Book Review
Feb. 14th, 2026 05:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariSuldrun's Garden
by Jack Vance
This is the first in Vance's Lyonesse trilogy, and I quite enjoyed it. It's set on the Elder Isles, a fictional group of islands off the coast of Cornwall based on Celtic legends of a land that sunk into the sea. The first third or so follows Suldrun, princess of Lyonesse. She is a disapointment to her royal parents due to being a girl, and is largely neglected until she is of marriageable age. When she defies her father's attempts to use her and her future as a pawn in his machinations, he confines her to a remote garden on the castle grounds. There, Aillas, prince of Troicinet, washes ashore. Suldrun nurses him back to health and they fall in love and have a child. The remainder of the book follows Aillas' adventures as he seeks his son and strives to regain his birthright as the ruler of Troicinet.
Suldrun's Garden was published in the early 1980s and is fairly old school. The prose style is a bit old-fashioned but still enjoyable to read. Vance does a really great job of weaving together plots, themes, and tropes from medieval legend, Celtic myth, and fairy tales. There are a lot of side quests added to the main plot, but they always connect back to the story. Aillas is a very likeable character - he's brave, caring, clever, and honest. Suldrun is also sympathetic, but in a different way. She's an introverted loner who just wants the time and space to find and make her own path. I do wish her part of the story had lasted longer. I alsoreally enjoyed all the secondary characters, particularly the mage Shimrock, who is clearly inspired by Schmendrick from The Last Unicorn.
by Jack Vance
This is the first in Vance's Lyonesse trilogy, and I quite enjoyed it. It's set on the Elder Isles, a fictional group of islands off the coast of Cornwall based on Celtic legends of a land that sunk into the sea. The first third or so follows Suldrun, princess of Lyonesse. She is a disapointment to her royal parents due to being a girl, and is largely neglected until she is of marriageable age. When she defies her father's attempts to use her and her future as a pawn in his machinations, he confines her to a remote garden on the castle grounds. There, Aillas, prince of Troicinet, washes ashore. Suldrun nurses him back to health and they fall in love and have a child. The remainder of the book follows Aillas' adventures as he seeks his son and strives to regain his birthright as the ruler of Troicinet.
Suldrun's Garden was published in the early 1980s and is fairly old school. The prose style is a bit old-fashioned but still enjoyable to read. Vance does a really great job of weaving together plots, themes, and tropes from medieval legend, Celtic myth, and fairy tales. There are a lot of side quests added to the main plot, but they always connect back to the story. Aillas is a very likeable character - he's brave, caring, clever, and honest. Suldrun is also sympathetic, but in a different way. She's an introverted loner who just wants the time and space to find and make her own path. I do wish her part of the story had lasted longer. I alsoreally enjoyed all the secondary characters, particularly the mage Shimrock, who is clearly inspired by Schmendrick from The Last Unicorn.
