| Lady of Avalon (Avalon, Book 3) | 
 enlarge | Author: Marion Zimmer Bradley
Creators: Diana L. Paxson, John Jude Palencar
Publisher: Roc Trade
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
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You Save: $15.94 (100%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  92 reviews
Sales Rank: 88427
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 480
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6 x 0.9
ISBN: 0451456521
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780451456526
ASIN: 0451456521
Publication Date: June 1, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Magnificent!! January 10, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
If you love "Mist of Avalon", you will love Lady of Avalon. Bradley's entire Avalon series is a great read. You can read them out of order and they still flow well. A great series to lose yourself in. Buy them. Read them. Enjoy them.
I really enjoyed this book. August 2, 2006
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Mists of Avalon is on my list of all-time favourite books, and this book, although not as compelling as that one, is a good one in its own right. It is a prequel to what occured in Mists, and it follows directly after where Forest House left off. The book itself spans 400 years and in it we get a really good look at four of the Ladies of Avalon. We also get a good picture of what life was like in England during the Roman occupation. Like Mists, the women in this book are strong and determined as they fight to keep the secret of Avalon alive. Bradley's writing is spell-binding, and she draws you into her web of fantasy as you read her books about this mystical place. Her world is a world of myth, magic, poetry, romance, life, death and history. I was sorry when I reached the end.
Eloquent display of the cycle of life July 19, 2006
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
Lady of Avalon is actually 3 books in one. Each part is a separate story, yet they are all interwoven in the Pagan idea of the life cycle, and reincarnation.
The first section is called "The Wisewoman" and takes place from 96AD to 118AD. This is mostly Caillean's story as left off in "The Forest House" including the rest of the life of Eilan's son, Gawen. This story also reveals how and why Avalon came to have it's infamous "mists" and different time tract.
The second section is called "The High Priestess" and takes place from 285AD to 293AD. This is mostly Dierna's story picking up from the story line started in the book "Priestess of Avalon." I would personally recommend reading "Priestess of Avalon" between reading the first and second parts of this book, if one wishes to read the stories in chronological order.
Part 3 is called "Daughter of Avalon" and takes place from 440AD to 452AD. This is mostly Vivianne's story, which directly leads in to "The Mists of Avalon." Although I thoroughly enjoyed the story that was presented, I was wanting even more. I felt it ended a little too early with a larger gap in time from the end of this to the start of "The Mists" than I would prefer. This story is VERY insightful to the character of Vivianne, and gives much more understanding of her actions carried out in "The Mists of Avalon." As with all the stories in the series, it was very spiritual. The desription of what Vivianne felt and thought as she went to part the mists for the first time was moving.
The books preceeding this one in the series are: "The Fall of Atlantis," "Ancestors of Avalon," and "The Forest House."
Worth the read if your a Avalon fan! June 7, 2006
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
This book, along with the "priestess of avalon" are great reads. Somehow they are all the same story but all different at the same time. If you read all of Zimmers Avalon books, you seem to be ingulfed with all of it. Some people say its like reading the same story over again, but they are so much more. I took complete enjoyment at researching more Zimmer titles after I read "The Forest House" which is still my all time fav! I seem to search for my own Avalon. For this I am greatful that I was able to experiance all of what Zimmer had to offer!
Nice blend of historical and mystical elements May 8, 2005
17 out of 17 found this review helpful
Lady of Avalon is a forerunner to Bradley's biggest commercial success, The Mists of Avalon. Written after the success of Mists, Bradley returns to Avalon, but at a much earlier time in history. In all honesty, I enjoyed this novel much more than The Mists of Avalon. This time, Bradley manages to tell the stories of three different women, beginning in 96 AD and ending in 452 AD, in about half the space!
Each of these women's stories could be a stand-alone novella. Their main connection is that they all, at some point, become the Lady of Avalon, the sisterhood's highest and most respected position. Common themes run through each section - devotion to duty, personal sacrifices, self-doubt, to name just a few. The book begins with the tale of Caillean, the first Lady of Avalon. Fleeing the destruction of her previous community by the Romans, she arrives at Avalon with a young boy whose bright spirit will return again during the times Britain will need him most. To help ensure that Avalon will continue to be a refuge from the Romans, it is Caillean who eventually shrouds the island in the mythical mists, removing it from the mortal world.
More than seven generations later, Bradley returns to Avalon. Dierna is High Priestess in a land beset by troubles. Although Britain still pays tribute to the Romans, their protection from overseas raiders is sadly lacking. After years of seclusion within the mists, Dierna believes it is time for the Priestesses to return to the world and use their influence for the protection and preservation of Britain. The third and final portion of this tale brings the reader to the time immediately prior to the events that will occur in The Mists of Avalon. Viviane has been raised as the foster daughter of a simple farmer and his wife, until the day Taliesin comes to return her to her rightful place as heir to the Lady of Avalon. Amid personal and religious strife and political upheavals, Viviane must find her own path. This path will ultimately lead to the Holy Grail and the bestowing of a new title, the Lady of the Lake. Her actions will set the course for the mythical figures to come after her - Igraine, Arthur, Morgaine, to name just a few.
I suspect the shorter length of this book influenced my opinion, by contributing to my enjoyment of these three interrelated stories. Each era was filled with enough history to be informative and enough action to be interesting, without a lot of the extra verbiage and minutiae Bradley introduces in her earlier Avalon novel. My only complaint regards the way in which Bradley would drop one section and move on to the next. She introduces a number of interesting supporting characters, but you are never really sure what becomes of them when Bradley is through with the main character's story. Still, this is true of real life as well, so it is probably more a matter of my curiosity rather than a flaw of Bradley's. This book is a nice blend of historical and mystical elements and Bradley's interpretation of the Priestesses and their role in Britain's power struggles is quite interesting.
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