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(More customer reviews)The Books of Great Alta, a compliation volume consisting of 'Sister Light, Sister Dark' and 'White Jenna', has just kept me up until 5:30 in the morning. I last read these books when they first came out, but have been reminded of them since and was delighted to find that both are still readily available. They are examples of Jane Yolen's brilliance as a storyteller and her profound skill as a maker of myths to rival any writer you care to name.
Part of Yolen's genius lies in her skillful weaving of reality and fantasy, the melding of myth and pseudo-history (with some quiet digs at modern historians along the way - but that's just an added extra) to form a convincing whole. The book is full of strong, memorable characters, most especially her central heroine, Jenna. Jenna is human enough both to want to be the Anna, the chosen one, and at the same time to want to reject that destiny. Fantasy and reality, blended and woven, but not like a piece of cloth, flat and two-dimensional - Jane's work is more like a fine basket, with height, width and depth, filled with brilliant writing and replete with original ideas that for all their newness still resonate at a deep level. Her concept of the dark sisters has introduced a new archetype to modern myth, and it is so powerful and rings so true that from this time forth we will wonder how we did not know it before.
These books belong on your shelf if the old songs are in your heart (and she provides the songs as well!) and if you have ever seen your dark sister in the mirror, only waiting to be called into being. Jane Yolen is a master of her art, and this is one of her many master-works. May you enjoy it as much as I have.
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In the classic of modern fantasy, we hear the tale, ancient and brazen, of White Jenna, born in sorrow, raised among warrior women,and taught to call forth her shadow sister by the light of the moon.And we learn what the later world makes of the lives of Jenna, of her princely lover, and her shadow-self: what legends are told of the White Queen, what songs are sung of King Longbow, what tales are whispered of Dark Skada. Of the tragic myths and glorious histories that time will make of their lives--and their deaths.
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