A History of Epic Fantasy - Part 19

The early to mid 1990s saw an explosion in the popularity of epic fantasy. Writers in the field went from a few dozen to hundreds as publishers chased the next Robert Jordan or Tad Williams. Sales were extremely strong, but market oversaturation led to a decline in the latter part of the decade. But several major, strong voices emerged from this period who would go on to great success.

The Last Wish

Epic fantasy is not just popular in the English language. Authors such as Tolkien, Pratchett and Jordan achieved fame worldwide, with translated editions of their books selling in their tens and hundreds of thousands, even millions, outside of their success in English. Some authors even enjoyed greater success: Tad Willias's SF/fantasy Otherland series sold very well in the USA and UK, but became a phenomenal bestseller in Germany. Paul Kearney had middling sales in English, but his books are quite popular in places from Spain to Israel.

More unusual, until recently, were authors from overseas being translated into English. Whether this was simple economics - the additional cost of paying a professional translator was not deemed worth it when there was so much homegrown talent available - is unclear. However, in the 2000s publishers began realising that by publishing non-English authors in the States and Commonwealth markets, they could often tap into a large back-catalogue of already-completed works. And the first author to benefit from this was Polish superstar Andrzej Sapkowski.

Sapkowski began publishing short stories about Geralt of Rivia, a "witcher" or monster-hunter, in the late 1980s. In 1990 he assembled these stories as The Witcher (re-released in 1993 in an expanded form under its definitive title, The Last Wish), which became a bestseller in Poland. Its success soon spread to the huge (and oft-neglected) Russian-speaking market as well as across Europe, from Spain to Germany. The book was followed by The Sword of Destiny (1992), a linked series of short stories which established the background and setting for a longer epic. This epic took the form of five novels, starting with Blood of Elves, published between 1994 and 1999 (with a prequel novel being published in 2012).

These books are notable for drawing on a broader range of European mythology than is the norm, and for a large degree of moral complexity. The reliance of the books on Polish wordplay for their humour made translating them challenging, and may have contributed to the delay in their appearance in English.

In 2007 the decision was made to bring the books into English. This was inspired by the release, by CD Projekt, of a tie-in video game called The Witcher. The game was a modest success and was followed by The Witcher II: Assassin of Kings (2011), which was a much bigger worldwide hit. This in turn was followed by The Witcher III: The Last Hunt (2015), which was a worldwide monster smash, selling six million copies in its first month on sale. The English translations proceeded in a haphazard manner, with the release of the later books delayed by immense legal complications. These were eventually resolved and the series was finally released in English to significant critical acclaim.

King's Dragon

Alis A. Ramussen started her writing career in 1988, publishing a stand-alone fantasy novel called The Labyrinth Gate, followed by the science fiction Highroad Trilogy in 1990. Sales were disappointing, so her publishers proposed switching to a pen name to relaunch her career. Now writing as Kate Elliott, her next project was the Jaran science fiction series. This was modestly successful, but she achieved greater popularity with the well-received Golden Key, a fantasy collaboration with Melanie Rawn and Jennifer Roberson. These marked out Elliott as an author watch.

Her next project, King's Dragon (1997), established her one of the top writers in the epic fantasy field. This was the opening volume of Crown of Stars, a series that grew to seven volumes and was completed in 2006. Crown of Stars is both a traditional epic fantasy and one that comments on the genre, with its strong female characters and deliberately low-scaled setting with armies typically numbering in the hundreds rather than the thousands and a much greater emphasis on the power of religion. The series is also notable for being set in an overtly parallel-universe version of Europe rather than a more loosely "influenced by" setting. Its musings on faith and religious power are impressive (particularly the expectation-defying storyline of Alain), and overall it ranks as one of the more interesting and underrated completed series in the field.

Elliott has since written the remarkable Crossroads and Spiritwalker trilogies, as well as the Court of Fives YA series.

Wizards' First Rule

After the immense success of The Wheel of Time, Tor Books began looking for authors who could repeat Robert Jordan's success for them. In 1994 they published the debut novel by an American author named Terry Goodkind.

Goodkind had come to writing relatively late in life, having had a successful career as a painter and cabinet-maker. Dyslexia had made him reluctant to tackle writing, but he overcame this to write Wizards' First Rule in 1993; Tor published it the following year, when the author was 46. The book was initially well-received and sold impressively, so Tor published several sequels. This became The Sword of Truth series, which by the time of its completion thirteen years later had expanded to eleven novels and sold over 25 million copies, making Goodkind Tor's second-biggest-selling author after Robert Jordan.

