All posts tagged: Carol Berg

Flesh and Spirit, Breath and Bone, by Carol Berg.

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A few months ago I wrote about the novel Transformation, by Carol Berg and I emphasised the strength of the characters in her writing.  For regular followers of this blog, you will know that it is characters that I feel are the key to good writing, and for me at least, the most important aspect of a great novel.  In this novel, Flesh and Spirit, Carol Berg once again shows she is masterful in creating brilliantly realised personalities, but this time she has been even more ambitious than usual.  This is because she created an angry young man, who at times is very hard to empathise with, and makes for a very unusual lead character in a set of novels.  This is both brave of Berg, and clever, because her creation Valen, is the perfect foil to tell this complex tale of family rebellion, bloodlines, and magic.  It covers topics not normally associated with fantasy novels, such as drug addiction and family resentment, as Valen runs from the family life that has been ordained for him …

Transformation – Carol Berg

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I’ve been looking forward to writing this about this novel because Carol Berg is one of my favourite fantasy authors, and I don’t think she gets nearly enough credit for the fantastic stories and characters she creates. I emphasise the characters, because that is the strength of Carol Berg’s writing, her characters – and as far as I am concerned, that is the secret of good writing. Carol Berg’s main character in this novel is Seyonne, a slave in the employ of Prince Aleksander, a ruler of a feudal regime that presides over an Empire that has been swallowing up neighbouring states, including Seyonne’s own sixteen years before. The past sixteen years of slavery hangs heavily on Seyonne, as he had once been a leader of his people, and now he finds himself enforced to work for Prince Aleksander as his personal secretary. The two characters couldn’t be more contrasting. Seyonne, is thoughtful, deliberate, and his moral compass remains intact despite the years of demeaning and degrading service he’d undertaken as a slave to the Empire. The …