The Shadowed Path

by Gail Z Martin

[Danielle Ackley-McPhail]

Gail Z. Martin amazes me. The intricate nature of her story telling, the solid skill of her writing...The Shadowed Path is a series of stories she's written separately over a span of years, and yet each one remains consistent, the thread unbroken. This is characteristic of all of Martin's writing. She is a powerhouse.

Of course, one of the drawbacks of pulling together a collection of individual but related stories is that each was written with the expectation that some readers will be coming into the universe cold and uninformed. That leads to a lot of repetition from story to story. In fact, when I initially started reading I missed the fact that this was a collection and not a novel because the continuity was that solid, the story line unbroken. However, after the third segment or so of encountering a recap of who people were and what the caravan was like had me going back to the description and discovering the error in my perception. That helped a lot as I just let the repetition slide past me and focused on the story. I would have liked to have seen these stories novelized rather than collected, with the repetition culled out, but even so this was a solid, enjoyable collection rich with detail and frenetic with action.

Fans of Jonmarc or those meeting him for the first time will grow strong in their loyalty to this steadfast, if ill-fated young man. A great gateway to the Winter Kingdom novels, for any not already familiar with them.