The Sword of Truth is unusual in that it is heavily influenced by the works of Ayn Rand, particular Atlas Shrugged and the socio-economic theory of Objectivism it popularised. Objectivism states that the will and importance of the individual is of paramount importance and that social systems should not limit the ability of the individual to seek happiness or promote their own success. However, some commentators have noted that this is merely a thinly-veiled excuse for unrestrained capitalist expansion and a justification for the selfishness of the privileged over the unlucky or socially-challenged. The Objectivist philosophy is fairly restrained in Wizards' First Rule but becomes more prominent in later novels (and then completely dominant in Faith of the Fallen, the sixth book in the series) when substantial chunks of the books are given over to the heroes of the series, Richard Rahl and Kahlan, expounding on the theory and its application to their fantasy world at some considerable length. Other political ideas also made their way into the series, such as Goodkind using carciatures of Bill and Hilary Clinton as villains in one novel and expounding on Communism as the primary evil in his world. Goodkind also began stating in interviews that he was not writing fantasy because he loved the genre, but because he saw it as a way of exploring "important human themes", to the bemusement of many reviewers and fans familiar with the series and concepts such as "nipple magic", the "noble goat" and "evil shapeshifting monster who attacks a primary protagonist whilst inexplicably disguised as a chicken".

Despite the naysayers, The Sword of Truth remains one of the biggest-selling fantasy series of recent times. Unusually, however, it's also a series whose profile and sales dipped as it continued. The concluding volumes reached the top of the New York Times bestseller lists, but Goodkind's attempt to launch a tangentially-related series set in the modern world, The Law of Nines, was not successful. A subsequent sequel series to The Sword of Truth, following up on Richard and Kahlan's later adventures, has also failed to achieve the same level of sales as the earlier novels. A television adaptation of the series, Legend of the Seeker, was also cancelled after two seasons (and having very little to do with the books). However, these failures are only relative, and Goodkind remains one of the more well-known - and some fantasy fans may say infamous - authors in the field.

The Baker's Boy

SFF publishing's ongoing quest to find the next big thing turned up an additional success in 1995. A British author residing in San Francisco, Julie Victoria Jones, had sent Warner Books a manuscript called The Baker's Boy, the opening volume of a trilogy called The Book of Words. With the trilogy already in an advanced state of completion, Warners (who used the series to reboot a moribund SFF line) decided to publish the series with a heavy blizzard of publicity, mirrored by Orbit Books in the UK.

The result was a trilogy that smashed onto the bestseller lists and achieved early critical acclaim, not for its story which was standard but for its dark sense of humour, overriding themes of tragedy and murky, complex morality. Jones also proved to be remarkably prolific, producing a fine stand-alone novel called The Barbed Coil in 1997 before embarking on The Sword of Shadows, a sequel series to The Book of Words, although not one that requires detailed foreknowledge of the original series.

Published in 1999, A Cavern of Black Ice represented not so much an improvement in quality but a quantum jump in skill and ability. Featuring substantially improved characterisation and prose skills over her earlier works, A Cavern of Black Ice was a fine fantasy novel that boded well for the rest of the series. Unfortunately, Jones's formerly spectacular production rate appeared to drop off a cliff, with long waits for the sequels: A Fortress of Grey Ice (2002), A Sword From Red Ice (2007) and Speaker for the Dead (2010). The fifth novel, Endlords, has been delayed several times.

Despite these disappointingly long waits, The Sword of Shadows remains one of the more accomplished works of epic fantasy of recent years. Its brooding, freezing atmosphere, its political intrigue and its tragic characters combine to form a series of much greater depth than some of its contemporaries, and if it ends strongly it could be regarded as one of the defining works of its time.

Hawkwood's Voyage

Paul Kearney, a writer from Northern Ireland, began his writing career with three stand-alone novels: The Way to Babylon (1992), A Different Kingdom (1993) and Riding the Unicorn (1994). These novels are notable for featuring characters from the real world intermingling with the fantasy world in some way. A Different Kingdom was particularly remarkable, coming across as a uniquely Irish spin on some of the same ground explored in Robert Holdstock's woodland fantasy, Mythago Wood. Riding the Unicorn hinted at a different direction for Kearney's work, featuring as it did massive battles and clashes between armies in a well-realised fantasy world.

