Review of ELEGY FOR A LOST STAR by Elizabeth Haydon (see her website)

BOOK FIVE OF THE SYMPHONY OF AGES

TOR, August 2004

After their great victories, Rhapsody, Ashe, Achmed, and Grunthor should be able to rest--but their enemies just won't stay beat, the evil f'nor fire demons continue to plot their escape, and now Rhapsody's pregnancy, with a dragon-child, threatens her survival. ELEGY FOR A LOST STAR combines four story lines--the amnesiac dragon, Anwyn seeks Rhapsody's name and destruction, the transformed sea-man, Faron, goes on a rampage when his magical card/scales are taken from him, Rhapsody and Ashe bicker about Ashe's plan to build a magical device--a Light Catcher--that just might end the entire world, and the Emperor-Elect Talquist of Sorbold plots his schemes to subvert the church and go on a wave of conquest.

Fans of the wonderful Rhapsody series will be overjoyed to see their favorite characters back in action. But ELEGY is not on the same monumental, and emotional, scales as the earlier works. The dragon's quest seems strangely empty, the bickering between Rhapsody and Achmed seems more than a bit artificial--why don't these people talk, explain their positions, rather than simply take offense and say terrible things to each other? You'd think after spending fifteen hundred years together, they would do better. As for Faron, his motivations and decisions are hard to rationalize. Only Talquist makes a really interesting story--but Talquist is only on a few pages.

All of this doesn't mean ELEGY is a bad book. It's an important connecting book, it does advance the story, and we do get to read author Elizabeth Haydon's wonderful writing (see more BooksForABuck.com reviews of novels by Elizabeth Haydon). After the powerful and emotionally rich Rhapsody series, however, ELEGY is a bit of a let-down. I think the one thing it needs most is the vital emotional impact that each of the other stories held. Certainly Haydon tries for this with Rhapsody's troubled pregnancy and the evolving relationship between Ashe and his father, but for me, these fell short.

Three Stars

Reviewed 10/17/04

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