Arafel's Saga (or The Dreaming Tree)

[Aus_Snow]

So, I just heard the song Arafel's Lament. I'm fairly new to Heather Alexander's music, but what I've heard I like a lot.

The thing is, I want those elves to feature in my mythic fantasy homebrew-to-be (which I only now know that I'm going to write). At this stage, I want to use them wholecloth, basically.

It's not often I hear one song that motivates me so strongly toward creativity, and I would be even more pleasantly surprised if the stories that served as inspiration for that song were equally inspiring to me.

Incidentally, I usually find elves to be a bit meh, so this present enthusiasm is a bit out of character. It's odd, really.


Well anyway, it seems they are directly from Arafel's Saga (by C.J. Cherryh) - has anyone read the two stories that are part of it (being The Dreamstone and The Tree of Swords and Jewels)?

Any impressions - sans spoilers, please?


edit --- Hm. The 'revised edition' seems to be called The Dreaming Tree, if that helps.

 

[Rackhir]

So, I just heard the song Arafel's Lament. I'm fairly new to Heather Alexander's music, but what I've heard I like a lot.

The thing is, I want those elves to feature in my mythic fantasy homebrew-to-be (which I only now know that I'm going to write). At this stage, I want to use them wholecloth, basically.

It's not often I hear one song that motivates me so strongly toward creativity, and I would be even more pleasantly surprised if the stories that served as inspiration for that song were equally inspiring to me.

Incidentally, I usually find elves to be a bit meh, so this present enthusiasm is a bit out of character. It's odd, really.


Well anyway, it seems they are directly from Arafel's Saga (by C.J. Cherryh) - has anyone read the two stories that are part of it (being The Dreamstone and The Tree of Swords and Jewels)?

Any impressions - sans spoilers, please?


edit --- Hm. The 'revised edition' seems to be called The Dreaming Tree, if that helps.

I'm guessing that you picked up Freedom, Flight and Fantasy? If you enjoyed that I'd strongly recomend Julia Ecklar's album - Divine Intervention. That has some really powerful songs on it, though some of them are very dark (don't listen to them if you're feeling depressed). You can get it here.

http://www.prometheus-music.com/divine.html

You might also want to hunt up some Leslie Fish, she's done some really great filk songs, like Eumenides (David Weber's Path of the Fury), which is on "Magic, Moondust & Melancholy" along with some great Heather Alexander stuff.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Rackhir, thanks for the pointers there. I'll definitely look into those artists.

Re: Cherryh's book, if no-one can give any kind of impressions of it then I guess I'll just do what I was going to do anyway, i.e. pick up a copy 2nd hand and see what it's like.

I was curious to see if there were any other readers of Cherryh's works here. I really quite like some of them myself, but this is one I've never come across before.

 

[Rackhir]

Rackhir, thanks for the pointers there. I'll definitely look into those artists.

Re: Cherryh's book, if no-one can give any kind of impressions of it then I guess I'll just do what I was going to do anyway, i.e. pick up a copy 2nd hand and see what it's like.

I was curious to see if there were any other readers of Cherryh's works here. I really quite like some of them myself, but this is one I've never come across before.

I can't help you with the book. I've always found Cherryh's books to be quite a mixed bag. Some of her "Company" Universe books were pretty good, other were eh. I liked her Morgaine saga quite a bit, but other like the -er saga (Invad-er,Foriegn-er, etc...) were very eh.

 

[CCamfield]

I've read the two books making up The Dreaming Tree. They're well-written, but very melancholy.

 

[Steverooo]

I've read Arafel's Saga, the Un-Revised version, I guess... I rather liked it, but pretty much all the Elves are "dead", in it, save the title character, and I found the time-jumping (since Arafel is rarely among mortal men) and lack of continuing characters rather disconcerting. I felt it didn't end well, but was a pretty good read, anyway. (Weak ending!)

The Elves in this version are certain;y different from D&D Elves, that's for sure! I don't recall any Dwarves in the books, but there is a Dark Elf, and I believe a Dragon.

 

[Mitasova]

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[Aus_Snow]

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Uh. . . cool 'n all, but is there more you'd like to add to your rather enigmatic first post. . .?

Was it simply the equivalent of a 'thumbs-up' regarding the book(s)?

Please excuse my obtuseness, should any be evident in this post , but I am honestly baffled (it happens from time to time.)