This is a lengthy, scene-setting, expository novel. It sets up a new high fantasy saga, with dense detail, multitudes of characters, shifting perspectives, mysteries and false hints, and evocative settings.
The story's situation follows a noble family, the Eddons, who live in the castle Shadowmarch at the centre of their Northern kingdom. They have been thrust into an off-kilter, vulnerable situation by the kidnapping of the king, the father of the family, who is being held to ransom by the bandit lord of a far off, southern city. The King's pregnant, bedridden second wife has become a recluse and fallen under the sway of a mysterious foreign midwife. The eldest child of his first wife, Prince Regent Kendrick, is facing a difficult decision whether to ransom his father or give up the Southern kingdoms to the imperious ruler of the empire of Xand, the Autarch. Into this mix enter the next-most powerful family in the north, the Tollys of Summerfield. Gailon Tolly, their head, wants Kendrick to marry off his sister, Briony, to save paying an otherwise exorbitant ransom sum for the King. But then Kendrick is murdered in strange circumstances and Gailon himself is assassinated by a force sent by his villainous brother, Hendon Tolly.
There are further revelations in the Eddon family that the King held in exile suffers from a supernatural illness. In addition, Barrick, his younger son, has inherited this family curse and become crippled, melancholic and brooding. At the beginning, Barrick and Briony, his sister, are privileged adolescents still playing at hiding in the castle and riding on one of their first hunts. They are then forced to grow up quickly when Kendrick is killed by an unknown person or being. Briony takes on the role of ruler and administrator after her brother's murder, and consquently she faces issues of gender as a female in a position of authority. (The way this is expressed is one of the weaker parts of the novel. Some of her complaints about having to take on a "male" role sound rather hackneyed, wooden and officious, for example "The gods have given our sex charge of the greatest gift of all"). Barrick, on the other hand, is almost emasculated as he is overcome by a fever and then a great fear that his suffering under the curse has become more pronounced. He feels useless and doomed, and ultimately runs off on a war expedition with a suicidal motive.
Throughout the story a complex, detailed world emerges. The Eddons find themselves caught up in a long history of conflict between humans and faeries, the otherworldly denizens who live behind a magical barrier, the "Shadowline". This conflict involves religion, ignorance (which caused incorrect blaming of the faeries as scapegoats), cruelty and reciprocal, long-lasting hatreds in each side which have hardened hearts against the other. There is a sense the faeries are doomed or that their days in dominance are numbered, waning. On a metaphorical level, they appear like spirits coming out of the mist of the past, taking vengeance on humans for their past crimes.
The conflict becomes more complicated for the ruling family of Shadowmarch. The Eddons are embroiled within this conflict by their position, but also find themselves set against the Tollys, the Autarch of Xand, the Lord of Hierosol, and even themselves (the characters of Brone, Shaso, Chaven, the Queen's midwife and even the boy Flint are all seemingly working in some way against them). And on top of this, the great castle they live in, Shadowmarch itself, contains a wealth of hidden details: the strange Skimmer folk, the tunnels beneath known only to the Funderlings, the special powers of one of the towers connected with its faery past, a secret exit bay, and even its own breed of faery people: the Rooftoppers and their own concealed kingdom.
There are other characters we encounter. One of the most striking is Ferris Vansen, the Captain of the Guard at Shadowmarch. He is described to us as a hardworking soldier with integrity, responsible but not well-liked. He has risen to his post on the basis of ability, although he is accorded little esteem by the nobles because of his original rank as a commoner. His fate is strongly linked to that of the Eddons, as he harbours a secret love for Briony despite blaming himself for allowing her brother Kendrick's death to happen; he also swears a vow to protect Barrick. (This is also a good example to us of the paramount medieval importance of vows of loyalty).
Two characters are meant to offer us a bit of humour amongst all this otherwise ponderous drama. Matty Tinwright begins as an opportunistic, rather shabby character, a womanising poet down on his luck. Later he seizes a key opportunity and Briony takes him on as a royal patron to be a court poet. His comically awful purple prose and unselfconscious desperation to grab at any advantageous circumstance are endearing. Beetledown, one of the strange miniature faeries who lives in the roofing of Shadowmarch, speaks in an earthy, archaic dialect. He has an unbounded sense of confidence in his own abilities, and his outlandish adventures riding rats and bats pull us out of the mood of gloom druing Chert's search through the tunnels.
The multitudinous characters of the faery peoples are the best-imagined in the whole book. Near the beginning we encounter a wyvern beast, many-coloured, dangerous and covered in scales. Many other faeries which are more human-like (that we encounter briefly) live within a complicated system of tribes and loyalties, ranging from small, hairy goblins to a giant, mysterious stalker. Yassamez, the faeries' sinister war-leader, comes across as a pitiless angel of death, a darkly Gothic princess suitably at home in an epic fantasy story. The other powerful force in the faery camp, the Blind Seer King, is not fully revealed to us; one wonders what his strange motives and opaque words are really referring to in regards to his wife, left trapped in a catatonic state.
Flint, the strange boy that Chert discovers abandoned near the Shadowline by faeries, also remains as an unknown to the reader at the end. He is an odd changeling or fey child brought into an awkward adoption by two Funderlings. Later it's revealed he also bears a striking resemblance to the Eddon Great-Aunt's child, lost many years ago. Chert tries giving Flint some instruction, but eventually the boy goes off on his own, on an unknown mission possibly for the faeries.
The novel organises the narrative for these disparate characters by taking up three main story strands. The first strand follows the Eddons and Shadowmarch: Briony and Barrick, Chaven the doctor, Chert, Matty and Puzzle, and Ferris Vansen. The second follows the faeries: the Blind King, and Yassamez with her army. The third strand is oddly disconnected: it follows Qinnitan, a young novice priestess in the southern land of Xis, in the continent of Xand. Qinnitan is chosen by the Autarch to become one of his concubines, and made to live in his pleasure palace; linked to this remotely is the fact which we know that the Autarch plans eventually to conquer the North. The society of the eunuchs' garden is presented frighteningly realistically: it appears a paradise but is full of "serpents". Within this sheltered palace there are constant veiled threats, jealousy, suspicion, potential murder very close to hand and a searching for allies and political sponsors. Qinnitan's experiences there have little or no relevance to the other story strands; aesthetically the setting of Xand is a total mismatch with the European mythological borrowings in the other two story strands; however, the advantage of writing epic fantasy is that lengthy exposition is entirely permissible. A reader is forced to accept the idea they will merely have to find out what the connection between the separated story strands is later.
Many of the settings and descriptions create a heady sense of atmosphere. The most striking one is the opening sequence, where the reader is taken on a literal "flight of the imagination" by Williams. In this, we are given an exclusive glimpse into the faery kingdom of the past. When later Vansen is lost in the forest behind the Shadowline, we are given a more thorough look and become caught up as he explores this same strange, dangerous place. Vansen worries there that he could become mad, as the normal rules of distance, vision and even logic do not seem to apply. He is in the end forced to find the only way out by following a madwoman. The Funderling tunnels are also a place of strange power and befuddling of the senses, in the end almost taking the lives of Chert and Flint. The dreams of Qinnitan in her drug-induced trances and Chaven within his magic mirror are also powerfully realised: they are overcome by being in a place beyond our comprehension, encountering some superhuman force or god.
Like any novel, Shadowmarch has its strengths and weaknesses. It starts with a promising beginning, but at times the interest factor falls off: it could have been trimmed by 100 pages. This is obviously going to be a multi-volume series but unnecessary scenes, for example those showing Briony with her chambermaids and flirting with the ambassador, could have been judiciously cut. At times a readers will have to decide for themselves whether the description of angst and incidents risks becoming bogged down into a soap-opera about the Eddon family. The King is held to ransom; Kendrick faces a dilemma before being killed; Barrick battles his family curse; Briony administers the court and tries to hold everything together; the Great-Aunt suffers a vision of her lost child. Some of the intrigue, concerning the central mystery of the story (who killed Kendrick) also does not "fire". We do wonder why Shaso was accused when he had no motive to do it, but it is a very long time and the matter almost forgotten before we find that the Queen's midwife, transformed into a demon, killed Kendrick.
The real strength of the novel lies in its skill to keep us turning pages. The burning things we want to find out about include the mystery of the mirrors: what is Chaven addicted to seeing? What also made Flint pass out holding a mirror in the tunnels? What is the Shining Man? Flint has a strange purpose and what is it? There is also the idea put forward by Shaso that Chaven and Brone have secret aspirations and one wonders what they are. In addition, how does Qinnitan link with the Northern plotline? We see the potboy and Chert stop the siege of the castle (by handing a mirror to Yassamez), but are not told why this was prevented. Most importantly, the main mystery of the novel is that of the full story behind the Blind Seer King, which hopefully will emerge in later instalments of the series.
There is also an inevitable comparison of this book with Williams's earlier fantasy series, Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. There are some familiar elements, like a foresaken King's jester (Puzzle/Towser), haunted tunnels underneath a castle, and a free-spirited King's daughter (Briony/Miriamele). Shadowmarch is not as striking as the earlier series, but shows a better handling of characters. It is not as ambitious, but is a clear, enjoyable tale. Like MS&T it has an overriding sensitive, contemplative, even morose tone, the voice the author chooses to match his high fantasy subject matter. Williams also shows a common background influence in both books: J.R.R. Tolkien in aesthetics and occasional phrasing, and Tolstoy in deep characterisation (particularly in the character of Ferris Vansen). Williams's own original voice is definitely and pleasingly more prominent, however.
This is a book that has its weaknesses: such as the slow pace, unnecessary scenes. But as a whole it is a success, keeping track of multiple narratives. Central mysteries keep a reader turning pages, and enjoyably Ferris Vansen, Qinnitan and Briony all make escapes from danger. It is a genuine surprise when Kendrick is killed, as is Shaso's confession as to why he couldn't extricate himself from charges of killing him. There are interesting characters and imaginary societies: for example, the picture we get when Briony enters the Skimmers' meeting is just one of many that seems effortlessly put together and as if real life was drawn on the pages. The ominous setting of the shadowlands looms to us with real ghosts from the past.
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