Fantasy Review: 'Darkness Rising 4: Loss' by Ross M Kitson

This is the fourth part of a six-book series, and if that sounds like a Wheel-of-Time-esque slog, it’s not as bad as it sounds. The series was planned as a trilogy, which is standard fantasy fare, and it was the publisher’s decision to split it into six smaller books. Whether that was a wise move or not is a moot point.

I read the first two books (‘Chained’ and ‘Quest’) as the originally intended single volume, and I loved the epic-standard world-building, the array of well-rounded characters and the literate writing style. The third book (‘Secrets’), worked less well for me as the complexity increased, and the action began to dominate. This book starts well. It’s always a problem with a series as complex as this to get the reader up to speed on the events of previous books. Some authors sprinkle little reminders here and there, and some don’t feel the need to bother (we’re presumed to have encyclopedic memories, presumably, or to reread everything before the new release - well, stuff that, life’s too short). But Kitson produces perhaps the most creative approach yet to the problem, having the characters fill the reader in, and all in their own inimitable style. Way to go.

Everything I liked about the previous books is all here. The world has awesome depth and breadth, the characters feel real, the writing is as good as ever if slightly overblown at times, and there’s a touch of humour here and there. The magic system is simple enough: elemental magic powered by crystals or gems, but with wild magic thrown into the mix as well. The things I liked less well are also here: the evil villains bent on global domination, the hordes of mindless minions, the over-the-top action scenes with mages hurling fireballs at each other (although the earth mages were quite fun).

The risk with creating a full-blown epic fantasy in the traditional style is that sooner or later the complexity grows to such a level that it’s liable to overwhelm the story. There’s a moment to pull back and start drawing the threads together again, but unfortunately Kitson hasn’t yet reached that point. The characters that I loved so well in the first book are here choked by the need to move the plot along and rarely have time to breathe between bouts of action. With characters this well-realised, there needs to be time for them to express some emotional depth, otherwise they become caricatures, wheeled onstage as plot devices and then smartly pushed off again to make way for the next battle. Sadly, I never felt engaged by the characters; the romantic entanglement seemed contrived, and the deaths were dealt with in an almost perfunctory fashion. Even the world-building feels stifling here. It pains me to say this when a world is so brilliantly conceived down to the last detail, but I could have done with a little less history and fewer info-dumps (although they were mercifully short).

Perhaps the worst problem for me is that the plot has become predictable. Time after time our heroes find themselves in an impossible situation, overwhelmed by the enemy, yet miraculously manage to pull through. Even grievous injuries barely seem to slow them down. There were one or two nice twists at the end but otherwise I could see everything that had to happen, and I’m not the most astute of readers.

This may sound very negative, but I want to make it quite clear that this is a purely personal perspective. I look for character-driven fantasy first and foremost, and here the characters have become subservient to the action. But everything that didn’t work for me is something that another reader would find awesome. For anyone who relishes a well-written traditional epic fantasy with multiple bands of characters roving across the landscape on intertwining quests, heroes facing impossible odds, humungous battles full of wizardry and an array of evil-to-the-core bad guys, this is definitely the series for you. Enjoy! But for me it was only two stars.

Fantasy Review: 'Darkness Rising Book 3: Secrets' by Ross M Kitson

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.

Review: 'Darkness Rising' by Ross M Kitson

It's always a pleasure to come across a richly imagined secondary world, and the author has produced a terrific example here. There are whole continents, mountains, islands with realistic climates and distances worked out; there are humans with clearly differentiated races; there are cities and keeps and ports with distinctive characteristics; there are details of languages and religions and clothes and food and customs. There is a long list of intriguing sentient non-human races - the hermaphrodite Galvorians, for instance, and the avian Netreptans who live in cloud cities. Oh, and mer-people. There are knights who fly on griffons. There are numerous different nations, a multitude of alliances and a several thousand year history. All of these combine to create a wonderfully textured and nuanced backdrop to the story. And there are maps - lots of maps, very detailed, and a list of characters and a glossary and a timeline. This is great stuff, and I love it.

The magic system is not well defined yet, although mages are aligned with the four elementals of earth, air, fire and water, there are wild mages and dark mages and rebel mages, and there have been mage wars, suggesting a turbulent history. And the prisms of the series title are clearly an important part of things. There are also clear limits to what is possible with magic, and costs involved, which I like to see. Nothing is as dull as a character with virtually unlimited powers.

With so much detailed background, it does mean that the early part of the book is littered with references to people, places, events which are a mystery, but this is traditional in fantasy and it isn't hard to keep up. Besides, the reader is drawn in by the other great strength of the book - its characters, who all feel like real, well-rounded people. And if the early focus, the slightly naive Emelia, is not particularly interesting yet, there are others who are - Jem and Hunor, for instance, and the shape-shifting Marthir and her pals. I like the female knight, as well - nice to see women in non-traditional roles, doing their own thing, not simply there as motivation for the blokes.

