Time of the Eagle (review)
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- Time of the Eagle
On her sixteenth birthday, young Shinali healer Avala is kidnapped by wounded Ramakoda, the oldest son of an Igaal chieftain, who takes her to his camp. Despite the coercion, she's willing to go, since she hopes that saving Ramakoda may be the first step in her destiny to unite the Shinali, Igaal, and Hena tribes against the cruel Navoran emperor bent on exterminating her people (events foretold in Secret Sacrament, BCCB 3/01). Although the Igaal chieftain is grateful for his son's recovery, he decides to keep Avala as their healer, rather than honor his son's promise to return her to her home. Helped by the man she saved, Avala finds a way to escape, only to become lost in a mountain snowstorm that deposits her at the door of a hidden learned society, where she is taught full command of her psychic powers, and from where she decides to return to the Igaal to try again. Avala narrates her own story, which is told simply and intimately, as though it is a conversation shared by the fire at day's end. Her voice has an appealing sweetness and innocence, and the enormity of her quest and her wavering confidence that she can indeed accomplish it will resonate with adolescents who struggle daily to meet challenges to their self-esteem. Readers who relished the previous title will be intrigued by the playing out of events, and they will find in this epic fantasy the stuff of daydreams.