Published in 1995, Hawkwood's Voyage was the logical next step in that process. Set completely in a fantasy world, the novel charts the clash between the western kingdoms of Normannia and the invading hordes of the Merduks of the east, who follow a different religion. The western kingdoms are divided by civil war sparked by an attempt by the fanatical Ramusian Church to press down on heretics and magic-users not sworn to their services. A number of these heretics flee into the western ocean as part of an ill-advised exploration mission seeking a rumoured new continent across the sea, whilst the kings of two of the great western nations break away in an attempt to protect their people. This leaves the eastern kingdom of Torunna to face the invaders alone, massively outnumbered and with only a single beleaguered fortress guarding the way.

The Monarchies of God, spanning five short novels published from 1995 to 2003, was a series ahead of its time. It was unusually bloody and grim, although never gratuitously so, but ended on a note of hope and cooperation. It featured vivid, memorable battle sequences reminiscent of David Gemmell, along with cynical military camaraderie in the style of Glen Cook. The religious turmoil is drawn straight from history (the opening fall of Aekir, the great religious centre of the east, is based on the capture of Constantinople in 1453), but the presence of werewolves injects a shot of sheer horror into the narrative at unexpected moments. The books are also remarkable for carrying a huge amount of plot and character development in relatively few pages (the combined page count for the series is roughly equal to George R.R. Martin's A Storm of Swords by itself). They also take place later in feigned history than most fantasy books, featuring gunpowder, arquebuses and cannons alongside the more traditional swords and crossbows. Other fantasy series have employed gunpowder (such as Tom Arden's Orokon sequence) but it remains an under-explored technology in epic fantasy.

An intermittent release cycle and the earlier books going out of print before the later ones could be published meant that The Monarchies of God did not achieve the success it deserved on its initial printing: its reissuing in two volumes (Hawkwood and the Kings and Century of the Soldier) by Solaris in 2010 proved more successful. Kearney has since written two volumes of a nautical fantasy series, The Sea-Beggars (the concluding volume has been held up by a rights dispute between the British and American publishers); a Gemmell-esque quasi-historical trilogy based on ancient Greece called The Macht; and a couple of tie-in novels for properties such as Primeval and Warhammer 40,000. His next book, The Wolf in the Attic, is a return to the more intimate, character-based fantasy of his early work. However, Kearney's immense skills at epic fantasy make him one of the more interesting, if underread, authors in the genre.

By the mid-1990s epic fantasy was looking for its Next Big Thing, a series that would come along and redefine the genre. Attempts to simply replicate Tolkien or Jordan hadn't really worked, and although some big sellers had emerged, there still wasn't any sign of a work that would elevate the genre further. When it did arrive, in August 1996, it wasn't from a bright and hopeful young author, but from a long-standing and respected author in the fields of science fiction and horror.

Waterstones fail to recognise female fantasy authors

Fantasy author Foz Meadows recently published this article, in which she challenged the failure of Waterstones (the UK's only remaining nationwide chain of bookstores) to recognise female fantasy authors - or SF authors for that matter - in their 2012 literature on the SFF genre. No less than 113 authors are listed in the booklet but only nine of them are female, which is rather an eyebrow-raising imbalance.

Could do better.

Juliet E. McKenna expands on this by claiming to have seen lots of "If you like George R.R. Martin, why not try..."-style lists in bookshops, almost invariably consisting solely of male authors. Apparently, when she challenged one bookshop on why this was so, she was told "Women don't write epic fantasy." This is blatantly untrue, and it was rather idiotic of them to say so to an author with no less than fifteen epic fantasy novels under her belt. Indeed, when people have asked me what authors they should be reading after getting hooked on the likes of Martin or Abercrombie or Lynch, I often surprise myself with how many of the recommendations that come to mind are women.

So, without further ado, here is a brief list of female epic fantasy authors you should check out if you've gotten hooked on the genre via Martin or Game of Thrones:

Robin Hobb

Robin Hobb, aka Megan Lindholm (both pen-names of Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden), writes trilogies featuring epic battles and magical creatures (including dragons), but is resolutely focused on her characters. She enjoys writing characters who have their own motivations which make sense to them, no matter how they are painted as heroes or villains by others. Martin is a huge fan, as is Steven Erikson, and she has enjoyed a lengthy and prolific career. In fact, Martin has cited Hobb's use of animal magic as one of several influences on the warging in A Song of Ice and Fire.

