Marie Brennan, Doppelganger

Doppelganger

Marie Brennan

Warner, April 2006, $6.99, 432 pp.

ISBN 0446616982

Mirage is a hunter, trained at the Silverfire School that teaches freelancers to do whatever job is assigned to them. After a year on the road completing her assignments Mirage needs rest. Her "vacation" plans change where she meets her year-mate Eclipse. He has a two person commission from the Witches of Starfire Stronghold to find out who killed Tari-nakana, the key (a leader of a path) of the Fire Heart Path and the person who ordered the hit. Although she wants nothing to with witches, she accepts the job.

Miryo is a witch at Starfire who passed the initiation test but is unable to control her magic making it dangerous for her to use it. She learns that the ritual used at birth to bring forth her magic at the age of twenty-five created a doppelganger who was supposed to be killed. Miryo's doppelganger lived and she is the warrior Marage who was exposed to starlight which gave her a soul. When Miryo and Marage meet neither one is unable to kill the other. They decide to work together to find a solution that would allow all doppelgangers to live and acquire a soul while the five primes (the leaders of the witches) try to kill them. Eclipse chooses to stay with Mirage and Miryo.

DOPPELGANGERS is a spellbinding, fantastic and unique fantasy due to the cast. Both Mirage and Miryo are two sides of the same coin except that one is a witch and the other a warrior. Although this is Marie Brennan's first book, she proves she is a talented storyteller and a creative world-builder. Although there is a lot of action in this novel, the characters are fully developed and readers understand them because they have similar feelings and concerns as the readers do.