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Submitted by Emma Baumann 
(Aug 01, 2003)

I read The Soprano Sorceress and I loved the plot that was created as the base for this novel. The magical world of Erde, being governed completely by the powers of music and the sound that voices make.
The characters were easy to discern and at first I (being a woman and a vocal performance major) identified with some of Anna's frustrations and difficulties; but as I read more, I became extremely disappointed with the lack of understanding of the female mind with which Mr. Modesitt choose to shape his lead character. This fact alone is the chief problem with the story and how it is told.
Anna comes across as a selfish, self-righteous woman who alternatively hates and dislikes, herself and all those around her. She has an extremely jaded view- point of life and anything to do with living. Anna's character seems to be told by the husband of such a woman, rather than the woman herself.
Not only does Anna become the most powerful person on the magical world in a matter of weeks: All to quickly, Anna becomes tedious and annoying to read. One might find oneself skipping and skimming over Anna's tiring rants just to get through the book.
Hoping the novel would get better, I continued my reading and was even more disappointed with the way this story was brought to a close.
The last few chapters seemed hurried and not well thought out. The end was not really and end, but a launching point for the series The Spellsong Cycle, which I can only hope will get better from here.

The soprano sorceress is a dismal book. It takes aspects of all the authors other books and combines them into a hodgepodge of plot and characters. Nothing really seems to fit and all the characters are one or 2 dimensional.There are so many contradictions of character behavior it seems unlikely that this book was written: more like derived from an algorithm. The idea of singing and music to generate magic was interesting: however it was just ORDER and CHAOS with different names.The motivation of the main character - to prevent another form of NAZI-like take over of Erde (the particular place where the protagonist Anna finds herself) is dubious at best. However when her particular form of female chauvinism takes full flight, she levels armies, puts magic spells on anyone that thinks different to her forcing them into submission, immolates the local gentry at will, and says to herself "I have no choice" as if that is some kind of justification. This is bordering on the incredible.I couldn't finish the book. I read to page 541 and decided that I hated Anna so much I wanted to see her fail. She had so much become the little despot that she so desperately wanted to avoid taking over Erde. Every other character in the book was someone she held in contempt, even Daffyd (her main supportive character) from time to time. She was suspicious of every one, and only trusted "feelings" which is quite insulting to both male and female RATIONAL readers out there. I could go on - but considering I couldn't finish the book - actions speak louder than words.Singularly disappointing.