Her best-known works are the five sub-series set in the Realm of the Elderlings, comprising the Farseer, Liveship Traders and Tawny Man trilogies and the Rain Wild Chronicles quartet, plus a forthcoming series currently planned to be a trilogy, The Fitz and the Fool. Hobb broke away from this series to write an unrelated work, The Soldier Son Trilogy, which was not as well-received. Writing under the pen name Megan Lindholm, she also wrote ten earlier books, mostly aimed at younger readers.

Key works
The Farseer Trilogy: Assassin's Apprentice (1995), Royal Assassin (1996), Assassin's Quest (1997)
The Liveship Traders Trilogy: Ship of Magic (1998), The Mad Ship (1999), Ship of Destiny (2000)
The Tawny Man Trilogy: Fool's Errand (2001), The Golden Fool (2002), Fool's Fate (2003)
The Soldier Son Trilogy: Shaman's Crossing (2005), Forest Mage (2006), Renegade's Magic (2008)
The Rain Wild Chronicles: Dragon Keeper (2009), Dragon Haven (2010), City of Dragons (2011), Blood of Dragons (2011)
The Fitz and the Fool: The Fool's Assassin (2014)

Kate Elliott

Kate Elliott is the pen-name of Alis A. Ramussen, under which name she published a fantasy, The Labyrinth Gate and an SF series, The Highroad Trilogy. After apparently disappointing early sales, she changed her writing name and returned with the SF Jaran series in the early 1990s. This was more successful and she has followed it up with a series of epic fantasies, including her more recent work, the Crossroads and Spiritwalker series.

However, Elliott's largest and best-known series is Crown of Stars, a seven-volume epic published between 1997 and 2006. If Martin's Song of Ice and Fire depicts a world set at the tail end of the medieval period, with armies in the tens of thousands, shining knights and full plate armour, Crown of Stars is set at the opposite end, when any army larger than a thousand is huge and kings tour their countries on endless processions rather than being tied to single capitals. Heavily influenced by real medieval European history (to the point where Crown of Stars can also be called an alternate history based on 9th and 10th Century Germany and Eastern Europe), Elliott weaves a large number of storylines focusing on themes such as war, chivalry religion and gender issues without dialling back (though also not over-emphasising) on the brutality of the period. Perhaps slightly overlong, but also genuinely thought-provoking.

Crossroads, which will eventually encompass at least seven novels set across three generations, is also interesting. Set in a world not based explicitly on any period of real history, it features a number of carefully-created original cultures clashing for control of a land called the Hundred. The original Crossroads trilogy will be followed by a new book later this year, The Black Wolves, set some years later.

Key works
The Golden Key (1996, with Melanie Rawn and Jennifer Roberson)
The Jaran Series: Jaran (1992), An Earthly Crown (1993), His Conquering Sword (1993), The Law of Becoming (1994)
Crown of Stars: King's Dragon (1997), Prince of Dogs (1998), The Burning Stone (1999), Child of Flame (2000), The Gathering Storm (2003), In the Ruins (2005), Crown of Stars (2006)
Crossroads: Spirit Gate (2007), Shadow Gate (2008), Traitors' Gate (2009), The Black Wolves (2014)
Spiritwalker: Cold Magic (2010), Cold Fire (2011), Cold Steel (2013)

Elizabeth Bear

Elizabeth Bear is an author I'm only recently acquainted with, thanks to her superb Eternal Sky Trilogy. However, she has published many novels in several different subgenres (including SF and urban fantasy), including her acclaimed Iskryne series, co-written with Sarah Monette.

The Eternal Sky trilogy is an epic fantasy set on an alternate version of the central Asian steppes, with a race of nomadic tribesmen who recall George R.R. Martin's Dothraki. However, whilst the Dothraki are (partly) based on the Asian nomads at the very start of their expansion and rise to power, Bear's series deals with a far more sophisticated and subtle people, depicted as intelligent warriors and capable engineers rather than just hordes of plunderers and rapists. It also features some intriguingly weird magic (the skies over each nation and culture are somehow different) and deliciously rich characterisation.

