The Wayfarer Redemption

By Sara Douglass...

In a world of all kinds of incest, we follow our protagonists on an inspiring, at times horrifying, and at times depressingly morally gray adventure. In this case, adventure means everyone had a crappy as hell day. Our first protagonist is Axis SunSoar, who is a member of a military order called the Axe Wielders, which is a part of a religion called the Way of the Plow. The leaders of such, the Brothers of the Seneschal believe that The Forbidden who live in the north are evil, nasty monsters, The Heartless at their finest. There is even a recorded history showing the tyranny and evil of the Forbidden. After a glorious revolution, the Seneschal overthrew their dark masters and sent them into dark forests and mountains...

Ahem, and all of that little story was a lie.

The Forbidden are really decent people, but one group of them, the Icarii, have wings, and the Avar have horns. They have magic music. And that glorious revolution was a Moral Event Horizon crossing for the Seneschal, who chopped down whole forests of habitats for the Avar and all 'round every human in those "glorious" wars of the axe were bastards.

Nowadays, Axis is slowly learning his secret past, plus the fact that he is actually a "Forbidden" himself, which shakes his faith irreversibly. After assuming leadership of his new people, he has to fight his evil half-brother Borneheld, and uncover mysteries such as about WolfStar, a heretic Icarii combo platter of the Magnificent Bastard, Complete Monster and Mad Scientist tropes. And, of course, deal with the Big Bad, another evil half-brother. This one is called Gorgrael, and he has an absolutely lovely prophecy to go with him.

Also included is an evil baby named DragonStar, who grows up to be completely awesome, Caelum, the "Abel" to DragonStar's "Cain", who grows up to be an absolutely loathsome Smug Snake who bangs his sister and arranges her murder and then clumsily throws it on Drago.

Originally from Australia these where two separate book trilogies. In America TOR meraged them into a six book saga.

The Axis Trilogy

  • Battle Axe/The Wayfarer Redemption (1995)
  • Enchanter (1996)
  • Starman (1996)

The Wayfarer Redemption

  • Sinner (1997)
  • Pilgrim (1998)
  • Crusader (1999)

The sequel series to The Wayfarer Redemption is The Darkglass Mountain Trilogy.

