The Phoenix Unchained (Enduring Flame, Book 1) | Mercedes Lackey, James Mallory

The Phoenix Unchained (Enduring Flame, Book 1) | Mercedes Lackey, James Mallory | entertaining

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The Phoenix Unchai...

	The Phoenix Unchained (Enduring Flame, Book 1) Mercedes Lackey, James Mallory Tor Books, 2007 - 400 pages average customer review:based on 22 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory first teamed up to write The Obsidian Trilogy, set in a wondrous world filled with magical beings, competing magic systems, and a titanic struggle between good and evil. That world proved so popular with the creators and readers alike that Lackey and Mallory have returned to it with The Phoenix Unchained, Book One of The Enduring Flame, the opening volume of a new epic fantasy trilogy.

After a thousand years of peace, much Magick has faded from the world. The Elves live far from humankind. There are no High Mages, and Wild Mages are seen only rarely. Bisochim, a powerful Wild Mage, is determined to reintroduce Darkness to the world, believing that it is out of Balance.

Tiercel, a young Armethalian nobleman, is convinced that High Magic is not just philosophy. He attempts a spell?and draws the unwelcome attention of Bisochim. Tiercel survives Bisochim?s attack and begins trying to turn himself into a High Mage.

Next in line to be Harbormaster of Armethalieh, Harrier instead finds himself regularly saving Tyr?s life and meeting magickal people and creatures. To Harrier?s dismay, it seems that he must become a hero.

In The Phoenix Unchained, Harrier and Tiercel begin a marvelous journey to uncover their destinies. Along the way, they meet a charming female centaur, several snooty Elves, and the most powerful dragon their world has ever known.

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Phoenix Unchained review

The book was shipped quickly and came in excellent condition. It's a great read too!

entertaining

I have just had my seventh knee surgery and I am always looking for a good book to take my mind off myself and this book gave me a couple of days of entertainment. I am looking foward to the next books.

Very good story

I think it's appeal may be more for teenagers but I enjoyed it also. I admit to hesitating before buying the 2nd book. This story plodded along at times, kind of dozing at the wheel. When the action sequences came along they were good.

Standard, but entertaining, "lite" epic fantasy

I picked up The Phoenix Unchained, the first novel in The Enduring Flame trilogy by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory because I haven't read Lackey before (and I wanted to) and this book was available on audiobook (and I needed something for my commute). The Phoenix Unchained is a sequel to The Obsidian Trilogy which, unfortunately, is not available (yet) on audio, and which I haven't read. However, I had heard that this new trilogy can stand alone, so I decided to give it a try.

The Phoenix Unchained begins as best friends Tiercel and Harrier are attending their city's celebrations of legendary events that happened in The Obsidian Trilogy. It's also Harrier's birthday and, as a gift, his strange uncle gives him a book about magick which Tiercel asks to borrow. Tiercel soon finds that he has some magick abilities and catches the attention of a Wild Mage named Bisochim who is far away but wants to make sure that Tiercel does not disrupt his plans for allowing some dark magick back into the world so that he can save the life of Saravasse, the dragon he's bonded to. Tiercel begins to have bad dreams, so he sets out with Harrier to find a Wild Mage who can help him.

What follows is a standard coming-of-age epic fantasy quest involving lots of slow travel, several magical creatures (centaurs, unicorns, dragons, goblins, elves, fauns, etc), and a lot of sarcastic bickering such as teenage boys tend to engage in. The Phoenix Unchained is not high literature, for sure, but it's solidly written, and the heroes are likeable, if not particularly exciting. There are, however, several borrowings from Tolkien and others (gosh, the elves look just like Legolas!) and some explanations and motivations are vague or unbelievable: Why doesn't Bisochim just go after Tiercel himself instead of sending spells or lackeys--sorry--who don't get the job done? When and why did Bisochim and his dragon fall in love (we see this happen, but I wasn't convinced)? How will letting in some darkness extend the life of Saravasse and why is Bisochim (who started off well) willing to let a lot of people die in order to do that? And if he has this potential for evil, why does Saravasse love him? Is Tiercel the only human with high mage powers, as the elves suggest, or is High Magick a skill that many people may be born with (as Tiercel says).

The plot is not particularly tight, and it's hardly original. Nonetheless, I found myself decently entertained and, since there was a major plot-twist/cliffhanger on the last page, I'm curious to see where the story is going. I may or may not go back and read The Obsidian Trilogy first. Lackey and Mallory give enough background and history that I easily understood what was going on and the basics (I thought) of the history I needed to know. However, I found out later in the book, once the boys meet some very ancient characters, that some of the legends that had been passed down for 1000 years where amusingly inaccurate. I missed this humor because I wasn't familiar with the original trilogy. I probably missed some other information that may have helped inform or entertain me, too. For example, what is a mage price? How does this magic work? Is a "balance" between light and dark necessary (as Bisochim maintains)? What is the "phoenix" mentioned in the title?

The Phoenix Unchained is recommended for anyone looking for a "lite" escapist fantasy epic. The audiobook is a good format for this one -- William Dufris's reading is dynamic and well-nuanced, though occasionally whiny as he depicts typical teenage angst. --FanLit.net

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Another Trilogy

If you liked the Obsidian Trilogy, then prepare to be...disappointed. This book is set thousands of years after Kellen and his adventure. The Obsidian Trilogy's story has become myth while humans live side by side with fantasy creatures and Wild Mages in the City of the Golden Bells, yet nobody believes in High Magick anymore.
The main character, Tiercel Rolfort, a boy interested in ancient history, discovers High Magic and accidentally sets his room on fire. He then sets out with his best friend and a centaur to find a "cure" for his magic problem (good luck).
While the story line seems interesting enough, this book is another "get-to-the-point-already" page by page. The reader already knows that there isn't a solution to the character's problem about getting rid of magical powers, yet Lackey deems it worthy enough to keep developing the story's plot around it. I do like how this book flips the world around by having the villains in the last trilogy become the heroes in this new one (High Magic versus Wild Magic). The sequel better start shaping up or I am going to stop reading the trilogy.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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