The Mirror of Her Dreams

I've owned this book for over three decades, but for some reason I never got around to reading it. Which is weird considering how much of a fan I am of Stephen R. Donaldson's Thomas Covenant books. In any event, both volumes of the Mordant's Need duology have sat on my shelves for years, all but forgotten. I came across them again while doing some house cleaning and decided that it was high time to give this series a shot.

The main problem with SFF works from the 70s and the 80s is that many of them have not aged well. And sadly, The Mirror of Her Dreams is the perfect example of a bestseller from a different era which doesn't hold up well in this day and age. The old-school gendered perspectives of the early 80s, in particular, will be a frustrating challenge, especially for female readers.

Here's the blurb:

With The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Stephen R. Donaldson changed the face of fantasy fiction forever. In The Mirror of Her Dreams, the astonishing first novel in the two-volume Mordant’s Need series, Donaldson shows us a world of wondrous beauty and seductive illusion, where mirrors hold the deadliest of magics and nothing is what it seems. . . .

The daughter of rich but neglectful parents, Terisa Morgan lives alone in a New York City apartment, a young woman who has grown to doubt her own existence. Surrounded by the flat reassurance of mirrors, she leads an unfulfilled life—until the night a strange man named Geraden comes crashing through one of her mirrors, on a quest to find a champion to save his kingdom of Mordant from a pervasive evil that threatens the land. Terisa is no champion. She wields neither magic nor power. And yet, much to her own surprise, when Geraden begs her to come back with him, she agrees.

Now, in a culture where women are little more than the playthings of powerful men, in a castle honeycombed with secret passages and clever traps, in a kingdom threatened from without and within by enemies able to appear and vanish out of thin air, Terisa must become more than the pale reflection of a person. For the way back to Earth is closed to her. And the enemies of Mordant will stop at nothing to see her dead.

Although The Mirror of Her Dreams is a bag of fantasy tropes, you can always count on an author of Stephen R. Donaldson's talent and imagination to subvert them and keep readers on their toes. The worldbuilding, as least in this first installment, is not as rich and detailed as that of the Land in the Thomas Covenant books. Still, I liked how the author played with the Chosen One cliché and turned it on its head by making a timid young woman from another world Mordant's champion. The concept of the Imagers and the Congery is interesting, and so was the tale of how King Joyse united the realms to form what became the kingdom of Mordant. The plot probably would have benefited from a more detailed back story of Mordant's enemies and the members of the Congery. Like Terisa, readers are more often than not left in the dark and are forced to move forward with no understanding of what's going on until we reach the last part of the novel. For that reason, it's difficult to fully get into this one.

The characterization is what leaves the most to be desired. Which is a bit shocking, as this is usually an aspect in which Donaldson truly shines. As mentioned, the dated gendered perspectives will likely infuriate many a reader, especially women. Teresa, though well-drawn and three-dimensional, can be exasperating at times. If it was only a question of her being so weak-minded and self-effacing, it wouldn't be that bad. But the sexual tension every time she encounters Master Eremis, as well as the portrayal of women in general, will make a lot of people want to throw the book across the room. Poor Geraden, clumsy in mind as well as in body, is a much easier protagonist to root for. Thankfully, the supporting cast features some interesting people, chief among them Myste, mad Adept Havelock, and Artagel. On the other hand, some, like Castellan Lebbick, appear dense on purpose, just to keep the plot moving.

Stephen R. Donaldson's works are never fast-pace affairs, so it will come as no surprise that The Mirror of Her Dreams suffers from pacing issues. The rhythm remains slow for the duration, with the action picking up a little just before the end. Though it's never dull, the book is never truly fascinating either. Donaldson offers a few golden nuggets along the way, just enough to keep you interested, but never making the novel hard to put down. You go through the motions, but you're never quite excited to find out what happens next. Still, the author managed to keep me intrigued enough to continue, so there is that.

The endgame, if you can call it that, doesn't really elevate the story to another level. We finally get some answers that were long in coming, yet those inevitably raise more questions. As expected but more than 550 pages later, Terisa finally finds the willpower to stand up for herself. But it's a little too late, to be honest. Sure, the ending makes you want to read the second volume, yet it doesn't exonerate the slog that was The Mirror of Her Dreams.

I have a feeling that it would have been a more enjoyable read back in the early 90s when I bought it. In 2025, well. . .

The final verdict: 6.5/10

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