The Deverry Cycle by Katherine Kerr - Daggerspell (Deverry Series 1)

For this readalong I fancied a series I only read the first four books in. My good friend Zoe lent me the first four a few years back and they are pretty unusual, smart and a lot of fun. What impressed me about the series? Its unusual approach to flashbacks; the Celtic welsh background and the main characters avoid stereotypes as the series evolved. There are some nice surprises to come plus some occasional moments showing how far we have come on in fantasy too.

There are now 15 books in Katherine Kerr’s Deverry cycle, so I thought why not explore how the books evolve and change. I also think a lot of what Kerr was introducing in her novels is still pretty innovative (especially when I tend to think of 80’s fantasy as a tad Tolkienesque). Here the series began in 1986 with the first connected sequence – The Deverry series.

So, come with me to 1986!

Worth noting Harper Voyager is now publishing these with gorgeous new covers (I do love a good cover)

Publisher – Harper Voyager

Published – Out Now

Price - £8.99 paperback

A Broken promise, a curse and a magic beyond imagining…

The powerful sorcerer Nevyn broke a promise long ago and curse has trapped him ever since. He waits for the one who might break him free of his prison. A long wait that may soon come to an end. Jill is the daughter of a Silver Dagger, a band of wandering swordsmen who fight for money, not honour. After her mother died when she was young, father and girl took to the road, living from town to town, never settling.

Jill’s only friends are the mysterious spirits known as Wildfolk; gnomes, sylphs, sprites and undines. Their magical presence in her life marks her out as different: special. But young Jill has no idea what destiny has in store for her.

In epic fantasy the storyline is usually the culmination of something that started many years often hundreds sometimes thousands of years ago. The struggle is now time for the next generation to take over and resolve. In Katherine Kerr’s first Deverry cycle novel Daggerspell this is revisited in a very different form with a four-hundred-year-old story where the same characters are appearing albeit reincarnated and unaware of their pasts. Its scope feels fairly local, but the fates are conspiring and make this a wonderful unusual start to a fantasy series.

Ok explaining the plot gets tricky! We start off with Jill a very young girl witnessing her mother dying from fever. Finally, her absent father a mercenary named Cullyn arrives to set up a home for his family but finds he was sadly too late. Meanwhile a mysterious magician known as Nevyn (literally meaning no one) realises that a cycle he is keen to finally break has started once again. Then we skip back four hundred years!

We there/then find a royal court where young prince Galrion struggles to decide upon following a desire to learn the strange magic known as dweomer or carrying onto marry a neighbouring noblewoman Brangwen. Her strange bad-tempered brother Gerraent seethes at the idea of marriage and a fellow noble Blaen harbours a similar love for Brangwen. Their story ends in tragedy for nearly all and Galrion now known as Nevyn realises his selfishness caused this so agrees with his dweomer master that he will set fate (here known as Wyrd) back on track as he now knows the souls hurt in this ‘grim little’ farce’ are all reincarnated and in each lifetime a chance to save them all is possible. Skip forward four hundred years and Nevyn has not had much luck but now Brangwen is back in the form of Jill, Gerraent is Cullyn and a young prince about to enter a bloody local civil war is Blaen. Can this time the future go as Wyrd commands?

I know that sounds ambitious right?! And the amazing thing is Kerr pulls this strange idea off wonderfully. The way this is achieved is rather than going for a chronological order we have effectively almost a novel of novellas or small sections. We start off in the present of Deverry (analogous to medieval Wales) then skip to the start of the cycle for a complete telling of the original tragedy; then back to the future and then back to the next set of reincarnations where things don’t go to plan. So, for the reader you’re in fact getting three stories for the price of one. The sections in the past has a slightly more legendary feel to them in manners of speech and tone while the present storyline is much more episodic and chiefly based here around a trio of Jill growing up with Cullyn to become a tomboy skilled warrior and Rhodry the over privileged handsome prince with a heart who find’s his mother’s lands under attack and dweomer may be getting used to bolster his enemies.

Nevyn though is getting onto the scene and now its time for the parties to come together and see if this time tragedy can be averted plus magical powers are quite keen for Nevyn to yet again fail. Essentially its never a dull moment! Small battles allow characters to meet; politics to be explored; we meet elves and dwarves - it’s a huge little world and this feels very much a way just for a reader to familiarise themselves with ideas and places that may (ahem definitely) become important later. None of the leads bar Nevyn remembers their past lives they just always end up in orbit around each other and so there is a tension to whether people’s darker impulses will this time prevail, but you don’t need to follow every storyline too closely. It’s a very rewarding intelligent read.

I think character as well as plotting here is also done wonderfully. Jill is fun to read whenever she appears. Lively and with her growing ability to see magical creatures and assess magic a little unusual as its combined with a temper and fighting prowess. Very much the heart of the book. Rhodry as the reincarnated lover of Brangwen we can easily see has a connection with Jill but he’s not a simple noble prince; we see him both get a common woman pregnant and he’s got a huge ego clash with his brother but despite that he’s trying to do the best thing – just not much of a thinker. In the middle if the intriguing character of Cullyn (his past lives colour our view of him in particular the brother sister story of Brangwen and Garraent goes very dark and to some nasty places) he’s a mercenary but a clever warrior and can be respected by anyone but interestingly he matches a cold fighting manner with an emotional loss of control off the battlefield; he can be weeping for lost love but then striking Jill in temper moments later. He’s annoying but magnetic to read about and you just want him to learn to grow up.

Kerr is also quite focused on ensuring female representation is abound and while in this world women apart from Jill generally don’t fight I really liked the role that Rhodry’s mother Lovyan has carved out for herself; a noble widow that matches wits with her eldest son (who in this complex aristocracy is technically her king); she is keen to ensure women have higher places in her court and she is a strategist too. Nevyn realises that Lovyan is just as much a key player in this saga as anyone else and many pay deference to her because she is so skilled. Quite refreshing to see a writer highlight that as per actual history noble women did play a key role in politics even then. The one thing I’d had loved a little more of was Jill’s growing up as she moves from seven-year-old to late teenage skilled warrior with little explanation for her training and skill but in a long novel that may have been too much

There is a lot of high and low magic also around. We have the entities known as the Lord of the Wyrd as a godlike power manipulating these events for reasons yet to be clear. ON earth its dweomer that can be both good and bad magic. Very much aligned to natural principles e.g. the elements and I recognise bits of Celtic magic in there; but we have a magician using it for mind control and another for shapeshifting. It’s very flexible and a touch wild (sometimes a little too much as Nevyn can tell people when the bad guys are coming – making things a little convenient at times). But there are hints a bigger opponent is getting ready…

This once again was an expansive; innovative and well-paced read. I really like that Kerr seems to have created something out of existing myths and legends and made her own thing out of it. The use of reincarnation allows her to explore the world before and on occasion see characters lose badly – all things that mentally I don’t associate with my limited view of past fantasy. Very much looking forward now the basics of the series are set to going down the roads of Deverry yet again.