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    The Water Mirror: Dark Reflections Book 1
    Unavailable
    The Water Mirror: Dark Reflections Book 1
    Unavailable
    The Water Mirror: Dark Reflections Book 1
    Audiobook6 hours

    The Water Mirror: Dark Reflections Book 1

    Written by Kai Meyer

    Narrated by Toby Longworth

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    In Venice, magic is not unusual. Merle is apprenticed to a magic mirror maker, and Serafin-a boy who was once a master thief-works for a weaver of magic cloth. Now, Venice is under siege by the Egyptian Empire; its terrifying mummy warriors and flying sunbarks are waiting to strike. All that protects the Venetians is the Flowing Queen. Nobody knows who or what she is-only that her power flows through the canals and keeps the Egyptians at bay.

    When Merle and Serafin overhear a plot to capture the Flowing Queen, they are catapulted into desperate danger. They must do everything they can to rescue the Queen and save the city.

    Kai Meyer's bold, original fantasy conjures up a land of magic and menace as Merle and Serafin begin a journey to unimagined realms in the extraordinary world of Dark Reflections.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateFeb 14, 2006
    ISBN9780307284488
    Unavailable
    The Water Mirror: Dark Reflections Book 1
    Author

    Kai Meyer

    Kai Meyer is one of Germany's most successful authors, with millions of books sold worldwide. His novels have been translated into thirty languages. The British edition of The Flowing Queen (published in the U.S. as The Water Mirror) won the 2007 Marsh Award for Best Children's Book in Translation, and his historical novel The Vow was turned into a movie by celebrated German director Dominik Graf. Kai lives in Germany

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    Reviews for The Water Mirror

    4/5

    178 ratings14 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      I found the entire trilogy in a nearby Little Free Library and was intrigued. Unfortunately, this volume is a disappointment. I'm picky about world-building, and the world-building in this book is slapdash heading for chaotic. Venice! Magic! Egypt! Mermaids! Living stone lions! Hell! (No, really, Hell.) When the book started, I thought it would be about Merle and her new friend and fellow apprentice Junipa...and then suddenly Merle meets a certain boy and the plot becomes all about her and him and, yes, the female friend becomes a minor character. Meh. Since I have the second book in hand anyway, I'll try it and see if things even out, but I'm not optimistic.
    • 4/5
      This is a lively and intriguing fantasy with orphaned girls, magic mirrors, mermaids and winged lions in a fantastical version of Venice under siege.
    • 3/5
      Venice has been under the protection of the Flowing Queen since she helped the citizens defeat the Egyptians.....now 3 of the City Councilors have turned traitor and are plotting so that the Egyptians might return victorious.

      The canals are poisoned, the mermaids are dying. Merle, an orphan who carries the "Water Mirror" and with special talents is apprenticed to Arcimboldo the magic mirror maker. It is up to Merle, the Flowing Queen, and Vermithrax the Great Obsidian Lion to save Venice.

