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Traci Harding's Ancient Future Triology and Celestial Triad

One of my favourite authors. The first book, The Ancient Future follows Tory Alexander's adventure, traveling back to the dark ages while lost near a structure like Stonehenge, taken back by Taliesin. She captures the hearts of everyone, including Maelgwn the future High King of Gwynedd. Celtic culture and ancient rituals are weaved throughout the story, creating a rich story that is believable and captivating, even though the metaphysical and magickal practices in the story may be a bit detached from some readers, but very comfortable to others (like myself).

            An Echo in Time moves the two protagonists to Atlantis and puts us into an almost utopic society. As they explore the incarnations of the characters familiar from The Ancient Future the characters and their relationships develop. Then the characters are thrust into the modern time and the future in Masters of Reality, coming into contact with the Nefilim and becoming more confident with time travel and psychic ability.

            The Celestial Triad fills in the gaps throughout the Ancient Future moving back to the Dark Ages in the first book Chronicle of Ages as Noah documents the history of the group. By this stage the family tree has become broad and staggered over a number of centuries, most of the main characters being immortal. Tablet of Destinies stays in the present time (which is in fact, our future). The family tree and incarnation list by this book is rather bewildering and I had to search through every book to draw up and incarnation chart and family tree. The families extend and more alien species are added to the mix.

            By the last book The Cosmic Logos the story has become expansive and bizarre. Traci takes on an interesting way of exploring the future of her characters, writing about Tory being her muse and her actually documenting factual accounts in another reality. It seems a very weird way to write and almost becomes biographical in sections, but it adds a twist to the story that you'd think couldn't get any more complicated or expansive.

            The writing style is very descriptive but its mainly plot and character driven. In sections there are tense changes but these are necessary for the effect of the story. These books are highly addictive and the language is easy to read (but not boring or tedious). Unlike in other series, like in the Lincoln Rhyme series, it is impossible to chop and change between books. This is a series that has to be read from start to finish. Unfortunately when I started reading it I had to wait for each book to be released and I was frequenting up to a year between books. But it was well worth the wait. The two series require a bit of dedication to finish, but if you're a quick reader, you should be finished each within a couple of days (even though they're quite thick).