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A review by edb14
Firesong by William Nicholson
2.0
Well, this series has finally limped to a confusing and unsatisfying conclusion. I initially liked this final installment better than the second, and I still think overall it is slightly better, simply because it has a more consistent tone. The first was quirky and charming with hints of seriousness, the second was a bizarre blend of dark despair and quirky humor, and the third is just plain dark, though still illogical.
The novel chronicles the journey of our heroes towards the “homeland” and their wish to carry on the Manth people in this mystical place that they are searching for with the help of Ira Hath, doomed prophetess. The homeland is by far the most irksome part of this plot, as there is virtually no reason to assume that this place will be any better than where they currently are. What, are there no people in it? Why is it better than the cultivated lands of the Mastery, which they just freed from slavery? What about the jungle where no one lives and that is warm year-round and has plenty of free food? There is no reason to fight through all of the hardships they are going through, and the promise of happiness is so vague and so unrelated to anything that is going on around them that I have a hard time believing in it.
As a matter of fact, the entire book is vague. Random unconnected events happen to them constantly. They wander through a desert area at first with few plants, no trees, and little food. Then, they wander into increasing cold and snow until they are nearly buried in it and almost freeze. Then, they wander into a valley, all of the snow melts, and they walk into a tropical jungle. Where are they? What the what? Later, they wander into huge mountain ranges, they sail on extensive rivers, and they make their way to the ocean. What does this map look like?
The “wind on fire” that they are fleeing from is also incredibly vague. They are all afraid of being “swept away” by it, and it is a little confusing if this is supposed to be metaphorical or not. About two-thirds of the way through the novel they suddenly start talking about a war that is happening “everywhere” with roving bands killing innocents and thousands of people fleeing. What? What war is this? Between whom? No countries, ideologies, or affiliations mentioned. Where are these people fleeing? There is a bizarre scene in which we are treated to a panorama of roving bands of murderers killing innocent people everywhere, when there has been zero hint of this on the journey at all. They have been wandering through unpopulated wastes up until the point that Nicholson arbitrarily decides to populate them again. This war is talked of as the building wind right up until the end What?
The two main characters are now lost in a miasma of despair, prophecy and doomed certainty of their fate. Every new experience they look on as more proof of their doom. Every good thing they experience makes them sad because they know that soon they will be separated from each other and die. Both of them look sadly on potential love interests and shake their heads because they know they will die soon. They look on trouble and sigh because they know that it won’t matter soon, when they are dead. They accept their weird premonitions of fate and make no effort to change anything. This is the absolute worst way to handle prophecy in novels. The mystics that kidnap and make use of the kids are poorly developed and have impenetrable motivations that are made even more annoying as everyone just accepts them as patently obvious and sensible.
Overall, this book was a terrible mess. I think Nicholson might have been going for some deep themes, but nothing is consistent or clear, so it is hard to follow what point he is trying to make. Some of the sequences are so weird and symbolic that it feels like he is going for an allegory a la Pilgrim’s Progress, but I can’t figure out what anything is supposed to symbolize. I cannot think of a single theme that this novel could potentially be about. Hope is good? Love is… there? Family is worth sacrificing for? You have a fate and then the end? Maybe if the characters stopped reacting like resigned couch potatoes watching a movie that they were only mildly emotionally invested in and talked like real people I could have gotten into it more. As it is, this is worth very little and I would hesitate to recommend it to anyone. Read the first one, and then leave it at that.
The novel chronicles the journey of our heroes towards the “homeland” and their wish to carry on the Manth people in this mystical place that they are searching for with the help of Ira Hath, doomed prophetess. The homeland is by far the most irksome part of this plot, as there is virtually no reason to assume that this place will be any better than where they currently are. What, are there no people in it? Why is it better than the cultivated lands of the Mastery, which they just freed from slavery? What about the jungle where no one lives and that is warm year-round and has plenty of free food? There is no reason to fight through all of the hardships they are going through, and the promise of happiness is so vague and so unrelated to anything that is going on around them that I have a hard time believing in it.
As a matter of fact, the entire book is vague. Random unconnected events happen to them constantly. They wander through a desert area at first with few plants, no trees, and little food. Then, they wander into increasing cold and snow until they are nearly buried in it and almost freeze. Then, they wander into a valley, all of the snow melts, and they walk into a tropical jungle. Where are they? What the what? Later, they wander into huge mountain ranges, they sail on extensive rivers, and they make their way to the ocean. What does this map look like?
The “wind on fire” that they are fleeing from is also incredibly vague. They are all afraid of being “swept away” by it, and it is a little confusing if this is supposed to be metaphorical or not. About two-thirds of the way through the novel they suddenly start talking about a war that is happening “everywhere” with roving bands killing innocents and thousands of people fleeing. What? What war is this? Between whom? No countries, ideologies, or affiliations mentioned. Where are these people fleeing? There is a bizarre scene in which we are treated to a panorama of roving bands of murderers killing innocent people everywhere, when there has been zero hint of this on the journey at all. They have been wandering through unpopulated wastes up until the point that Nicholson arbitrarily decides to populate them again. This war is talked of as the building wind right up until the end
Spoiler
when it is revealed that the wind on fire is just an actual wind on fire that burns everyone alive. Only not everyone, because there are people left.The two main characters are now lost in a miasma of despair, prophecy and doomed certainty of their fate. Every new experience they look on as more proof of their doom. Every good thing they experience makes them sad because they know that soon they will be separated from each other and die. Both of them look sadly on potential love interests and shake their heads because they know they will die soon. They look on trouble and sigh because they know that it won’t matter soon, when they are dead. They accept their weird premonitions of fate and make no effort to change anything. This is the absolute worst way to handle prophecy in novels. The mystics that kidnap and make use of the kids are poorly developed and have impenetrable motivations that are made even more annoying as everyone just accepts them as patently obvious and sensible.
Overall, this book was a terrible mess. I think Nicholson might have been going for some deep themes, but nothing is consistent or clear, so it is hard to follow what point he is trying to make. Some of the sequences are so weird and symbolic that it feels like he is going for an allegory a la Pilgrim’s Progress, but I can’t figure out what anything is supposed to symbolize. I cannot think of a single theme that this novel could potentially be about. Hope is good? Love is… there? Family is worth sacrificing for? You have a fate and then the end? Maybe if the characters stopped reacting like resigned couch potatoes watching a movie that they were only mildly emotionally invested in and talked like real people I could have gotten into it more. As it is, this is worth very little and I would hesitate to recommend it to anyone. Read the first one, and then leave it at that.