Review: 'The Ascendancy Veil' by Chris Wooding

I have to confess to some disappointment with this, the final part of the 'Braided Path' trilogy. The first two were terrific, with great world-building, a brilliant magic system and a suitably apocalyptic threat to be dealt with, and if some of the characters were not all that interesting, it hardly mattered. But this book, despite a resounding climax and some nifty tying up of numerous plot threads, felt - just meh.

As usual, Wooding dumps us right into the middle of the action, without a moment to catch our breath. Not a writer to ease the reader gently into the story. He's very good, however, at scattering gentle hints as a reminder of the previous two books. The story picks up roughly four years after the last book ended, deep into a war between the Weavers (those who can manipulate the underlying 'weave' of the world, something like another dimension) and the remnants of the Empire. Both sides have their Aberrants on hand, twisted evil creatures fighting for the Weavers, and humans with unusual powers, once secret, but now openly supporting the Empire.

I've noted in reviews of the first two parts that Wooding's world-building is absolutely awesome. Everything is here - races, cultures, belief systems, flora and fauna, weather, languages, architecture, even the cutlery - all worked out to the last detail. It makes the average fantasy sort-of-medieval backdrop with peasants and castles seem incredibly dull by comparison. The magic is pretty damn good too. I was a little concerned that Kaiku, whose development has been the focus of the story, has now turned into some kind of River-esque 'I can kill you with my brain' superhero. And that would be very boring. But not to worry, because the Weavers have come up with something even more powerful, something that even Kaiku and her friends can't deal with. And we are beginning to find out about the strange and capricious spirits who also inhabit Saramyr.

The story builds through crisis after crisis and, as in the previous books, it seems that the main characters can't put their noses out of the door without some life-threatening encounter, and every one hyped to the max, and filled with foul monsters and dismembered corpses and all sorts of horrors. You know what? It gets a bit repetitive after a while. And even the relatively quiet moments are full of angst. There always seems to be one character or another over-analysing. I got a little jaded with it.

The characters have acquired some depth (well, over three books they have history, so it's inevitable), but none of them are really particularly likeable or emotionally engaging. Frankly, I just don't care whether they live or die, for the most part. Tsata is the most interesting, by a long way, with an honourable mention for Mishani's mother. Oh, and perhaps Lucia too. But Kaiku has turned into something of a selfish cow. Having being rescued from certain death by others numerous times, and trained to use her powers by the Red Order, she now starts agonising about - well, everything. She turns against the Red Order, she encourages Lucia to think of herself first (bit late for that), and she is horrible to Tsata. [Spoiler below] And yet she is nice to the one person who treated her abominably.

The problem for me is that this book is so dismal. All the things I loved about the first two - the weird flora and fauna, the etiquette, the elegant lifestyle and rituals of the Empire - all that is effectively gone, and the story staggers from one horrendous battle of monsters to another. It's like Frodo and Sam endlessly trekking through Mordor, really depressing stuff. Actually, it's worse, because there is so much gore and blood and spilled entrails and limbs chopped off, each monster more hideous and unbeatable than the last. And although everything that happen is completely logical, and feels as if the whole story was worked out from day one, there was no emotional resonance to it, in the end. Three stars.

SPOILER AHOY!!

On Kaiku and Tsata: I mean, really. She has been mooning over him for three quarters of the book, she forces him to declare himself, and then, when they are just about to set off on a suicidal mission, the obvious time to get it together, she says - well, actually, I really need to think about this. And starts agonising over the fact that her powers will make her live longer than him. Not if you both die horribly in the next chapter. I mean, get a grip, woman, just get on with it.

Review: 'Skein of Lament' by Chris Wooding

This is the seond part of 'The Braided Path' trilogy. Despite having read the first part relatively recently, I had forgotten quite a lot of it, and although Wooding reminds the reader of most of the salient points, there were still a few places where I was confused.

The author's world-building is awesome. This is not a word I use lightly, but nothing else quite covers it. Everything about Saramyr and its neighbouring territories - history, mythology, races, cultures, natural history, geography - is defined in infinitely layered and nuanced detail. Sometimes an almost throwaway line gives me a frisson of total pleasure - the flight of a bird, the noise of an insect, a rock formation, a character's tattoos, the way food is eaten. It's all there, all thought about and carefully dropped here and there for best effect, creating a world which truly feels 'other', almost alien.

I particularly liked the three moons, all different, which occasionally come into conjunction causing sudden moonstorms, followed by drifts of tiny ice crystals. I have no idea whether that is feasible in real-world physics, but it's extraordinarily evocative. And the moons are relevant to the plot, even. I love a fully worked out secondary world, and so many fantasy writers make do with some cobbled together mishmash of recognisable environments - medieval Europe, or Roman Empire, or whatever. That's OK, just a little disappointing (and lazy, maybe). Authors, this is how it should be done. My only criticism - could have done with a better map, showing all the places mentioned, and in hi-res.

