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Regardless of how one may view this ongoing series -- I, for one, do not count myself among its adherents -- there is little question that Ms. Haydon knows how to write, displaying assurance in her descriptive passages, as well as at times the deft turn of phrase.  Additionally, certain magical sequences, her creation of a spiritual system based upon a blend of telepathy, talismanic conjury, sympathetic magic, clairvoyance and animism bound together around a foundation of music, an inherent vibrational tenor uniting all things, when not in the service of elevating her central characters, and though used before and for similar ends by authors such as Baudino, Attanasio, C.S. Lewis and McKillip, presents the reader with a mythical framework that, at times, is inventively rendered.  One might only wish that the author's admitted strengths were directed to the benefit of a tale less conventional and less bound to indulgent romance.

Reduced to its essentials, this story, as with the previous novel, Rhapsody, is centred around the conventions and sojourns of the quest, as well as an evolving romance, between which the story is pretty well evenly divided.  Picking up immediately where the first novel left off, Prophecy, as its title implies, pursues the threads of prophetic destiny and impending conflict laid down in the first book, resolving some, expanding upon others while adding a few new auguries to the mix.  Ashe's identity is revealed, the hidden threat of the F'dor stretches its shadow across the land, and Rhapsody and her friends find themselves ever more deeply drawn into the plots of those around them, as well as the doom awaiting should they fail.  As is often the case in such scenarios, Rhapsody sets off in order to discover answers to some of the questions that beset her, and in the company of Ashe, who at the outset of the novel remains as much a mystery. 

This sets up much of the narrative action of the first half of the book, a rather rambling and at times tedious sequence of travels common to many quest adventures. Some of the encounters, such as the meeting with the dragon Elynsynos, seem particularly gratuitous to the story's primary narrative thread.  As in many other quest tales of its kind, Rhapsody's travels become in part an excuse to provide a travelogue of wonders that after a time appear repetitive and superfluous, though certainly following in the footsteps of any number of other high fantasy sagas.  Nor does Rhapsody entirely abandon her travelling in the latter half of the book, finding repeated opportunities for brief side trips to Sepulvarta, Yarim and the hills of Orlando.  Unfortunately, after a time, though the terrain may be different, the architecture of the cities and buildings visited begins to become similar, a succession of basilicas and temples with vaulting arches, gleaming domes and immense marble chambers whose floors are inevitably laid with either geometric patterns or centred upon a fountain.  Not only are the journeys beginning to mirror themselves, but so is the narrative description.

More significantly, as in the first novel, the author continues to be hamstrung by her initial characterization of her heroine, as well as by her handling of the increasingly prominent romantic elements to her story.  All of her primary characters are written large: Achmed, the consummate assassin with his ability to locate the heartbeat of any living soul, an ability not entirely lost in the sojourn from Serendair; Grunthor, in his intimacy with the Earth, able to meld himself with stone or refashion it to his will; Ashe, master of elemental water and able to draw upon the powers of a dragon residing within his soul.  And, as all are immortal, despite the occasionally voiced, hollow-sounding complaint, this is an attribute that can only add to their already divine-like stature. 

But, without doubt, the most extravagantly endowed character is Rhapsody herself.  Purified in the first book by her journey through the Root, a process that regained her virginity, Rhapsody is not only a paragon of virtue, selfless, a healer and the rescuer of children, but also "physically perfect, her natural beauty enhanced to supernatural proportions."  Her physical appearance is so spellbinding that:

"men profess their undying love for [her] from little more than a glance.  Even when [she walks] about cloaked and hooded, ox carts run into each other, men stumble into walls, and women stand with their mouths agape."

William Thompson is a writer of speculative fiction, as yet unpublished, although he remains hopeful. In addition to pursuing his writing, he is in the degree program in information science at Indiana University.