There's some wonderful stuff here. Bear's vision of the Sidhe is not at all the stuff of generic-Celtic fantasy-- the Faer are powerful and incredibly cruel, and have been at war with humans for millions of years. He lifts elements from all the usual legends, but spins a vivid and unique world out of them. The punishments visited on their enemies by the victorious Sidhe are horrifyingly baroque (as, for that matter, are the weapons wielded by the humans who battled them millions of years ago). It puts an entirely different spin on the whole Celtic mythos, and I've never read pseudo-Celtic stories the same since.

The scope of the books is impressive, and the tone is handled very well. Among everything else, the Sidhe are also a decadent race, well past their best days, and this is reflected in the writing (in some subtle way that I can't entirely put my finger on). The magic is suitably magical (a recurring theme in my comments here), and there are lots of scenes with great special effects, as it were.

And if nothing else, I'd enjoy these books just for a line dropped in passing which is as poetic a description of Quantum Mechanics as you'll ever find: "All is waves, with nothing waving, over no distance at all." There are a number of other nicely evocative little turns of phrase scattered throughout, but that one stands out.

As I said above, these books meant a lot to me back when I first read them-- my paperback copies are impressively battered from multiple re-reads. It was a huge relief to see that these still hold up.

(Originally posted to The Library of Babel.)