Scan barcode
A review by rick
The Way Into Chaos by Harry Connolly
4.0
4.5 stars.
I was recently in a discussion sparked by a Guardian article on how epic fantasy needs to break out from its dependence on meganovels - thousand page volumes, often several of them, that at least partly are about being a tourist in the fantasy world. Well, if there's a book to point the way out of that, this is is that book.
It starts with a bang (hi, your festival has just been invaded....) and doesn't let up. We follow the characters from the moment of invasion on and there's simply no letup in moving the story forward. Things keep happening, character make choices then act on those choices and it's not always pretty. At no point is there some large 50 page info dump.... if it serves the story it's here, if not, it's somewhere in the trash, I suppose.
Far from hurting world building, this approach serves it. We get a real idea of the world in which things are happening, but none of our characters are omniscient so neither are we. There are lands beyond where the action takes place and we get brief descriptions of them, but that's all, because that's all the story at that point supports. The result of this is a well constructed, well written novel that drops us into a world right as something terrible happens and then follows authentic characters who each try to do their best by their own lights. This is a tight, well done fantasy novel that kept me up until 1am which is when my iPad battery died. I finished it this morning and bought the next book in the trilogy.
Do note that this is the first book of a completed trilogy. It does end on a cliffhanger but the rest of the series is out so you can keep reading.
I was recently in a discussion sparked by a Guardian article on how epic fantasy needs to break out from its dependence on meganovels - thousand page volumes, often several of them, that at least partly are about being a tourist in the fantasy world. Well, if there's a book to point the way out of that, this is is that book.
It starts with a bang (hi, your festival has just been invaded....) and doesn't let up. We follow the characters from the moment of invasion on and there's simply no letup in moving the story forward. Things keep happening, character make choices then act on those choices and it's not always pretty. At no point is there some large 50 page info dump.... if it serves the story it's here, if not, it's somewhere in the trash, I suppose.
Far from hurting world building, this approach serves it. We get a real idea of the world in which things are happening, but none of our characters are omniscient so neither are we. There are lands beyond where the action takes place and we get brief descriptions of them, but that's all, because that's all the story at that point supports. The result of this is a well constructed, well written novel that drops us into a world right as something terrible happens and then follows authentic characters who each try to do their best by their own lights. This is a tight, well done fantasy novel that kept me up until 1am which is when my iPad battery died. I finished it this morning and bought the next book in the trilogy.
Do note that this is the first book of a completed trilogy. It does end on a cliffhanger but the rest of the series is out so you can keep reading.