I read ‘Dreams of Darkness Rising’ more than a year ago, and much
admired the strong characterisation, detailed world-building and truly
epic plot. Since then the book has been picked up by a publisher, the
title has been shortened to ‘Darkness Rising’ and the projected trilogy
has been chopped up into six smaller volumes. The book I read has now
been republished as Book 1: Chained and Book2: Quest. This new book is
Book 3: Secrets. The disadvantage of this is that with a book of this
type, with many characters following several different plotlines over a
complex world, the challenge of reminding the reader of the key points
of the previous books becomes an increasingly onerous task for books 3,
4, 5 and 6. The author manages it rather elegantly in this book, but
even so there are a lot of threads to pick up and many references in the
early chapters whizzed straight over my head.
The
world-building is industrial-strength here. There are entire continents
filled with races and cultures and belief systems and architectural
quirks and geography, and all of them distinct and memorable. It all
feels completely real, and the throwaway references to wars and battles
and so forth add depth. I like the way, too, that the author tosses out
cultural references: "Cliffstead. Tough place - you'll like it. More
fights than a Thetorian wedding." I love this sort of colour in a book.
As before, there’s a medley of interesting races - goblins, ogres,
giants, lizardmen, griffin, mini-dragon flying reptile thingies used as
beasts of burden... and (yay!) one dragon.
The greatest strength
here is in the characters. Most fantasy works struggle to muster two or
three fully rounded characters, but here there are enough to satisfy
even the most demanding reader. Who could not feel for Emelia, with her
alter-ego Emebaka, inextricably bound to the evil Vildor? Or enjoy the
extrovert Hunor and the deep Jem? Even Orla, the Eerian knight, who was a
bit of an idiot at times in the last book, gets some serious backstory
here which makes her much more human. And Marthir the shape-shifting
druid is fascinating. There are several points where various characters
have key points filled in with flashbacks, and although this is a
slightly clunky device, the storytelling is good enough to carry it off.
The
plot is, perhaps, somewhat less successful. Various groups of
characters are off on their own missions - alright, let’s call them
quests. The crystals that enhance magic I could see the point of, but it
wasn’t always clear to me quite what the other groups were up to.
Aldred, in particular, kept getting distracted by side issues. And what
is the point of Torm? He appears only briefly in this book, although
presumably he will be more significant later. Then there are some
political machinations. A princess from somewhere who’s marrying someone
from - well, somewhere else. The lizardmen doing a deal with - um,
someone or other. This is always the problem with full-blown epic
fantasy - the epicness involves a lot of complication that’s hard to
keep track of without taking notes. Or maybe that's just me. Fortunately
there was plenty of action to keep things bubbling along, and enough
time for some romantic interludes as well, albeit slightly contrived.
And even - uh-oh, love triangle ahoy!
This would be fine -
multiple quests work well in a series as complex as this - but this book
felt as if it lacked some overall objective. Obviously there is the
ultimate aim of getting all the crystals and defeating the Big Bad and
saving the world, and so on, but I would have liked to see some
clearly-defined and compelling story that gives structure to this book,
rather than struggling to survive a series of hostile encounters and
simply moving a few paces forward along the path to the final
confrontation. A lot happens and there’s forward progress, but it feels
like a small part of the big story rather than a story in its own right.
Of course, this is the same middle book problem that all series suffer
from. The numerous points of view and the frequent change of location
makes things a bit choppy, but again that’s an effect of the epic
platform. The writing style is elegant, and my only grumble is with the
author’s habit of not using names much of the time. Almost every time I
came across ‘the Thetorian’ or ‘the wild-mage’ or 'the tracker' or
whatever, I had to stop and work out who was being referred to. It's a
shame that the story has been split into so many parts. It seems to me
that this sort of expansive tale, which meanders across continents,
needs the space found in larger books to really shine. There's a reason
why 800 page books are common in epic fantasy.
Despite these
minor grumbles, when it comes to the crunch everything gels beautifully
and the ending is totally satisfying in a no-holds-barred,
mages-hurling-thunderbolts sort of way. I’m not generally a huge fan of
this sort of full-on magic battle, where hordes of nameless minions are
splattered about in a multitude of gory ways, while our heroes (and
heroines, of course) survive the mayhem with barely a scratch, and
everyone is improbably muscular and awesomely talented with an array of
weaponry, but I have to admit it’s great fun, if a bit cartoonish. And
Aldred’s little escapade, in particular, was hugely entertaining - a bit
of humour goes a long way to lighten the tone. This book had
smatterings of humour right the way through, arising naturally from the
personalities of the characters, but there were also more serious
moments, and the swamps of Ssinthor gave the whole story a whole extra
layer of atmosphere.
This is a wonderfully inventive story, with
great characters, brilliant world-building and non-stop action. Yes,
it’s confusing sometimes, but that’s a reflection of the complexity
within and my own inability to keep up, and not at all a criticism.
There’s plenty of detail on the website, for those who want to get into
the nuts and bolts of the author’s world, and there are good maps and a
dramatis personae at the front of the book. I would have preferred a
shorter list of just the significant characters, but that's just me.
This is an enjoyable continuation to the series, and highly recommended
for fans of ambitious multi-threaded fantasy.
So why have I only
given it three stars? I found that I just wasn’t that invested in
either the characters or their objectives. The attempt to rebuild a
prism of power by tracking down its component crystals is, frankly, a
fairly ho-hum sort of exercise. It gives an artificial structure to the
books (this one was the yellow crystal), but chasing round after a
magical gizmo isn’t the most original premise ever. And while I liked
the characters, and they’re nicely drawn with their quirks and
mannerisms, they rarely had the space to breathe between the constant
outbreaks of mayhem. When there was a pause, it turned into a slightly
clunky romantic interlude. There were only a few events that truly moved
me - Marthir becoming a druid, Orla befriending the slave and the death
of Hunor’s friend. These incidents brought real emotional depth to the
characters, and I hope future books in the series will have a slightly
less frenetic pace and more of these unforgettable moments.
No comments:
Post a Comment