This is the first in a series, and the edition I had is called 'Lyonesse' whereas I realise it was subsequently reissued as 'Sudrun's Garden', after the character of the princess with which the book begins. The story is set in a legendary set of islands which I have previously heard about - there was supposed to be another continent or at least an island chain off the coast of Cornwall which sunk beneath the waves centuries ago. Possibly this is some memory of a small area of coast that was lost.

However, the author creates an entire society - the main island and its outlying ones were formerly ruled by one king, but for some time have existed in a state of semi-anarchy with each part of the main island and the other islands all having their own ruler, and some of them in a state of on-off war with the others. This legendary land does have ties with real-life places such as Britain, parts of what became France and even further off into the heart of Europe.

The book is rather episodic, in that it stays for a while with one character and then switches to another, usually at a point of high tension in the previous character's life. The trouble is, sometimes the character being switched to doesn't seem very interesting although it does eventually become clear what each character's role is in the book. There are fantastical elements - fairies, ogres and such, plus unicorns, strange horses and magicians who have rather odd lifecycles as a magician can split himself or herself into two or three other characters. Some of the ordinary humans are helped by magical objects given to them either by magicians or fairies.

Princess Sudrun is disregarded by her family who view her as only a pawn to make some dynastic marriage, following the feudal setting borrowed from historical Europe. Her life is a sad one, and her one chance of happiness is dashed by the cruelty and callousness of her parents. Other characters also suffer unwarranted disasters and innocence is no guarantee of happiness or even survival, with robbers and such taking advantage of children, rape frequently being threatened and those in charge dishing out ghastly punishments to those below them in the pecking order. So to some extent it comes across as quite a gloomy story, even though eventually some of the characters win through. It also has a rather abrupt ending with an afterword tacked on that seems also a rough note for what might happen next, and I am not sure if that will be the subject of book 2 in the series.

Some of it was entertaining, some of it downbeat, so on the whole I rate this as a 3 star read. ( )

En una época fabulosa olvidada por la Historia, las Islas Elder, situadas en el golfo de Vizcaya frente a las costas de la antigua Galia, aún no habían sido reclamadas por las aguas. En ellas medraban hombres y toda suerte de criaturas mágicas. Casmir, monarca de Lyonesse, conspira contra sus vecinos con la dedicación y entrega propias de la realeza. Hasta que un día, sus meticulosos y bien trazados planes topan con un obstáculo inesperado: la tozudez e ingratitud de su hija, la princesa Suldrun.

This is my first Vance novel and my only regret is that someone did not turn me onto him sooner. I am excited to move onto the Dying Earth after finishing this series.

Lyonesse reminds me of the Faerie Queene. A series of fast-paced vignettes and stories that form an overall plot but which can almost stand alone as bedtime stories. The narrator has a sardonic sense of humor and delivers the story in a way that makes the action seem familiar, as if a historian from that mythological time were relating the events. Or as if it were a serialized novel from the distant past.

I haven't read fantasy in this style for a long time, if ever, and it is refreshing. I was impressed at how rich and complex a world Vance creates without complex character development. At first it dragged on and on, and I wondered where the plot was, but then it moves away from Suldrun and starts skipping around the world of Lyonesse with ease to the point where I don't understand why the subtitle "Suldrun's Garden" was even needed.

Vance has a way of making you smile or even laugh out loud while on the next page you find yourself cringing with disgust. What seems at first a simple and almost childish story turns out to be quite a mature tale. ( )

This is my first Vance novel and my only regret is that someone did not turn me onto him sooner. I am excited to move onto the Dying Earth after finishing this series.

Lyonesse reminds me of the Faerie Queene. A series of fast-paced vignettes and stories that form an overall plot but which can almost stand alone as bedtime stories. The narrator has a sardonic sense of humor and delivers the story in a way that makes the action seem familiar, as if a historian from that mythological time were relating the events. Or as if it were a serialized novel from the distant past.

I haven't read fantasy in this style for a long time, if ever, and it is refreshing. I was impressed at how rich and complex a world Vance creates without complex character development. At first it dragged on and on, and I wondered where the plot was, but then it moves away from Suldrun and starts skipping around the world of Lyonesse with ease to the point where I don't understand why the subtitle "Suldrun's Garden" was even needed.

Vance has a way of making you smile or even laugh out loud while on the next page you find yourself cringing with disgust. What seems at first a simple and almost childish story turns out to be quite a mature tale. ( )

Let's be clear: it's not perfect, and it's not for everybody. But (for me) it's imperfections seem deliberate and charming. It was apparently written in the 1980s, but has the air of something written in the 1940s crossed with something written in the 1600s.

If you're familiar with the "romance" genre--not the Harlequin or Mills & Boone kind of romance, but the antecedent of the novel, exemplified in Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, you will have a sense of what to expect: a dazzling array of characters, whose character is little delved into, points-of-view that skip all over the place, an uneven sense of scale and description (there is no guarantee that the more that is written, the more important it is. At one point he lists, in list form, the characteristics of a dozen or-so individual fairies, none of whom enter into the story), and other such flaws.

And yet, it felt like a masterwork to me, and criticizing it would be like criticizing The Odyssey or Grimms' Fairy Tales. I loved it. It was odd, but lovely, and very much itself throughout.

(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, but I grade on a curve! ( )