"This tale marks only the first night of my telling. Come to me tomorrow evening, and I will tell you the rest."

I never thought anyone had the same vision of unicorns as me; not as the pure white medieval symbols, but as warriors, with their own world and culture, speaking, all different colors, brave and intelligent, beautiful, free...until I read this series. I was so excited after reading the first chapter of Birth of the Firebringer, I couldn't believe it. Finally a book where the unicorn is not seen just as a symbol, but as a main character - a true unicorn, as if one had just stepped out of my own imagination onto the pages of Ms. Pierce's creation. I loved it! But it became much more to me.

As I read on I was entranced by the beautiful writing, the rich plot, the unforgettable characters. The legend of the Firebringer is unlike any fantasy I've ever read, and for that reason it will always hold its place at the top of my favorites list, right next to CS Lewis's the Chronicles of Narnia.

The following from Birth of the Firebringer:

"Each month the unicorns gathered at dusk to dance in a Circle under the full, dusky moon. They were the only race they knew of that did so. For when Alma made the world, she fashioned all the other creatures first, out of earth, wind, water, and air--then invited them to dance. But the pans turned wordless away from her, and the gryphons flew to find mountains to nest in, and the red dragons burrowed deep into the Smoking Hills, and the wyverns laughed.

So Alma created the unicorns after her own shape: sleek-bodied and long-limbed for swift running, wild-hearted and hot-blooded to make them brave warriors. Then she took from the cycling moon some of its shining stuff to fashion their hooves and horns and make them dancers. So the last-born and best-beloved of Alma called themselves also the moon's children, and each month danced the ringdance under the round, rising moon."

And I can't say it any better than Ryhenna, the keeper of Ryhenna's Firebringer Shrine, as follows...

Quite unlike the rare, pure-white, maiden-chasing creatures of medieval legend, Pierce's unicorns are a breed apart. Their world is one in which humans dwell only on the fringes, far across the sea. They have their own society, history, culture, and mythology, all richly developed. Read the books, and you are plunged into their midst, until you feel you have battled a wyvern queen in the depths of the earth, fled from a Serpent-cloud across the Great Grass Plain, gazed on a dark night into the Mirror of the Moon, and perhaps heard the whisper of the starry-eyed goddess, laughing, teasing, drawing you onward to discover fire. Pierce has created a beautiful, unforgettable realm of imagination, peopled by a four-hooved, one-horned folk, wild and sharp-witted, fierce and free, worthy descendants of legend who perhaps even surpass their source.

For more information on storyline and characters, please visit The World.