Mild spoilers ahead.I bought this book over ten years ago, back when I unabashedly consumed all things fantasy. I finally picked it up this month while moving bookshelves around, after I noticed it sitting patiently on a shelf, cover still pristine, waiting to be read. This one is a challenge to review. By most objective standards, this is a pretty bad book. And yet, I couldn't help but like it, due to its specific standout elements and to a sense of nostalgia.
Kiarda is a noblewoman among the people of the rural Marchlands, who live under a strict religious code of pacifism. Unbeknownst to her and everyone around her, she was destined at birth to be spirit-linked to a fox, a rare and revered condition that bestows longer life and an inseparable animal companion. However, the circumstances of her birth cause this link to be damaged, causing the link to manifest in a new way: shapeshifting. Meanwhile, a conquering army lands in the reclusive Marchlands, intent on wiping out the spirit-linked, who they see as a dangerous and contagious profanity.
I could probably write a more cohesive synopsis, but honestly, the plot of this one ranges all over the place, and isn't all that strong. There is a story, but it grows organically out of the characters. Which can make for the best kind of story in competent hands, but I'd hesitate to call the execution here competent. The book falls prey to both the cliches of the genre and the foibles of the greenhorn author. For example, Tell Not Show is in full effect, here. I can tell the world is lovingly crafted, but its particulars are introduced with awkward dialogue that the characters wouldn't ever actually speak.
"Good weather today, huh?"
"Yes, well, due to the unique cosmology of our world and the intrinsic nature of our magic, we always have good weather."
"Oh, naturally, everyone knows that. Well, I'm off to offer prayers to Archibald."
"You mean, the god of snack cakes and high-heeled shoes, who also has red hair?"
"Yup, that's the one!"
I exaggerate, of course, but you get the idea. This is mostly in the beginning and it gets better, but it also contributes to a distinct feeling of other world details being made up on the spot and churned out for color. As a result. I couldn't quite immerse myself in the book's world as much as I wanted to.
The narrative voice is also lacking. It wasn't outright bad, but there were places that could have used some polish. For example, I counted four uses of the word "agony" in three paragraphs on one page, which is a particular pet peeve of mine. The thesaurus is our friend.
But the characters themselves are another matter altogether. In another book review, I used a comparison to roleplaying game writing in a negative light; this is a more thorough and positive example of that sort of writing. These characters are lived in. The author(s) love them, and have put a lot of thought into them. The book doesn't read like a story played out by characters, but like a long transcription of characters interacting with one another, if that makes sense. This brought me back to my own experiences with collaborative writing (usually through games like the Realm, EverQuest, etc.), where a long, carefully maintained story arc would grow out of characters colliding with each other and evolving. This is why I happily kept reading this, despite the meandering story and questionable writing; it reminded me of those kinds of stories, which I contributed to and loved despite their own flaws.
Also of particular note are the unexpected twists that Reichert and Wingert put on the two conflicting societies. The Marchlanders, for example, are bound by superstitious taboos and appalling ignorance, for all of their medieval charm. And Imperial bad guys are, in fact, wise and benevolent (especially their monotheistic religious representative, a favorite villain in most other fantasy treatments), and are operating underneath a well-intentioned misunderstanding- and yet are still willing to slaughter innocents without a moment of regret. Though these interesting concepts are not explored very deeply, they move past the level of gimmick, and did most of the heavy lifting when it came to pulling me as a reader into the world.
Unfortunately, a lot of this is undone by a rushed ending that sidesteps a lot of foreshadowed ugliness (including the unconscionable: skipping whole chunks of the climax and having it delivered as exposition in the epilogue) and gives everybody everything they want. Blech. Setting aside for the moment that it wasn't really explained how an invading commander had the authority to negotiate peace with a regional lord, the happy funtime ending didn't seem to fit very well with the moral ambiguity that suffused the rest of the book. Or with the characters' behavior in the previous chapters, for that matter.
I'm ambivalent, here. There is a lot wrong with this book, but I honestly liked it. There is no logical reason to like it, but I do. I'm reluctant to recommend it, except on the basis of its thorough characterizations and interesting take on morality. It's not a great book, but I definitely enjoyed it for what it was.
Verdict: 3 / 5
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