Not a huge fan of magical fantasy, but I enjoyed this YA novel with ice dragons and unicorns and ancient protection spells. The characters were likable and I enjoyed the journey with them. ( )

Not my favorite Peter Dickinson. I was amused by the fact that we aren't introduced to the title character until about halfway through the book. While reading this, I wondered why he bothered to write it. I still don't know how old Tilja, the main character, is. Her specialness is her lack of magic in a magical land; she can absorb magic and make it go away. But Piers Anthony already has someone like this in Xanth, and those books are more fun. The book felt long and the worlds created did not make me learn more about this one. I did like the idea of an idyllic place with no history. ( )

It was interesting to contrast this enjoyable, well-written YA fantasy book with Ursula LeGuin's "Voices," which I read recently. Both deal with a pair of young people from a remote, isolated valley, and their families.
While both situation and family are, in LeGuin's view, unrelentingly negative, to Dickinson, this situation is just positive as positive can be... as a matter of fact, the whole point of the book is that the young people and their grandparents must go on a quest to find a magician to preserve the spells that keep their valley isolated, cut off from the larger, socially and politically oppressive empire beyond....
LeGuin took the opposite view altogether, where the young people had to attempt to escape the oppressiveness of the backwards, backwater valley and get out to the wider world to grow...
As I said, however, Dickinson's writing was fun and the story enjoyable - but I did find myself questioning some of his situations.... probably because it's a YA book, and he didn't want to really get into them. But having a young teen boy and girl who obviously like each other go on a long trip together - and have NO sexual tension develop was unrealistic. And, having two very elderly people experience a magical spell that makes them both teens again, to have them fall in love - and then to have them voluntarily give that up and choose to become old again, without a whole lot of agony, is also totally unrealistic. ( )

Tilja and Tahl, along with their grandparents must make a perilous journey from their homes into the oppressive Empire to seek a magician. For 20 generations, their families have been responsible for keeping the forests and mountains surrounding the valley reinforced with the magic that protects them from the Empire's armies and tax collectors. But now the magic is waning.

A slow start to this 375 page book and there were sections when the journey seemed to drag. Action is fitful, pace is slow. ( )

Just plain awesome. ( )