I love the premise here: every twelve years twelve people are chosen for
a ritual; they wake one morning to find a coloured stone beside them,
or under their pillow. They then have to travel to the capital, throw
their stones into a waterfall and one will then be magically selected as
a sacrificial victim, to appease something (or someone?) known as the
Gloom. This is such an intriguing idea, especially given the variety of
people chosen by the stones: a simpleton, a rapist and murderer, an
elderly swordsman, a slave woman, a young girl, the king's only son...
This is fascinating, not only for the question of how all this works,
but also why? Why are things done this way? And what exactly will happen
if the ritual fails? There are hints, but no clear answers. Of course,
there's a lot more going on below the surface, with conspiracies and
deception, and a plot to defeat the Gloom once and for all.
The
first point of view character is Marybeth, one of the Order, a group
which oversees the process of the ritual, magically empowered to ensure
the compliance of the selected twelve. Then there's Rhact, an ordinary
man in the village Marybeth is watching, whose daughter Janna is one of
the chosen ones, and who isn't about to accept that without a fight.
These two points of view give a very nice dual perspective on Marybeth:
we see her first as a member of a group working to ensure that the
country can continue peaceably by the sacrifice of a single person, a
necessary evil that works for the good of all, while also hoping to put
an end to the ritual altogether; but we also see her through Rhact's
eyes as an evil witch, a terrifying person inflicting untold harm on
families and communities. This is nicely done.
There’s also the
king, Jacquard, who tries to rule generously and not be a ruthless
tyrant, but finds himself at risk of rebellion by his warlords for
weakness. His son Althalos is nicely drawn, too. The other characters
are less than convincing. Some are complete caricatures, like the rapist
or the slave woman's evil master or the simpleton. Some just lack
depth. Everyone is either good or bad, with no in between at all. Not
that bad means unspeakably evil, necessarily, sometimes it just means
silly and feckless, but still, there are few shades of grey. Even when
characters change over the course of the book, the switch is absolute: a
totally evil person is redeemed to become a hero, while a good person
is so overwhelmed by revenge that all normal human feeling is lost, and
they become evil. This is less than subtle.
To my mind, the
female characters seemed to have less active roles than the men. To
start with, the women are largely wenches or nervous mothers or cowed
daughters or silly bits of girls who squeal. Or else they are witches,
or otherwise evil. There's Marybeth, for a start, ostensibly a very
active character, and we see her doing some very courageous things. Why
does she do them? Initially because of her father, and latterly because
some random dude, more powerful than her, told her to. Doesn't she have a
mind of her own? Fortunately, there are also quite a few moments where
women stand up and take charge, sometimes to shocking effect, when the
men can’t or won’t. For instance, Janna, Rhact's daughter, has a brave
moment, doing what needs to be done when the travelling party is
attacked by bandits. And I did like the female assassin. I’d happily
read a whole book about her.
The world-building is rather good,
and clearly a lot of thought has gone into the details. I like the three
moons of different colours, which clearly have a big influence on
everything, as well as inspiring the various religions. We’re in the
standard pre-industrial pseudo-medieval world, with the usual
patriarchal overtones, but there are some nice details too. For
instance, a woman’s period is known as being visited by the red moon.
The magic is largely unexplained, but there are some nice non-human
things around, and the Gloom, when we finally get a good look at it, is
suitably scary.
The writing style is serviceable rather than
ornate, but it lacks polish. In some places clauses are written as if
they were sentences, elsewhere sentences are shunted together. There are
some anachronistic expressions used, such as the king spending 'quality
time' with his son, and Rhact's son having 'teenage' moodiness (the
concept of teenagers is very recent; in a pre-industrial age,
thirteen-year-olds would be doing the work of an adult, with neither
time nor energy for moods). I find these modern colloquialisms jarring,
but that’s just me. There there was the horse who was 'saddled' in order
to pull a wagon (harnessed would be a better word). Much of the
backstory and descriptions of feelings, particularly surrounding the
king, are told narratively, which keeps the tone flat. However, there
are moments of eloquent description as well. A warning for those
sensitive to such things: there’s some earthy language, and some fairly
graphic acts of violence and other unpleasantness.
None of it
matters too much, however, because the plot is an absolute cracker and
gallops along in a breath-taking page-turning manner. The moment of the
actual ritual, when the various conspiracies and secrets and deceits all
clash together at once, is terrific. I had absolutely no idea what was
going to happen, my eyes glued to the pages. After that it’s a mad dash
to restore the realm to some kind of stability before everything falls
apart, but there are plenty of unexpected and dramatic twists before the
final confrontation, which also sets things up nicely for the next
book. There were some confusing moments, not helped by the need to give
names and backstories to all twelve of the stone-holders, as well as all
the king’s knights. So many characters are easy to forget, and I would
have liked a little reminder when each one reappeared. This was
particularly troublesome at the ritual, when characters were described
only as ‘the boy’ or ‘two men’ or ‘the elderly woman’. I’m still not
quite sure who was on whose side. And who exactly was that random dude
who sent Marybeth off on her little quest?
This is a fun and
imaginative story, not subtle but well thought out, with plenty of
action and some nicely moving moments too, written in an easy style,
marred only by some flatness in the writing and some over-the-top
cartoonish characterisations amongst the walk-on parts. For those who
aren’t concerned about that, I recommend this book, but for me it was
enough to keep it to three stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment