Queen of Demons
David Drake
Tor, 480 pages
Order this book
In Lord of the Isles, the first installment of David Drake's unnamed fantasy series, four young people--Garric
or-Reise and his sister Sharina, Cashel or-Kenset and his sister Ilna--set out on a journey from their peasant
village only to be swept, in typical epic-fantasy fashion, into magic and danger and destiny. But Lord of the
Isles, with its fine characterizations, gritty action, and vivid worldbuilding, is much more than typical epic
fantasy; and the same is true of its followup, Queen of Demons.
A millenium ago, the Kingdom of the Isles was destroyed in a calamity precipitated by a powerful and arrogant wizard,
during a period when the forces of the cosmos were rising to a peak. Now the forces are peaking again, and the
powers of magic have once more acquired wild and uncontrollable strength. Even wizards of little ability are able
to accomplish great works, and those with larger talent can do far more. But great power does not necessarily equal
great understanding. In their lack of comprehension of the universe's balance and their unconcern with the consequences
of their actions, the powerful wizards now seeking to dominate the scattered societies born out of the wreck of
the Kingdom of the Isles threaten to unleash a second destruction, even more disastrous than the first.
Queen of Demons finds Garric and his friends, who in the previous book foiled an ambitious sorcerer's attempt
to gain for himself the cosmic power-source known as the Throne of Malkar, caught up in another struggle, this
time to defeat the Queen of Valles, a hugely powerful wizard who seeks to control the Isles, and the terrible Beast
another wizard has summoned to oppose her. As in Lord of the Isles, the friends begin the narrative together,
but are quickly separated, and over the course of the book pursue individual adventures that eventually join up
for a single climax. Garric, descendant of King Carus, the last ruler of the united Isles, moves closer to his
destiny of becoming King himself, and joining the scattered kingdoms under a single rule. Sharina is kidnapped
by minions of the queen; she escapes, but eventually falls into the queen's hands once more. Cashel, who in the
previous book discovered his own unusual magical powers, stumbles through a series of strange, alternate worlds
with an even stranger band of companions. And Ilna, whose rigid nature and secret love for Garric seduced her into
turning her patterning gift to evil, attempts to live quietly and work her own redemption by doing good, but is
swept into adventure anyway.
These parallel stories are told in brief, alternating point-of-view sections, a rapid-fire technique that takes
a bit of getting used to. There's also some awkwardness in the first chapter, where the problem of rehashing previous
action must be dealt with; and the short paragraphs and emphatic writing style occasionally become annoying. But
overall, Queen of Demons is an involving, strongly-imagined novel, with an impressive depth of treatment
in all its aspects. If the plot seems a bit over-intricate at times, and the reader now and then suspects the characters
are taking a very roundabout way to where they need to go, it's easy to forgive a bit of padding, simply because
their travels make such an excellent story.
As in Lord of the Isles, the characterizations are very fine. The four protagonists possess carefully-shaped
and distinctly individual voices, and even minor players are sharp and convincing. Garric's adjustment to his sudden
royal status is a bit fast for credibility, but still, it's been clear since the first book that this is his destiny,
and he's had plenty of time to get used to the idea. Also impressive is the thoroughness with which Drake has worked
out his system of magic. Ordinarily I'm put off by books in which wizards wave wands and incant in arcane languages,
but the philosophical underpinnings Drake provides for these rituals makes them unusually convincing.
But what really distinguishes these books, and lifts them well beyond the ordinary run of epic fantasy, is their
outstanding worldbuilding. It's rare to read a historical novel that evokes a period and a culture as vigorously
as Drake does his imaginary realm of the Isles. Partly this is because many of the elements of Drake's world are
not imaginary at all; as many writers seem to be doing these days, he has turned to the classical world for inspiration,
and much about the Isles is recognizable from our own actual past. But it takes more than research to do as Drake
has done, and build a fictive society as vivid, consistent, and believable as any real one. For all its myth and
magic, its chimerical creatures and impossible phenomena, the world of the Isles seems less an invention than a
glimpse of something that might actually once have been: a culture archaeologists might dig up tomorrow.
The ending of Queen of Demons resolves its many plot threads, but it's clear that there is more story to
come. This is already one of the more impressive of recent fantasy series. If the subsequent volumes are as good
as the first two (and, of course, if the series doesn't extend on into infinity), Drake will have created a really
significant addition to the genre.
Copyright © 1998 Victoria Strauss
Top of Page
|