I do have one quibble about Emelia. For an otherwise meek and sensible person, she shows a reckless tendency to listen at doors or chase after people she shouldn't. It's like those cheap horror films when the hero(ine) hears noises in the basement at night... Sometimes you should just run the other way. To be fair, the author establishes this aspect of her personality right from the start, but still it seemed a slightly implausible way to get her to overhear or see things. But I like the way she takes control of her own destiny, and isn't simply pushed around as a victim. There are times when she seems quite passive, following the others' lead, but it isn't unreasonable, given her age and experience.

The plot is nothing very original. There's a servant girl who has innate powers which make her special, which she has to learn to control. There appears to be an evil mage with a dastardly plot to enhance his abilities and make himself super-powerful. There are political machinations going on. There are some clichés around - the dreams, for instance, although this is part of the title [Edit: or it was; the original title of 'Dreams of Darkness Rising' has now been shortened], and actually I think they work rather well. Some of the plot devices are a little threadbare - the debauched son of the house, the I-don't-know-what-came-over-me blackouts, the mysterious stranger in the graveyard and so on. Once the story gets properly under way, however, there's plenty of action going on, with sword-fighting and mage battles and the like, and we get to travel around this wonderful world too, which is great fun. I very much liked the ruined or changed cities which dramatically paint in the historical background, far more effectively than the mini info-dumps, or characters explaining it.

Some minor issues. The author's writing style is nicely evocative without being overblown, but there are a few typos, especially with names, and there are numerous sound-alike spelling howlers and a grammatical error or two which had my inner pedant screaming. This is not uncommon in self-published works, but it does detract from an otherwise well-written  book. However, the series has recently been picked up by a publisher, so hopefully these problems will be fixed.

The middle sections sagged a little in places, but mainly because I was so invested in the two threesomes (Emelia, Hunor, Jem; and Marthir, Ygris and, um, the other one) that any digressions from their stories seemed annoying to me. I'm not sure that we really needed to see the bad guys up close anyway, busily pursuing their evil sorcery, with a little recreational dismemberment thrown in. This can work to explain their motivation, but (unless I missed something) the objective seemed to be the usual thing: power, global domination, yada yada, without much more underlying it than irredeemable evil. But these episodes did serve to fill in some of the backstory. There is a whole heap of backstory to fill in, it has to be said, and the author seems keen to ensure the reader knows every last drop of it.

What I liked: the wonderful characters and their interactions; the world and everything about it (the detail here is incredible); Emelia's 'inner voice', who even has her own name - Emebaka (is she really a separate entity, or just a part of Emelia? this had me guessing all the way through); the complexity of characters' motivations and actions (Orla's rigid knightly code versus Hunor's pragmatism, for instance, and the difficulty of knowing who is on who's side). There's also some very nice thinking in the different cultures: the Goldorians have a repressive religion which keeps women well wrapped up and burns mages at the stake yet is very liberal with the workers, while the Eerians have slavery and a knightly code of honour. It's terrific to find such thoughtful details in the background. I also liked the romantic tension between the main characters, which was extremely subtle and nicely done.

What worked less well for me: there's lots of action (which is fine), but all too often it was hard to see a logical reason for it and every journey seemed fraught with bad guys and various monsters leaping out of nowhere; and then it was surprising how often someone quite unexpected would come to the rescue at the last moment. To be honest, the numerous skirmishes got a little repetitive after a while. I'm not a big fan of fight scenes, so I tend to let them just wash over me, but they all seemed to be pretty well thought through and moderately realistic, as far as I could tell. There was a certain amount of beheading and dismembering, and blood gushing and so forth, but it never got too gross. The backstory just got too complicated sometimes (too many empires and wars and magely goings on to keep track of). I also lost track of some of the characters from time to time, so I was mystified when they turned up out of the blue (Livor, for instance, or Torm). Happily, my Kindle makes it easy to check back to previous appearances.

The ending seemed a little disjointed. The various characters split up into numerous subgroups each with its own action, and sometimes I had trouble keeping up with who was where and who was fighting whom. One big climactic battle would have been more satisfying, somehow. I was left puzzled by a couple of things - where did the wolf-like thingy come from? and where exactly was the crystal? But I assumed that was just me not paying attention - I was racing through it at the end, desperate to see how it all turned out.  On the whole, despite a few minor quibbles, this is an excellent start to the trilogy - richly imagined, well written and thoroughly absorbing. I loved all the main characters, with their quirks and complexities and quarrels and insecurities, and I loved this beautifully detailed world, which feels completely real. A very enjoyable read, and I look forward to the rest of the series. Four stars.