Tropes used in The Wayfarer Redemption include:
  • Action Girl: Azhure.
  • Aerith and Bob: There's Axis, Gilbert, Judith, Jayme, and Jack ... and also Azhure, Rivkah, Faraday, Borneheld, and any of the Icarii names.
    • The more unusually-named people tend to be nobility or of a different race, however.
  • Affably Evil: Qeteb in parts of Crusader.
  • A God Am I: Axis and Azhure are discovered to be the Star Gods of Song and Moon, respectively.
  • Badass: Axis throughout the entire series, Azhure definitely counts too.
  • Badass Normal: Axis and Azhure become this. Belial definitely counts, given how he's one of the few men who can stand up to Axis without fear.
  • Batman Gambit: Several throughout the series.
    • The Time Keepers had a really impressive one, given that they were a little Sealed in a Can at the time. They used some dreams to turn brother against brother, making one impossibly scared of the other, the other was made to loath and hunt his brother in a dream, and this succeeded: Drago went on through, and they show him compassion... its fake. They use his magic to jump through the universe until they reach Tecendor. They go on through, screwing over Drago.
  • Big Badass Wolf: Twelve, actually -- the Alaunt, hyperintelligent canines that serve WolfStar, and his heirs. Their servitude to Azhure makes MorningStar think that she is WolfStar in disguise.
  • Because Destiny Says So: This is in both trilogies.
    • It's unclear how much of it is destiny and how much is manipulation in the first trilogy though.
  • Big Screwed-Up Family: The SunSoars, and how! Most prominently StarDrifter and especially WolfStar.
  • Break the Cutie: Poor Faraday.
  • Brother-Sister Incest: Caelum and RiverStar. Incest is actually a curse of the SunSoar family in general, but it's normally at least a few relatives removed (apparently cousin/cousin and grandparent/grandchild pairings are common.
  • Brought Down to Normal: Axis And Azhure as well as the other gods and all Icarii Enchanters.
  • Cain and Abel: Drago and Caelum
  • Can't Argue with Elves: Averted and hard, at that.
  • The Chick: Faraday
  • Chosen One: Axis then Drago.
  • Cool Horse: Belaguez
  • The Dark Chick: StarLaughter, in addition to being one nasty piece of work.
  • Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: The Gatekeeper.
    • Urbeth Possibly qualifies.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: The ultimate fate of Faraday and Drago.
  • The Dragon: Possibly Sheol to Qeteb, considering she effectively leads the Timekeepers while Qeteb is sealed, and seems to have a bit more leeway with the head Demon than the rest.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: Azhure definitely earned hers, even if it was only for forty years.
    • Dragonstar. Just... Dragonstar.
  • The End of the World as We Know It: in Crusader
  • Enfant Terrible: Played straight with Gorgrael in the prologue, but completely subverted with Dragon Star.
  • Everything's Better with Princesses
  • Everything's Worse with Bears: For Qeteb that is, who gets the most humiliating death of the series: eaten by a bear named Love.
    • Not to mention Urbeth and her daughters. They're some nasty pieces of work if you're on their bad side.
  • Evil Overlord:Gorgrael
    • Qeteb.
  • For the Evulz: Gorgrael's motivations, and this also applies to Qeteb and the Timekeepers to a degree. Qeteb just really really hates everything.
  • God Is Evil: Artor
    • But is he really any worse than many of the characters in the book? He did everything he did because he needed prayer and plowed land in order to exist, not to mention the Star Gods would have killed him had he not locked them away.
  • Functional Magic: Having the ability to make thousands of army uniforms in a single night while you sleep definitely qualifies. Also, the ability to teleport across hundreds of miles ...
  • Have You Seen My God?: The Icarii gods went AWOL when Artor came to power.
  • Honor Before Reason
  • Humiliation Conga: Happens to WolfStar and StarLaughter. After dying they are denied entry to the Afterlife and Booed by all the stars untill they reach the end of the universe.
  • In the Back: Borneheld crosses the Moral Event Horizon by doing this to Freefall in the fist book.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Axis and most Icarii are this due to the innate arrogance of the race as a whole, but they aren't always bad people.
  • Jerkass: Axis has his moments, Borneheld is one of the biggest Jerkasses in the series, WolfStar takes the cake.
    • Caelum gets pretty bad.
  • Light Is Not Nice: All Icarii are capable of this due to their arrogance, so are the Avar.
    • I wouldn't really call the Avar "light". They seem to be neutral at best, though this may be due to having a few bad leaders.
  • The Magic Goes Away... if you use it to burn up hundreds of Gryphon that are about to massacre your army. Although it is regained through the Power of Love.
    • The TimeKeepers bring this about.
  • Manipulative Bastard: WolfStar and to a lesser extent StarLaughter.
  • Mind Rape: Happens to anyone who happens to be outside when the TimeKeepers have their hours. Also happens to Timozel and Zenith in unrelated circumstances.
  • No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: Done in Crusader. Qeteb does this to Drago (but, Drago has to use his magic conjure up some food).
  • Our Elves Are Different: The Icarii and Avar; the Icarii are impossibly beautiful mystical enchanters with angel wings and a penchant for incest, and the Avar are xenophobic forest-dwelling fair folk who hate violence but power their magic with blood sacrifice.
  • Our Orcs Are Different: Skraelings.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Qeteb.
  • Sealed Good in a Can: The Sentinels become this. They're freed by Drago and thus help him return to life.
  • Smug Snake: Caelum, and possibly also WolfStar before he dies.
  • The Man Behind the Man: WolfStar to Gorgrael. And then Noah to WolfStar.
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