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Medair The Complete Medair Duology in One Volume eBook Andrea K Höst

Download As PDF : Medair The Complete Medair Duology in One Volume eBook Andrea K Höst

Medair The Complete Medair Duology in One Volume eBook Andrea K Höst

I'm reading this for the second time. It's been a few years and find I'm enjoying it as much as the first time. The author is so talented. I'm big a fan of her other works as well. She consistently delivers a story that the reader can easily delve into and never want to leave. I'm not normally a reader of fantasy and, at first, found the terminology a bit overwhelming. But I soon became used to it and understood the amazing world she created. The heroine of the story is relatable, complex, and someone you stand by and root for. I would recommend this book to any who enjoy the fantasy genre or who, in general, appreciate an excellent and exciting read.


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Medair The Complete Medair Duology in One Volume eBook Andrea K Höst Reviews

It's such a relief when your second book by a still-new-to-you author is not a let-down from the first. I can see that the Medair duology might not be for everyone – I’m curious now that I’ve read them, and need to go look them up other reviews. The main character is very introspective, and the main conflict in the story is her internal conflict (don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of stuff happening, but imo this is a novel that is driven by the protagonist’s internal conflict, not by external events). I can see that some readers might not be happy with this.

But. My God, the backstory is SO COOL. And the internal dilemma is generated directly from that backstory, and OF COURSE the protagonist is conflicted and introspective; given her history, she has to be! This duology is really a lesson on how to do internal conflict and introspection just right, so that the story is truly compelling.

See, five hundred years ago, the Ibisians fled their land (which was being destroyed by rogue magic) and invaded the Farrakian Empire. Because of their superior magic, they just swept through, rolling the native people up almost effortlessly. So Medair rode off on a quest to find the Horn of Farak, a mythical item reputed to allow a single person to defeat any army. And she found it. But when she returned, five hundred years had passed, and the war was long since over, and the two peoples had mingled (even though most political power is still held by people with mainly Ibisian blood), and there was no legitimate enemy left to destroy.

That’s the backstory. Höst really does a great job showing the complicated way two different peoples can interact and how the edges between Us and Them can blur. I mean, five hundred years is a long time, and Höst really makes you feel that. And poor Medair! Who lingered just a night too long outside of normal time and came back five hundred years too late to save the day. For her, the war was just yesterday, and yet she knows it’s wrong to blame the descendants of her peoples’ conquerors for a conquest which is long, long over and can’t be undone.

And then things happen. Anybody can see that Medair is going to be required to use the Horn of Farak eventually, on behalf of the very people she can’t help but still think of as enemies. That’s not astonishing at all. We have the nice smooth unrolling of a fairly predictable plot – though in a story well-enough written that we don’t necessarily mind its predictability – and then WHOA, DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING.

I shouldn’t have been so surprised, I guess, after the author's great SF novel AND ALL THE STARS. Höst took me by surprise several times in that one, too. But, yeah, totally didn’t expect that one major plot twist, so the whole back half of the story worked out in a way I hadn’t predicted.

This is a really good duology, with excellent writing and characterization. The story wouldn’t have worked at all if the characterization hadn’t been top-notch, because the strong romance subplot would have turned into an angst-filled cliché-ridden mess. But with great writing and strong characterization, it works just fine. The romance is actually critical to making the story work – Medair’s personal conflict would not have been nearly so sharp without it – and again, though we can see that romance coming a mile away, it’s handled extremely well and with a decided twist at the end.
When Medair, formerly the Herold of the kingdom, completes her quest to find the magical tools she needs to save her kingdom, she decides grab some sleep before she heads back. But when she awakes, she discovers she has slept for 500 years. As she heads home, she discovers that her world has changed, that her people have been conquered and that her previous world is gone her royalty is mostly dead--so what should she do? Then fate intervenes with an enemy force sent to chase her down. These books are interesting reads.
What a gem!

The Medair duology is fantasy that sets its bar high. The story idea as well as the history and politics of the world is tremendously compelling.

In face of the inevitability of labeling an invading group of people as "Other", what happens when your hesitation (stemming from the conflicting feelings you harbor about who is definitively "right" and who must therefore be "wrong") leads to you being transported 500 years into the future? Times have changed, beliefs and borders have changed, people and cultures have intermixed. Who now is the enemy? Can you bring yourself to move past an enmity that no longer has reason to exist, even if it remains so fresh in your mind?

Reading this book reminded me in some ways of playing a fantasy-based video game. This may in part be due to the fact that I had just finished Dragon Age Inquisition right before reading it, but I could see so many of the settings as clearly as those on the screen. Medair's choices lead to intriguing adventures, and misadventures. She stays true to her own convictions and explains herself with honesty and integrity, thereby currying favor or disapproval from those around her in a realistic manner. She navigates through a colorful world that never gets boring.

There were a couple of things that stood out as imperfections in my mind, such as the writing going on at too much length about information that didn't necessarily drive the story forward. Medair's loop of rhetoric in her head, her struggle with whether she is right or wrong to do what she does, gets repeated too often. It's an important piece of Medair and her story, but I felt like I was rereading the same things over and over again, even though we are also actually told outright that Medair keeps thinking these same things repeatedly. A bit overkill, but nothing that ruined the story for me.

The overall story was wonderful, but I do think I preferred Book 1 by a certain margin. The court intrigue pieces reminded me a bit of Sherwood Smith's Crown Duel duology, in a good way. Avahn, who was such a part of Book 1, gets relegated to the background of the story in Book 2. But still, altogether I loved the whole thing.

And the way the romantic interests were addressed at the end was so magnificent and COMPLETELY PERFECT, I actually let out an "awwww" after reading the last page. Happy happy reader!

I can't wait to read more from Ms. Host, who writes the genres I enjoy while creating original and commendable facets in her stories that make you proud to be a reader of her work. So, well done, and now on to the next!
I'm reading this for the second time. It's been a few years and find I'm enjoying it as much as the first time. The author is so talented. I'm big a fan of her other works as well. She consistently delivers a story that the reader can easily delve into and never want to leave. I'm not normally a reader of fantasy and, at first, found the terminology a bit overwhelming. But I soon became used to it and understood the amazing world she created. The heroine of the story is relatable, complex, and someone you stand by and root for. I would recommend this book to any who enjoy the fantasy genre or who, in general, appreciate an excellent and exciting read.