out website: www.tor.com
Selene therefore manoeuvres herself into becoming the child's (Etta's) guardian and continues in this role as the child grows up; energetic, beautiful but empty and soulless. When the child is born without a soul, the queen's cousin, Phaedra, who believes she should have been the rightful queen, attempts to persuade the rest of the clan to kill it, only to be prevented by the old clan seer.
Phaedra is not satisfied at this and as the child gets older and still
does not gain a soul, more and more of the clan begin to side with her, until
the only question becomes when Phaedra will try and take the clan, not if. One day, Etta becomes aware of a beacon to the West which she must travel
to, accompanied by Selene and various others of the Queen's party. When they arrive
at this beacon, they discover it is Alexander the Great, just finished conquering
Persia. Alexander becomes fond of Etta, thus granting Selene and Etta a place
in his court. The rest of the story covers the decline and fall of Alexander and
its consequence for Etta, Selene and the clan. Tarr has done a lot
of research for this book and it shows in her depictions of the different cultures
and attitudes of the peoples involved. There is no explanation, however, for the
different set up of the Amazon's clan: women being nomads, warriors and hunters,
men settled in villages farming and raising children. I found this basic concept
pretty hard to accept, though seeing as the book is called 'Queen Of The Amazons'
it wasn't likely to be a study in patriarchal feudalism. I did like
the fact that this wasn't your standard fantasy set in some Dark Age quasi-European
country. The Persian and Macedonian cultures featured are much more interesting. The way Tarr has wound her story through actual historical events is good, as are the action sequences. Overall I found this a fairly good book and a pretty interesting way to spend a few hours. Rachel Broome
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OTHER REVIEWS - October 2004
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The
story follows Selene, an Amazon warrior and reluctant seer. At the start of the
book she is one of the queen's guards, but after the Queen's firstborn daughter
and heir is born, alive but soulless, Selene discovers that the child's presence
prevents the seers' dreams that have plagued her for years.
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