The characters, on the other hand, don't work quite so well. It's not that they're uninteresting, for some of them - Saran, Tsata, Lucia, for instance - are intriguing enough, and Asara is downright creepy. Nor are they fantasy cliches. But somehow, it's as if Wooding has drawn up a laundrylist of defining characteristics (Mishani: small, delicate, ankle-length hair, reserved, diplomat) and they never acquire much depth beyond that. Apart from Kaiku learning to control her powers, there's not much growth in evidence, although Kaiku's relationship with Tsata is nicely developed. This makes them, on the whole, unengaging and hard to care much about. And maybe it's just me, but the male characters seem to have marginally more depth than the female ones.

Plotwise, there's no slow build-up or scene setting - it's straight into the action, which never lets up. Almost, there is too much action, really, and it seems as if Our Heroes can barely put their noses outside the door without finding themselves in yet another life-threatening encounter. So perhaps a little contrived in places. There are numerous different points of view, and the story hops from one to the other like a demented frog, including to minor characters, but at least this avoids tortuous tricks to reveal incidents we couldn't otherwise have seen. Along the way, there are several totally breath-taking shocks and twists - one in particular which completely blew my mind. And yet (like all the best such moments) it was completely predictable, if only I'd been paying proper attention. Clever author.

The climax brilliantly pulls all the different plot-threads together in a very satisfying way. All the various characters were needed to achieve the resolution, and it was done without any sleight of hand. Very neat. There were a number of blood-and-guts encounters, rather too many for my taste - I'm not over-fond of all that hewing, hacking, gutting, bone-crunching and disembowelling. Oh, and let's not forget the skinning. Nice people, the Weavers. But in between the episodes of slaughter were the really interesting (to me) parts - the time spent 'in the weave', the other-dimensional place where the Weavers and certain others can do - well, whatever it is they do. Is it magic? Or just something unexplained? Who knows, but it's a terrific concept, and definitely the best part of the story. And now everything is set up for the ultimate confrontation on a grand scale. A good four stars.

Review: 'The Weavers Of Saramyr' by Chris Wooding

This is the first in the 'Braided Path' trilogy (the others are 'The Skein of Lament' and 'The Ascendancy Veil'). It's a full-on fantasy with a vaguely eastern feel (names like Kaiku and Mishani, writing with brushes instead of pens) but still totally original. There are numerous point of view characters, and the story jumps from one to the other within chapters, sometimes without warning, which can be disconcerting.

The opening draws you in immediately, with a brilliant first line ("Kaiku was twenty harvests of age the first time she died.") and a dramatic night-time escape from the mysterious shin-shin. There are enough details to understand what is going on, while still conveying the richness of the background.

The created world is extraordinary. The author has thought of everything, from a pantheon of gods complete with origin myths, to trees and wildlife, to languages, an intriguing social structure, and a wonderfully original magic system. Wooding has imaginative little details everywhere - eschewing the traditional swords-only structure, his world has rifles, albeit fairly primitive ones. Many fantasy writers don't go into this much detail, being satisfied with importing earthly flora and fauna, and plonking their characters into a vaguely medieval setting with a dab of magic, so this is very impressive.

The Weavers of the title are those who have the ability to move mentally into some other dimension, putting themselves into another place to spy or convey messages secretly. They use magical masks which accumulate power from each host, so that the oldest masks are hugely powerful, but cause physical illness and ultimately madness in the wearer. After each 'weave' episode, the Weavers are filled with uncontrollable desires, often violent. The ruling families use them both actively, against other houses, and as a deterrent. There are also individuals with other abilities, known as Aberrants, and regarded with antipathy by most people. If found, they are often killed by the Weavers.

The story is unusual in having a large number of female protagonists. All of them are nicely drawn, attracting sympathy and interest, and although some characters do evil things, there is no clearly defined 'bad guy'. Even the Weavers, who do unspeakable things after a weaving, are people whose foibles we can understand.

The writing style is quite descriptive, poetic in places and  florid and overblown in others. One thing I dislike - the author routinely ends a chapter or section on a cliffhanger, but when he returns to that character, things have moved on and the resolution of the cliffhanger is told in flashback. This tends to diminish the tension, and also makes the book feel a bit choppy, as the story jumps from one setpiece to the next without much continuity. He also sometimes overdoes the dramatic tension. He spends an entire chapter describing how one character battles through storms and blizzards to the limits of her endurance, which would be exciting if we had any doubts at all of her ultimate survival. As it is, it becomes tedious.

The plot builds slowly but inexorably towards the dramatic climax, which nicely resolves the immediate issues, while also laying the foundations for the remainder of the series. On the whole, the book is very readable, although with a few saggy moments where the author gets a little carried away with his own hyperbole or diverts into an info-dump. The main problem I found with it is that none of the characters really came alive for me (apart from the one who got killed - isn't that always the way?). Writing this a week or so after finishing the book, I find it hard to remember anything much about them. This is somewhere between a 3 and a 4 star, but the (mostly) high quality of the writing, and the depth of the world-building bump it up to a 4. [First written August 2011]