Berg, Carol
SONG OF THE BEAST
Carol Berg
ROC Books 2003
Pb 467 pages
ISBN#
0-451-45923-7
Aidan MacAllister, cousin of the king, plays the harp and sings more beautifully than any musician in generations. Then one night he is arrested for treason without explanation and thrown into a dungeon where he is tortured every time he sings. He eventually falls silent and the voice of the god Roelan deserts him, for it was for Roelan to whom Aidan always sang.
Seventeen years later, broken in body and spirit, Aidan is released from his prison. Yet within hours he is pursued as an escaped criminal. He finds shelter with an Elhim (Elhim are strange, not-quite-human outcasts that live on the edge of this society). This Elhim--Narim--seems friendly at first, but as the reader gets deeper into the story one finds Narim's presence not to be accidental but planned. Five hundred years ago (the Elhim are a long-lived race), Narim made a huge mistake with the local dragons and now he's trying to rectify that mistake with an overcompensating plan. The biggest problem with Narim's plan is that it requires the sacrifice of Aidan's life. It takes Aidan almost the whole book to discover this, however. Aidan wants only to solve the mystery of why he was sent to prison in the first place Why was he tortured? Why didn't his cousin the king step in and give a word on Aidan's behalf?
SONG OF THE BEAST has mystery, action, and romance. Like the last Carol Berg book I read, I found the story a delightful read until (just like in the last one) part of the ending fell flat. If you read only for fantasy and dragons I highly recommend this book. But romance fans beware: if you read this book hoping for a satisfying ending you may be disappointed. SONG OF THE BEAST is written in first person and the characterization is well done. On rare occasions the "first person" is another character, but the story always returns to Aidan's point of view. The description and world-building are well done, and if it weren't for Ms Berg's habit of leaving love unfulfilled I would be a fan of hers. Granted, this is a fantasy book and not a romance novel per se, but I have found many non-romance authors do a wonderful job with the subject, even better--in my opinion--than standard romance novelists who can be quite trite. And, granted again, real life romances rarely come to a beautiful fruition, but I don't enjoy the addition of a lovely romance into a story only to have it fall flat in the end. Many critics find this technique a "hook" that encourages readers to buy the next book, but I rather find it a turn-off that warns me away from future work by that author. [Sorry for the soap-box, folks, but I'm finding this problem in a lot of books by different authors and finally decided to have a say about it.] Authors! Either do romance well or not at all! We readers of fantasy are fans of the genre because we wan the fulfillment of dreams, not the unfulfillment of them!
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