The Tenth Power

Grade 6 Up–In the final installment of this trilogy, Calwyn, who once had several of the nine singing magic powers (called chantments), has lost all of her extraordinary gifts. Bitterly, she returns to Antaris with hopes of recuperation, but instead finds that a number of the chanters have been affected with a deadly snow-sickness. Entrusted by the dying high priestess with knowledge of a wheel that contains the tenth power to heal the world, Calwyn sets out with her companions to track down Samis, a wicked sorcerer whom she had believed was dead, and wrest from him the missing half of the wheel. On her perilous journey, she discovers a long-lost relative, delves deeper into the conflicted relationship with her chanter friend Darrow, and discovers new gifts that lead her reluctantly toward her destiny as the Singer of All Songs. As in the other two books, the detailed descriptions of the settings and the natures of the various chantments are what give the story the richness of elaborate tapestries. There are many characters to keep track of, and while Calwyns friendship with the healer Halasaa has become more fleshed out, her romance with Darrow doesnt have the intense chemistry demanded of the narrative, and her later relationship with Samis strains credulity. However, there is much to enjoy and ponder in a trilogy that strives to ask hard, thoughtful questions, even if it cant always answer them.–Farida S. Dowler, Mercer Island Library, WA
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Gr. 7-10. At the opening of the final installment of Constable's well-regarded Singer of All Songs trilogy, 18-year-old Calwyn returns to the ice priestesses' enclave to mourn her nine lost powers of chantment (magic worked through song). There, hints about a mysterious Tenth Power send Cal on a final quest to cure the "sickness at the fabric of the world," responsible for a deadly disease infecting her soul mate; for the eternal winter that has gripped Tremaris; and, it seems, for Cal's sense of dislocation from all she loves. True to classic heroic themes, Cal must face humanity's darker afflictions--temptation, nihilism, devastating grief--before successfully channeling her newly recouped powers into an intense ritual of reconciliation and healing. A few elements feel artificial, such as the curiously sf-oriented back story for Tremaris and the Age-of-Aquarius tones of its magical resurrection, but others, like the workings of the Tenth Power, have the ring of essential truth. Questions about Calwyn's family history are answered here for series fans, who will be eager to see book one's vulnerable, callow adolescent arrive at both fuller self-knowledge and her long-awaited destiny. Jennifer Mattson
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