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published 1996; paperback 1996, Avon
Lorand Coll is a salt-of-the-earth farmer, Jovvi Hafford is a prostitute with a heart of gold, Clarion Mardimil is a spoiled nobleman, Vallant Ro is a rough-hewn sailor, and Tamrissa Domon is a woman trying to escape an unwanted marriage. If you think you've seen these characters before, you have.
Nor is the premise of Convergence, the new fantasy by Sharon Green, any more original than the principals. Each of the five is skilled in a different aspect of elemental magic and must bring their powers of Earth, Air, Water, Fire, and Spirit together to defeat a powerful enemy, a plot that has already been explored by Tanya Huff and Midori Snyder, among others.
These five characters are brought together when they are ordered to be tested for the strength of their magical ability. All the people of this particular country have magical powers in varying levels of strength from Low to High. All Middle-level practitioners must test for High, but what they don't know until they get there is that the test will put their lives on the line, and even if they pass the test, promotion to High is still dependent on advancing through grueling rounds of lessons and competitions. The winners of each aspect, presumably, will become part of the new Blending and rule the nation.
The logical flaws of this premise grated on me like sand in a swimsuit. Since we know that all Middle-level practitioners must test, and since we're told that nearly all of them die, and since we're told that magical ability is a genetic trait, it seems to me that pretty soon there would not be any Middles left to test. We're also told that being a High means a life of luxury and relative ease, so why do most of the people who take the test have to be compelled by law to do so, since they don't know that the test could result in their death? And also, if most of the people who take the test die, where are the bodies going and why doesn't the general populace catch on to what's happening? Alas, these questions aren't answered.
Convergence also got off to a slow, clumsy start, in part because the first few chapters were introduced with first-person asides from Tamrissa. I thought that these introductions were unnecessary and distracting, and smacked too much of author intrusion. The asides also contained lame jokes and unfunny puns, and I try to avoid people who commit these kinds of verbal monstrosities in real life, so why would I want to read someone telling them? By the time Tamrissa said that she was going to make fewer personal comments in the future, I was shrieking, "Good! Shut up! " After I calmed down and took some medication for my queasy stomach, I noticed that story flowed much better after Tamrissa's comments ceased. The book could have also used more stringent editing. Sentences were wordy and sometimes obtuse, and the frequent use of ellipsis at the end of chapters to suggest tension (even in the book's very last sentence!) was a constant irritant.
In spite of the fact that they were described in great detail, I found the book's big sex scenes almost irksome. Or perhaps it was because they were described in great detail, of the sort usually reserved for bodice-ripper romances, complete with phrases like "the entrance of ultimate bliss" and "arms like bands of steel."
As pages went by, however, I found myself warming up to the book and its characters, superficially stereotypical though they be. An interesting development was the glimpse given the reader of the forces pulling the strings behind the High Practitioner selection process. Though our heroes are fated by prophecy to be the new Blending, there are hidden forces at work against them, and even if they succeed in overcoming those, success in the battle against the threats to come is not guaranteed.
In spite of its flaws, Convergence is interesting enough to while away an afternoon with, and will probably appeal to fans of Mercedes Lackey and other authors who write similar sort of works. Just call it Lackey LiteTM.
Review by Sara Lipowitz
Reviewed January 12, 1997
ISBN 0-380-78414-9
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