Key works
The Eternal Sky Trilogy: Range of Ghosts (2012), Shattered Pillars (2013), Steles of the Sky (2014)

J.V. Jones

Julie Victoria Jones hit the ground running with The Baker's Boy in 1995. Boosted by a Robert Jordan cover quote, it rapidly became one of the biggest-selling fantasy novels of the year and propelled her onto the bestseller lists. It was a rough novel, not unexpectedly for a debut, and she improved in leaps and bounds over the remainder of the Book of Words trilogy and a further stand-alone novel, The Barbed Coil. However, Jones found a different and far more sophisticated level of writing ability with her Sword of Shadows series, a decade and a half in the making and still incomplete.

Sword of Shadows is a (very loose) sequel to The Book of Words and picks up the story of the daughter of the previous trilogy's hero, as well as a whole host of new characters. It is set beyond the northern mountains in a bleak subarctic wilderness, heavily influenced by Scandinavia and the Inuit tribes. If you enjoyed those parts of A Song of Ice and Fire set beyond the Wall, this series is for you, with descriptions of snow and ice so vivid you may want to wrap up warm before reading. Unfortunately, Jones also seems to be emulating Martin's five-year gaps between volumes, but this is one of those series where the books are worth the long waits.

Key works
The Barbed Coil (1998)
The Book of Words: The Baker's Boy (1995), A Man Betrayed (1996), Master and Fool (1997)
The Sword of Shadows: A Cavern of Black Ice (1999), A Fortress of Grey Ice (2002), A Sword from Red Ice (2007), Watcher of the Dead (2010), Endlords (forthcoming)

Kameron Hurley

A relative newcomer, Hurley's works are challenging, direct and different. Her first trilogy is apparently SF, but magic (based around the manipulation of different kings of bugs) is liberally used. Her current series is an epic fantasy with a difference, set in a world which is being invaded by forces from its own parallel dimension, with the twist that only people whose doppelgangers are dead in the other universe can pass through. Hurley's books are complex, thought-provoking and vitally infused with life and action.

Hurley is also a prolific and essayist. She won a Hugo Award for "We Have Always Fought", an essay challenging the lazy gender assumptions prevalent in epic fantasy and science fiction based on erroneous understandings of history.

Key works
The Stars Are Legion (2016)
The Geek Feminist Revolution (2016)

The Bel Dame Apocrypha: God's War (2010), Rapture (2011), Infidel (2012)
The Mirror Empire: The Mirror Empire (2014), Empire Ascendant (2015), Broken Heavens (2017)

N.K. Jemisin

N.K. Jemisin is a relative newcomer, but made her mark on the genre with The Inheritance Trilogy (no, not that one) and the Dreamblood duology. The latter - which regrettably is so far all I've read - is set in a fantasised take on Egypt that completely avoids cliche: no cat-headed people fighting sphinxes, thankfully. Instead, it's a well-thought-out, intelligent take on the fantasy genre and its conventions about religion, power and gender roles, whilst also being a kick-arse adventure story set in a fantasy world refreshingly not based on Medieval Europe. Her next book, The Fifth Season, is out later this year.

Key works
The Fifth Season (2014)
The Inheritance Trilogy: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (2010), The Broken Kingdoms (2010), The Kingdom of Gods (2011)
The Dreamblood: The Killing Moon (2012), The Shadowed Sun (2012)

Juliet E. McKenna

Juliet E. McKenna is a prominent member of the UK SFF community, noted for her role in the writing collective The Write Fantastic. She has penned (as mentioned above) fifteen fantasy novels in four series, though all set on the same world.

I read her debut novel, The Thief's Gamble (featuring a female thief and rogue), when it was first released and found it highly enjoyable. Unfortunately, I haven't read the rest of her books but look forward to doing so.

Key works
The Tales of Einarinn: The Thief's Gamble (1999), The Swordsman's Oath (1999), The Gambler's Fortune (2000), The Warrior's Bond (2001), The Assassin's Edge (2002)

The Aldabreshin Compass: Southern Fire (2003), Northern Storm (2004), Western Shore (2005), Eastern Tide (2006)
The Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution: Irons in the Fire (2009), Blood in the Water (2010), Banners in the Wind (2010)
The Hadrumal Crisis: Dangerous Waters (2011), Darkening Skies (2012), Defiant Peaks (2012)

J.K. Rowling

You may have heard of her. And yes, I count her books as epic fantasy.