      This was a very enjoyable read. The characters were believable and interesting. The action was smooth and held my interest. I am not going to give this a 4 because it is not as engaging as either "Harry Potter" or "Septimus Heap", but this was a good read, none-the-less.
    • 5/5
      After reading many of the reviews... I have to agree, this book's ending is incomplete and leaves one frusterated. But... I loved it. Even after reconsidering I give it 5 stars. It has a 'Golden Compas'-esque quality, in the way it looks at a very trecherous and dynamic world from an innocent simplistic POV. This book is a good read for anyone who loves Pullman.
    • 5/5
      I recieved this book as a birthday present years ago, and I just recently re-read it. The characters and objects in the book are very strange, but that is what I abslutely love about this book. The ideas put into the text are fascinating and original. The stone lions were, by far, my favorite things in the story, but everything in it was interesting.
    • 5/5
      I thought this book was amazing, there's so much I loved about it. I can't believe it's been sitting on my shelf for so long unread.
    • 5/5
      Kai Meyer is one of those author's whose creativity is above and beyond talented. Within the market-flooded fantasy book world, there are so many books published with the same old sword and scorcery, dragons, and intergallactical space wars. Kai Meyer has managed to invent unique methods of using magic and fantasy like you've never seen before. I have already read his later trilogy, The Wave Walkers and found that his ideas were very fresh and innovative. Now reading this first book in the Dark Reflections Trilogy, I was still amazed at his ingenuity and was not disappointed. This is a story of two orphan girls, Junipa and Merle, who were both abandoned by their parents and left at an orphanage. For predestined reasons we the readers don't know yet, they are chosen to be apprentices to the magic mirror maker, Arcimboldo. This story takes place in the late 1800s in an alternative fantasy world of Venice where gondolas glide over canals of wonder and of hidden secrets below the water's surface. The reader enjoys meeting spectacular creatures like mermaids with mouths of shark-like teeth, giant stone talking lions made of obsidion and granite that fly, and water phantoms that are trapped in magical mirrors. Book one of this trilogy, Water Mirror, starts out very engaging and interesting. The reader soon gets very involved with the two girls who are very quickly led into a secret world of intrique, adventure, of love and of war.The story is very fast paced, written for the level of middle reader or early young adults, and is a quick read. This can not be read as a stand alone due to the cliff-hanger ending leaving us eagerly waiting for the second book in the series. I thoroughly enjoyed Water Mirror for two reasons. One I love alternative fantasy worlds based on real places we know of and I am a big fan of high levels of writing creativity. If you are a fantasy fan who craves something fresh and new, try any of Kai Meyer's books within his two trilogies. You wont be disappointed. Two thumbs up for this story and I'm ready to dive into book two!
    • 2/5
      I picked up this book because I liked the cover. I enjoyed the beginning of the story, even though the 'orphan sent to be an apprentice at a scary shop' wasn't the most original setup. There were intriguing bits to the story (I liked the mirrors and the stone lions) however, as the story progressed I felt like there were too many things pulling for my attention. There was the water queen and the mermaids, there was the competition between the mirror maker and the dress maker, there were the stone lions, there was a war, there was the devil and the underworld, there was too much. I was relieved when I was done with the book because it meant I didn't have to try to keep so many things straight. I think the story is not bad, it just needs a lot of the clutter pulled away to let it shine.
    • 3/5
      Kids book, but interesting images.
    • 3/5
      Set in an enchanted Venice that has been held under siege for years by the Egyptians, Merle and Junipa are taken from an orphanage to apprentice with Arcimboldo, owner of a magical mirror workshop. Although the girls are not sure why they have been chosen, it is clear that they both possess some gifts. Junipa, blind since birth, is given mirror eyes that allow her to see. Merle is entrusted to save the life of the Flowing Queen, a goddess of the water. Complete with stone lions, mermaids, and mirror spirits, there are a host of magical creatures that coexist with the human characters. The political situation is coming to a head with war threatening and a messenger from Hell entreating the Venetians to form a pact. The book, translated from the German by Elizabeth D. Crawford, tries to do too many things at once and what seems to be key information is divulged when the book is about to end with no development. The book reads as a first chapter, as the main characters are all left in disparate situations and the reader must wait for the next installment of the series to discover their fates. It is an ambitious attempt to cover an expansive array of fanciful creatures, war, political intrigue, and even a little romance. Series readers would enjoy this book which develops an increasingly fast pace as the volume progresses, others may well find it an interesting but ultimately unsatisfying read.
    • 4/5
      The Water Mirror is set in an alaternate Venice of the late 1800 filled with magic, mermaids, and an evil Egyptian empire. Merle is an orphan and is apprenticed to a magic mirror maker. When she and Serafin - the magic weaver's apprentice - overhear a plot to allow the Egyptians to conquer Venice, they find themselves in the midst of danger.A well told story, especially with the audio narrator. It was quite different from other plots and I look forward to the next book. My only complaint is that the story ends on a cliff hanger and should have gone on for a bit more.
    • 2/5
      A good story, but I found it hard to care about what happens next.
    • 2/5

      I feel... like this book went an entirely different way by the end than it had been going towards the beginning. Honestly, I feel a little betrayed, although most people may not have the same reaction. The book started off really interesting and unusual, with two characters that were intelligent and became fast friends regardless of the oddities that they became part of. I admired both of them, Merle and Junipa, because these were girls that were willing to be friends with one another and give each other fair chances, regardless of the personality differences and resignations they had. It was a book that had its unique fantasy elements as well, with living and breathing stone lions, to mermaids that lived in the canals of Venice, our story's main stage, to a magical mirror maker that the two girls were apprenticed to.

      Everything started off really intriguing and unique for a fantasy book. It had its own story to tell, and was woven with fascinating purpose and fun, haphazard interactions. Yet there was that sensation of lingering mystery and foreboding over the entire tale, like storm clouds on the horizon darkening the sky, but far enough away that you weren't certain if it would come your way at all or just blow off.

      The side characters themselves were truly engaging as well, and I liked each of them for their own strange and beautiful, even sad reasons. Characters like Eft really tugged at my heart strings, and even the rambunctious boys working for Arcimboldo were good characters, if typical boys. *Grins crookedly* Serafin, too, as another main character--though we get to see less of him than Merle--really called to me with his dashing and yet mature personality, his thieving background and insatiable curiosity. Overall, the cast we have to work with was a fun one that brought out unique and enjoyable interactions and kept the book moving forward.


