This is sold in two parts for technical reasons, but since they really
work better as a single story, I’m going to review the two together. In
many ways, this is a very traditional fantasy - a young man discovers
unexpected powers in himself as his country is on the brink of war. Of
course, there's absolutely nothing wrong with tradition, if it's given a
fresh twist and is well-written, as here. The twist in this case is
that the young man has a twin brother, not manifesting any powers, so
while Kieryn goes in one direction to learn about magic, Kelyn straps on
his sword and rides off to war.
The setting is the
common-or-garden pseudo-medieval affair, with castles and knights and
kings and princesses, and off in the background are elves and dwarves
and a mysteriously evil forest. Oh, and pirates. It's all quite nicely
realised, however, and I very much liked the evocative descriptions of
the scenery, which bring this created world fully to life without ever
becoming excessively wordy. I could have done with less of the dancing
and feasting at the start, but it serves as a painless, if unoriginal,
way to introduce the setting and characters. Fortunately, we soon leave
the frivolities behind, but the inevitable problem with such an
over-familiar setting is predictability, and the author unfortunately
has a habit of heavy foreshadowing. A group of travellers is crossing a
mountain pass which has just received a late snowfall. "Watch out for
avalanches," warns a passing wagon-driver. Oooh, I wonder what happens
next? There are several places throughout the book where the plot twists
are very obvious.
The other problem with the standard-issue
medieval setting is that women are inevitably shoehorned into a narrow
range of job opportunities - queen, princess, handmaid, cook... Now,
this particular world has female soldiers, guards and knights too, but
it sits uneasily in this clearly patriarchal world. Is there a creche
for the offspring of lady knights, I wonder, or do they all have a
househusband at home? Or do they have to give up the chance for a family
life, and, if so, do male knights have to make the same sacrifice?
There are ruling females, too, as well as kings, dukes, etc, but it
seems they only get the chance in default of a male heir. And the idea
of bastards as a plot-driving scandal really doesn’t fit alongside male
primogeniture (they’re a useful backup, and therefore incorporated into
the system without fuss).
I wasn't keen on the heavy romantic
line. The love interests are flagged up almost from the start, and
there's a great deal about pounding hearts and meaningful glances and
accidental brushing of hands in one case, and verbal/physical sparring
in the other. I don't mind a bit of romance in my fantasy, it's a normal
part of life after all, and even the sons of dukes have to fall in
love, I suppose, but there was a bit too much of it for my taste, and
somehow it all felt a bit forced. Later on, when the inevitable
complications arose, things got exceptionally melodramatic. It seems to
me that everybody involved behaved badly or over-reacted, so I don’t
quite see where the heavy blame-fest for one character in particular
comes from.
One thing that really irritated me was the rapid
head-hopping points of view. It works (just about) early on to paint in
the family background to the two boys, so that we understand the
relationships fully, but beyond that it just gets confusing. And there
are just way too many different points of view, in fact too many
characters altogether. If you’re showing a continent-spanning war, then a
few different points of view to cover the whole picture is acceptable,
but here absolutely everybody gets their own voice, and their
sister/father/cousin etc. It creates a sprawling, undisciplined mess,
frankly. There was a point in the first book where I turned the page to
find yet another new character, in another new castle, with another new
set of circumstances to get to grips with. I was so cross I went off to
read another book altogether, and although I came back to this one, I
resent the effort involved in trying to keep track of all these people
and towns and rivers and horses and whatnot. It’s very common these
days, but it does make the story very disjointed, and inevitably it gets
confusing with so many characters to remember.
The plot follows
two distinct threads. The larger part, or so it seemed to me, was the
progress of the war, which we saw from every conceivable angle, every
skirmish, siege and sea-battle described in painstaking detail. There’s
nothing wrong with this, I suppose, although it seems to have been done a
thousand times before, and there isn’t anything particularly unique
about this particular war to draw the reader in. Neither the characters
nor the methods employed are particularly special, and most of the time
entirely devoid of magic, so I found this part rather uninteresting, and
the descriptions of the effects of war rather heavy-handed. Those who
enjoy battles would enjoy it more, and it’s certainly well described.
The
other thread, of Kieryn learning to use his abilities as an avedrin, a
kind of mage, is (to me) far more interesting. There’s a fair bit of
info-dumping regarding the history of elves and men, but the elves are
unexpectedly different and many of them are hostile to men in general
and Kieryn in particular, which is intriguing. The elves are
particularly well-drawn, being neither the whimsical creatures of
fairy-tales, nor the far-above-the-mortal-plane elves of Tolkien.
They’re also pretty handy warriors. Kieryn is perhaps the most
sympathetic character in the book, always trying to do the right thing,
and I very much liked the way he gradually learns about his powers and
how to use them. His reappearance later in the war is unquestionably one
of the highlights of the book, although latterly his dramatic
nick-of-time reappearances to magically help things along came very
close to deus ex machina.
As the book (and the war) progresses,
the tone becomes darker. The war becomes more desperate, and from a
small, localised affair bursts its banks and spills in all directions at
once. There’s a scramble to defend, and a lot of tearing about the
countryside to warn people, or groups getting sidetracked by a different
battle. The author captures very well the urgency, the difficulty of
making instant decisions, the consequences of a single minor event, the
impact of a risky but unexpected strategy and the futility of it all.
The focus is very much on the characters and the effect on them of the
events they witness, and a number of them find out just what sort of
people they are at this point.
This is in many ways a very good
book, but I found it rather a frustrating read. It’s a fully realised
and very ambitious epic fantasy, the world-building is exceptionally
detailed, including using a properly worked out elvish language, and the
writing is literate and evocative. There were plenty of moments when I
was totally immersed in the story and couldn’t put it down, with
occasional moments that were spine-tinglingly good. The second volume
has more of these, and also more depth and thoughtfulness.
Unfortunately,
there were other moments when it was all too easy to stop reading,
where the writing was clunky or downright cheesy, or littered with
careless typos. The frequent jumps in location and to a different
character, and the sheer number of point of view characters, tended to
break continuity rather drastically and made it difficult to care very
much about most of them. A wonderful chapter might be followed by a jump
to a completely unrelated plotline with a character hardly mentioned
before. Interesting characters are passed over for chapter after
chapter. The desire to cover all aspects of the war leads to sprawl.
Some parts are obviously only setup for the next book. Excising some of
the less essential parts of the story, like the pirate angle or the
renegade elf, and focusing on a much smaller core cast would have made
for a much tauter and more polished story.
I really found it
difficult to rate this one overall. I actually struggled with it at
times, and yet other chapters just sped by. I wanted to know what
happened, but I didn’t much care for any of the main characters. It’s
undoubtedly very well executed and would be ideal for those looking for a
traditional epic fantasy with a cast of George R R Martin proportions.
The characters are well-drawn, the sprawling plot strands are neatly
managed and there's some depth to the underlying themes. So although I
found it a little too uneven for my taste, I’ll be generous and give it
four stars.
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