This is only scratching the surface here, so hit me with some more epic fantasies (or, sod it, fantasy in general) written by women in the comments.

ETA: When this article was originally published, it included K.J. Parker, at the time widely reported by the publishers to be female. It was later revealed that K.J. Parker is in fact comic fantasy author Tom Holt. As a result, the entry has been removed from the list and replaced by the more than deserving Kameron Hurley.

News

Scott Lynch has revealed on his blog (during a discussion on the Blizzard forum ID debacle, which I may cover in a future Countdown to Liberty post) that he is close to handing in revisions on The Republic of Thieves, suggesting that the Spring 2011 date for the book is solid. He is, "Trying to steer a certain book home, baby, home. Revisions are due."


Kate Elliott talks about the Crown of Stars fantasy series which is now coming out (with amazing cover art) in France.

Wizards of the Coast appear to be undergoing some sort of worrying convulsion at the moment, shedding employees, delaying and dropping novels and generally acting in a bizarre manner. Paul Kemp, one of their biggest-selling authors, has seen his new Erevis Cale novel, Godborn (the first in a new trilogy), pushed back all the way to mid-2012 with no explanation, whilst the Forgotten Realms book editor, Phil Athans, has been dismissed. All of this comes amid rumours that Dungeons and Dragons is severely under-performing for WotC (not making a loss, but still not hitting their targets) and questions over the game's future direction.


On Facebook and Twitter Brandon Sanderson has said he has completed the writing of Towers of Midnight, the penultimate Wheel of Time novel, and is now hard at work on revisions before the book's deadline of mid-August to get the book out in the first week of November, as planned.

At a recent book-signing in San Diego, George R.R. Martin reported that A Dance with Dragons has now passed the 1,400 manuscript-page mark. His previous blog posts had revealed that the target length of the book has dropped below the 1,500 MS page-count of A Storm of Swords, indicating that completion is, if not imminent, then at least heaving (if unpredictably lurching around) into view. There are also rumoured signs that Bantam US are targeting a Spring 2011 release date even if the book is completed imminently, which leaves it up to HarperCollins Voyager in the UK to see if they can repeat their Herculean feat of getting Swords on shelves less than ten weeks after hand-in, to ensure both a 2010 release and an influx of overseas sales.

Terry Pratchett has established a new prize. The Terry Pratchett Anywhere But Hear, Anywhen But Now Prize will reward debut authors writing in the alternate history subgenre. More details here.

Recent rumours that a Doctor Who movie was in development with Johnny Depp starring have been pretty thoroughly crushed. Russell T. Davies has swatted it down as well.

New cover art

James from Speculative Horizons has unveiled the new cover art by Benjamin Carre for the UK version of The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch. The book was completed late last year and is currently undergoing rewrites and edits for a Spring 2011 launch in both the UK and USA.


Meanwhile, courtesy of Dark Wolf, are the French covers for the first two books in Kate Elliott's Crown of Stars series, King's Dragon and Prince of Dogs. The cover artist is Didier Graffet.


Some nice work there!

In the Ruins & Crown of Stars by Kate Elliott

Finally! A good six weeks after setting out on this project, I finally completed Kate Elliott's enormous Crown of Stars series. Seven volumes, over 5,500 pages and a fairly complicated storyline later, I feel like I've run a marathon. Sometimes it was an easy task and sometimes a gruelling one, but overall I feel this series has enough positive aspects to make reading it a worthwhile endeavour.


In the Ruins picks up the storyline from the end of Book 5, The Gathering Storm. The long-foretold cataclysm has come to pass and the continent of Novaria has been devastated by the return of the Ashioi. However, whilst the Ashioi argue amongst themselves about what attitude to take towards humanity, the kingdoms of Wendar and Varre once again fall into bitter infighting whilst their old rivals in the east, particularly the Arethousans, advance their own plans.

In the Ruins (***) is actually the first half of one novel, chopped in half when it got too large to publish in one volume. As a result it is the least self-contained of the seven books in the series, lacking any kind of climax or resolution. Despite this, the established storylines tick along nicely and we start seeing how some of the less-prominent storylines that the series has followed are starting to come together quite nicely for the conclusion. As with the others, the book is published by Orbit in the UK and DAW in the USA.

