The Temple at Landfall by Jane Fletcher

The Temple at Landfall by Jane Fletcher

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book stars Kim Ramon, the heretic, and Lynn NoLastNameAllowed, the holy-chosen-beloved-of-Celaeno aka slave of the Sisterhood.

This book is both the first and third book in the series. Published first, in 1999 and called ‘The World Celaeno Chose’, it is also the third book chronologically in the series. And that does actually matter. The chronological thing – because the books do build upon themselves. It’s true the main characters in the ‘first’ book, chronologically, don’t matter a hill of beans in the series, the side characters matter in later books, and many of the other characters pop up in the other books as well as the books advance. Quite frankly, I’ve no clue how anyone could read this series in the disjointed way it was published (on one level it’s ‘worse’ than James Fennimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking series – where the first book chronologically was the last book published (though that happened here as well, it’s just I think that was the only book out of order in the Cooper series; here the books jump all of the place (chronologically with publish order in (): 1st Shadow of the Knife (5), 2nd Rangers at Roadsend (3), 3rd The Temple at Landfall (1), 4th The Walls of Westernfort (2), 5th Dynasty of Rogues (4).

Right, but this book was/is about Lynn and Kim. Not the series as a whole. Lynn was around 12 when her family took her to be tested (as is done). She had shown some ‘healing’ abilities. She was tested and found to have so much ‘power’ as to be an Imprinter – therefore she was immediately forced to go with the Sisterhood and begin training. Imprinters are the ones who are able to create new human babies – important on a world on which only women number among the population. As such they are held in much awe and esteem – they have been the ‘chosen’ ones of the Goddess Celaeno (otherwise known as the spaceship/colony ship that brought the humans across the stars to this planet – yes, you have a world that has, for 500 years, worshiped a starship – and it’s not even one that had an A.I. to talk with (well, one hasn’t been mentioned) it’s just a hunk of metal). Despite being held in such a position – you know, that ‘chosen one’ thingie – they are basically the slaves of the Sisterhood. Forced to be celibate (the sisters are supposed to be as well, but they are corrupt) and continuously ‘create babies’ (the Sisters are quite eager for that – because they collect fees for the imprinting – the sisters do, the Imprinters get nothing.

Well – Lynn has shown signs of being quite . . . good at her job and rumors of this ability has reached one of the sisters wiggling piously and corruptly for higher and higher position at the Temple. So this Sister has gone out to collect Lynn, and bring her back to Landfall. The book follows Lynn and three sisters on their journey. Traveling in a carriage, zooming along, encountering worse and worse conditions. Until finally their journey has to make detour after detour. Until they find themselves in a specific town. If they go over a mountain pass they’ll get to Landfall before the Landfall celebrations. If they don’t, they won’t. Everything is set in motion but . . . news comes of big cats bouncing around up there. Everyone urges the sisters and party to go a different route. The main evil bitchy sister demands her chosen route be the one to follow.

Into this comes the 23rd Rangers Squadron. There to take care of the cats. One thing leads to another, and now the squadron is doing escort duty over the pass.

Eventually . . . well, I don’t want to give everything away, and I haven’t really progressed the story much as it is so I’ll stop before I go too far.

Interesting story. More and more of the backstory is revealed, leading this from being a purely fantasy world to one that’s science – fantasy, or a mix of the two (science fiction and fantasy).

Rating: 4.25

December 23 2016




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