Our discussion of The Dark Mirror

Last night, we met to discuss The Dark Mirror by Juliet Marillier, which is #1 in the Bridei Chronicles.    As always, we had a great discussion, with lots to talk about, so I'll try to hit some of the highlights here:

• Mike started us off by saying that he liked the book, and liked the worldbuilding and characters.  However, he said, "If I had 2 more months, I would finish it."  
• This was something echoed by many readers, who liked aspects of the book, but found it to be very dense.   As much as many of us enjoyed the descriptive writing, we felt there could have been a bit of tightening up in a few places.   Readers also mentioned the very slow pace (or, as Theresa put it, "The pace was glacial.").   
• Theresa said that she found the book reminiscent of both fiction and nonfiction that she had read.   She remembered a nonfiction book about the Celts (which I'm thinking is The Discovery of Middle Earth: Mapping the Lost World of the Celts by Graham Robb), but she also said that Marillier's book reminded her of the Phredre trilogy by Jacqueline Carey.   Other readers mentioned a similarity to The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley.
• Klaupacius stated that he found the book interesting because he isn't as widely read in fantasy, and had not read anything like this that was based on history.
• Theresa said another thing she enjoyed about the book was how the author played with the idea of "the other," as it related to Tuala, and how the world was set up in the story.
• Hola agreed, but said that she felt this was a familiar story, where she could anticipate what was going to happen.   As she said, "It's not like it's a revolution in my mind."    We had some general discussion of what people felt were familiar elements, and storyline.
• Furry mentioned that her main reservation about reading the book was her assumption about the characters and story, and the expected-ness of it.  However, she enjoyed the details of the religion, and the druid as main character, and also that it was an interesting take on the British Isles at that point in time.
• Taylor said that she enjoyed the book, although she doesn't usually find that this level of worldbuilding keeps her hooked.  However, she was intrigued by the world in this story and wanted to find out more as she was reading.   She also mentioned that despite the sometimes long-winded descriptions and slow pace, that she plans to finish the series (as long as it stays consistent with the first book).  
• Mike agreed that the storyline felt familiar, although he also felt like he kept wondering what would happen next.   Even though he might be able to anticipate some of it, his curiosity kept him going.   
• Furry stated, and many of us agreed, that this book would make a good mini-series (HBO, perhaps?), where the pace would be sped up because the visual element would take care of much of the descriptive writing.

While people generally enjoyed the read, not everyone got to the end of it (mostly due to time constraints and the fact that the book is a dense read).     We gave the book an averaged-out rating of 4, and the codes of AGE, ELF, REL, GB, MAG and TOL.