Rating: 
Summary: Be Warned
Review: All I want to say is this book is misclassified. This is not a fantasy novel; this book is a work of Christian fiction. I am not commenting on how well or poorly written it is. Nor am I commenting on how enjoyable it may or may not be. I just want readers to know ahead of time that it is Christian fiction, not fantasy.
Rating:
Summary: Mormon propaganda
Review: Do not buy this book expecting a fantasy novel. It is a thinly-veiled Christian allegory that the world could do just fine without. One of the more interesting (purely from a philosophical standpoint) parts is when an adulterer sees the error of his ways after reading "God's word," which is especially ironic bearing in mind that the woman who now calls herself Anne Perry brutally beat a woman to death with a brick when she was younger. The last thing I want to read is a moral discourse written by an admitted murderess.
Rating:
Summary: multiplying melodramatic metaphors
Review: I enjoyed Craig's cover art, so I tried Ta-thea. I found the writing stilted and heavily melodramatic. (I also feel this novel does not fall within the fantasy genre.) A boating expedition represents the inward journey toward religious truth for Ta-thea's soul; she learns a new, unquestionable, higher truth every 18 pages; she discerns each new person's inmost nature by staring intently into their pupils. Gak! For a much better examination of good warring with evil within an individual, I recommend Friedman's Black Sun Rising.
Rating: 
Summary: A journey of the mind and soul
Review: I found Tathea a very interesting book to read. The author is very descriptive in her detail of suroundings and layout of the world in which the story takes place in. I could easily imagine myself caught up in the scenes taking place.Tathea brings to the world a Book containing the words of God with His plan in it. She attempts to share it with the people, but, along with bringing the truth it contains, she also brings evil. She eventually must make decisions to remove to book from the populace so that the truth will not be fully distorted. I do wish Tathea was not totally left alone in her quest to accomplish all that she must do. Every time she makes a friend, he or she dies for the cause of truth so Tathea can succeed with the next step of her destiny. There is another book, and I anxiously await it. Maybe in the sequel Tathea will find the happiness and peace that she deserves in this life, without having to wait for the one to come.
Rating:
Summary: I've been tricked!
Review: I thought I was reading a fantasy novel... No, it's an adventure quest novel... Egad! It's really a religious proselytizing text.
It's also boring.
It starts out ok, basic plotline of betrayal & murder of the royal family, of which Ta-thea (empress) is the only survivor. She escapes to the homeland of her mother where she begins a quest to find herself, truth, reason for living, etc. She takes THE BOOK, aka Word of God and flees to another country where she is welcomed with open arms by their royal family who immediately are converted to her new religion. There's some noise about her returning to reclaim the throne, but she's more focused on spreading The Word. And boy, do we read a lot of it! Finally, she regains her throne, but is quickly banished by a henchman of The Adversary, so she begins wandering, converting nearly all she comes accross. More of THE BOOK's wisdom for us. Of course, any differing beliefs are turned into an expression of The Word Of God. Blah Blah Blah.
I gave up. If I wanted to read a religious text, I would have. If I had intended to read Christian fantasy, I'd have checked out the Left Behind series, I hear that's popular and well written.
The epic struggle between good and evil has been and will be written about in much more interesting ways.
Rating:
Summary: I've been tricked!
Review: I thought I was reading a fantasy novel... No, it's an adventure quest novel... Egad! It's really a religious proselytizing text.
It's also boring.
It starts out ok, basic plotline of betrayal & murder of the royal family, of which Ta-thea (empress) is the only survivor. She escapes to the homeland of her mother where she begins a quest to find herself, truth, reason for living, etc. She takes THE BOOK, aka Word of God and flees to another country where she is welcomed with open arms by their royal family who immediately are converted to her new religion. There's some noise about her returning to reclaim the throne, but she's more focused on spreading The Word. And boy, do we read a lot of it! Finally, she regains her throne, but is quickly banished by a henchman of The Adversary, so she begins wandering, converting nearly all she comes accross. More of THE BOOK's wisdom for us. Of course, any differing beliefs are turned into an expression of The Word Of God. Blah Blah Blah.