      My issue with the book begins to arise when we get to meet a mythical entity called The Flowing Queen. She is apparently a being that has protected the city of Venice for countless decades as it lay under perpetual siege of the Egyptian empire, who to the current time in the book, still sits camped outside the city in a complete and total ring of troops. Meeting this being was at first interesting, but very soon I got a whiff of her mentality when she suggested using the forces of Hell (a real place that exists at the center of the earth in this book) to protect the city simply because she (for unspoken reasons) no longer could at that time.

      It's a brave thing for any author to do, and I will not fault an author for wanting to introduce controversial elements into the book. Typically it'll result in a 50/50 split in the audiences: Those who don't mind the controversial elements and want to see what'll happen regardless; and those who will be offended and will stop reading the book because of this.

      For a while after I finished this book, I was on the fence with this very decision. The Flowing Queen brought up the suggestion yet another time, and the author himself made a point of showing the consequences of making deals with Hell's representatives with a couple of characters throughout the book. At the very end, we get the prime example of how Hell and its Leaders think of the mortal beings with whom they bargain with. Without getting into spoilers, lets just say that the life of one of the characters I grew very attached to suddenly hangs in the balance, and the person who made this pact with Hell's leaders essentially seems to buckle under their demands--for obvious and good reason--to the point where not even guilt will stop him from sacrificing someone's innocent life. What really plays as the clincher is when he says, "Well, I took [this character] into my home because I was supposed to turn them over to Hell in the first place. Instead of giving them to Hell a few years from now, I'm going to have to give them over to them a lot sooner than I thought."


      ...yeah.


      Then they try to sell you some bulls**t about "I was trying to help the children".


      Well if you were trying to help the children, you would think with your talents or even just your bare bones and skin, you'd be able to make a living for them doing anything you had to instead of through A PACT WITH HELL WHERE YOU SACRIFICE INNOCENTS TO SAVE OTHER INNOCENTS.


      Does NO ONE see the hypocrisy here?!


      Whatever the book had going for it was essentially ruined for me with the way the book started to turn sour the further along towards the end it got. Even the introduction of another amazing character at the end chapters of the book wasn't enough to get the bitter taste out of my mouth, thinking about the characters I loved being sacrificed like animals. To be fair, the book gives signs of having a possibility of turning around in the next book in the series and not carrying through on these ideas, but by the time I finished reading this first book, I was stuck feeling sick to my stomach with the thought that I was possibly going to pick up the next book and have to read more of this treachery.

      The worst part is that the very "being" of The Flowing Queen, who is supposed to be the savior of this story, is suggesting the people of Venice make a pact with the very Hell that we're sacrificing my babies to.

      I'm sorry. I can stomach quite a few things, but this just crosses a line that disgusts me and which I find utterly revolting. And if I sound pompous: deal with it. I have standards, and killing off characters to make blood pacts with Hell so you can live a life that's a lie and contradiction isn't up my alley.


      Honestly, I can't in good conscience recommend this book to anyone. It was ruined for me, and people will do what people want, but I won't commend it. It has too much outweighing the positive aspects right now. If I give the second book a try in the future, I'll let you know. Right now-- I recommend skipping it.
    • 5/5
      Die venezianischen Waisen Merle und Junipa dürfen in der Werkstatt von Arcimboldo, der magische Spiegel herstellt und verkauft, eine Ausbildung beginnen. Dies ist besonders für Junipa ein Glück, denn das von Geburt an blinde Mädchen erhält von Arcimboldo Spiegelaugen, und lernt fortan zu sehen - schließlich sind (insbesondere: magische) Spiegel das Einzige außer Mensch und Tier auf der Welt, das sehen kann. Aber auch Merle lernt viel Neues über ihre Heimat Venedig: Über das Wesen der Meerjungfrauen beispielsweise, die steinernen Löwen, auf denen die Stadtwache reitet, oder geheimnisvolle Spiegelungen im Wasser, die in der Stunde zwischen Mitternacht und 1 Uhr an manchen Stellen in den Kanälen zu sehen sind, die aber nicht der (oder zumindest: ihrer) Wirklichkeit entsprechen. Als Merle gemeinsam mit einem Freund Zeugin wird, wie drei der venezianischen Stadträte die Lagunenstadt und die diese beschützende fließende Königin an die ägyptischen Belagerer verrät, geraten alle Beteiligten (Merle, ihr Freund, die fließende Königin, ja die gesamte Lagunenstadt) in große Gefahr. Wunderschön geschriebene Kinder- oder Jugendfantasy von Kai Meyer, die auch Erwachsene in eine in eine fantastische Welt entführt (fantastisch sowohl als Genre als auch im eigentlichen Wortsinn verstanden). Merles Venedig wird so schön und geheimnisvoll beschrieben, dass ich am liebsten direkt in ihre Welt reisen würde. Ich freue mich darauf Merle, aber auch Junipa und die anderen Charaktere im zweiten Band weiter zu begleiten.