I gave up. If I wanted to read a religious text, I would have. If I had intended to read Christian fantasy, I'd have checked out the Left Behind series, I hear that's popular and well written.
The epic struggle between good and evil has been and will be written about in much more interesting ways.
Rating:
Summary: Good Grief
Review: I wish I could give this book zero stars. And I'd like to give the publisher zero stars as well for marketing this as fantasy. One star implies that it had some sort of redeeming quality. Perhaps the cover art. That wasn't too bad.
Anne Perry delivers a Mormon version of Pilgrim's Progress, except Tathea, the pilgrim, doesn't really make any progress. None of the characters do. They have about as much depth as Virtue and Vice in a morality play. The writing is about as subtle as being sat on by a big Christian elephant. Perry's treatment of religious questions has none of the depth or subtlety of, say, C.S. Lewis or T.S. Eliot. For that matter, C.S. Friedman delivered better meditations on good and evil in the Coldfire Trilogy.
(I also want to add a note about my viewpoint. Many -- though certainly not all -- fantasy fans seem to be disproportionately hostile toward religion compared with most of the population. I do not feel I share the automatic hostility toward organized religion that seems to predominate among many who share my tastes. Although I am not Christian, I have read plenty of Christian and non-Christian theology (from Kierkegaard to Fackenheim) and while I don't agree with it, I enjoy learning about it.
So I feel safe in asserting that it is not out of religious hostility that I say this is a truly lousy book. The ideas in and of themselves are not necessarily bad, but the execution is just blunt, dull, and annoying.)
Save your money and your time. If you're interested in religious questions in fiction (and fantasy is an excellent medium for exploring them) there are shelves and shelves of books better than this one.
It seems to be difficult for those with fundamentalist worldviews to write good fiction. I believe this is because fundamentalism tends to posit a world in which good and evil are black and white. This may work as a worldview, but good *fiction* deals with shades of grey.
To sum it up: bad allegorical fantasy and theological musings from an author who apparently can't do fantasy, allegory or theology.
Rating:
Summary: Long Long Journey
Review: I wish I had read the other reviews before trying to plow my way through this book. I like fantasy, I like Anne Perry. But, I just could not finish this book. By the first fourth I really did not care what happened to Tathea (or anyone else for that matter). Very one deminsional. Not up to her usual standard.
Rating:
Summary: A cure for insomnia
Review: I'll be brief. I love Anne Perry's work. Although I'm a huge fan of William Monk and Hester and I love the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt myteries, this book was sleep inducing. There are 522 pages of religious ramblings that could have been condensed into 200. I'm sorry to say, reading this was a waste of time.
Rating: 
Summary: Just wading on through
Review: I'm a big fan of Perry's Victorian detective novels, and a big fan of sci-fi and fantasy books. When I saw this novel in the sci-fi/fantasy shelf of my local library, I couldn't resist. I shall try to give as fair a review as someone only half-way through a novel can be. I have no beef with Mormonism, and I'm not going to attack this book because it's a thinly-veneered exposition of Mormon theology. I'm actually interested in other religious beliefs, and in how their adherents view the world. This is the only reason I'm sticking with the book, to tell the truth. You see, 'Tathea' is boring. I'm sorry, Ms Perry, I truly am, but it is. Some books manage to pull of the trick of creating characters who exist solely to facilitate the flow of philosophising. 'Tathea' isn't one of them. In 'Tathea', the sheer lack of character depth means that I am consciously wading on through this book purely out of curiosity about Mormon ideas, not because I care one whit about Tathea (completely wise, compassionate, and good in every way) or her adventures (passing quickly and easily, with no sense of real drama to pull me in) or her world (a not very imaginative use of ancient civilisations). If only the characters felt more real, more raw, more interesting, I could go with this happily. But they're not, and I have to say I'm disappointed.
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