Crown of Stars is the concluding volume of the Crown of Stars series and is a very interesting book to study. As I said at the start of this reading project, my goal was to assess how it is possible for a huge (more than four volumes) fantasy series to have a really worthwhile and satisfying conclusion, given that so many of the big hitter series remain incomplete, such as Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen or George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. Crown of Stars was pretty much the only series of this length I could find that was actually finished.

Crown of Stars delivers a reasonably strong conclusion to the series. Elliott addresses every plot point and storyline raised from the earlier novels and gives a mostly satisfactory resolution to the story, tying everything up but not necessarily very neatly. The world is left a much more murky, dangerous place then we found in King's Dragon and there are hints of greater struggles to come in the future. This is as it should be: the sense of life continuing after you close the page is an important factor in whether a book's conclusion is convincing or not. That said, there are also many plot points left unclear towards the end, and the discovery that Elliott plans to write sequel novels and series (although she has an unrelated new seven-volume series called Crossroads to complete first) is mildly disconcerting. The novel itself ends with a somewhat pointless coda set 50 years after the rest of the series which seems to bring nothing to the story except reinforcing the point that life carries on. I also felt the conclusion to both the Hugh/Liath storyline and the return of the Ashioi were handled very curtly and lacked the sense of drama and tension that thousands of pages of build-up beforehand really deserved.

That said, the character of Alain was handled quite nicely in the conclusion of the series. What or who he is or represents is question Elliott leaves for the reader to work out, and it is satisfying that she trusts the audience enough to work out what should be painfully obvious after reading the last few books in the series.

Crown of Stars (***½) is also available from Orbit and DAW.

Overall, I would say that the Crown of Stars series is needlessly overlong and could have handled having a couple of volumes shaved off from it. It also suffers from the occasional bland turn of phrase, and the characters do seem to engage in a lot of repetitive getting captured, escaping, getting captured again stories, which occasionally has the disconcerting effect of making the reader think he's watching a late 1970s episode of Doctor Who.

On the other hand, I would also say that Crown of Stars features some excellent worldbuilding. Elliott has researched the historical period very well and, for everything she has changed, she's left enough alone that the series actually becomes mildly educational (her realistic use of the hierarchy of medieval power is very satisfying). Many of the characters are intriguing and their storylines worth persevering with (namely Alain and Stronghand), whilst others are a bit flat and tedious (Liath's, mainly).

Among epic fantasy series, there are certainly far worse available, but also ones that are far better. If you are looking for an already-completed, entertaining epic fantasy series, then Crown of Stars is worth a look.

Series rating: ***½

I am currently reading Peter F. Hamilton's The Dreaming Void, which is a most enjoyable and satisfying work, as I have come to expect from him. Expect a review in the coming days.

The Burning Stone, Child of Flame & The Gathering Storm by Kate Elliott

My reading of Kate Elliott's seven-volume fantasy epic Crown of Stars continues. I unexpectedly made a lot of good time reading the series, so I decided to combine the reviews for the next three books into one review.

The Burning Stone (1999) is the third volume in the series and picks up the storyline after the events at the Battle of Gent. The quasi-self-contained storylines of the first two novels are abandoned here in favour of a more serialised approach as Elliott kicks in the central story arc of the whole series. The reader gains an understanding of the stakes and the true nature of the threat to Novaria, but Elliott presents us with several different viewpoints of the same events and it's unclear which is the true explanation. As I mentioned earlier, enjoyment of the first two novels is marred by the weakness of the character of Liath, but in this third volume she becomes more interesting as she is confronted by the apparent truth of her upbringing and birth. Elsewhere, political intrigue gathers pace and the Eika gain a new chieftain. The Eika plotline is extremely well-handled in this series and it's a shame it isn't given more airtime, but at a thousand pages in paperback this is already a long novel that doesn't really need to be any longer.

The Burning Stone (***½) is an important step forward in the series, delineating the main threats and clarifying what the central plot arc of the series actually is. However, the lack of a rigorous central narrative and the increasingly sprawling cast of characters and secondary plotlines does undermine some of the benefits of the stronger storytelling in this volume. The book is available from DAW in the USA and Orbit in the UK.

Child of Flame (2000) is an intriguing addition to the Crown of Stars series. As the middle volume of the series, it would have been easy for this to be a slower-paced book full of setting up and limited plot resolution. Instead Elliott pulls off some interesting writing decisions which allows her to delve deeper into the mysteries at the heart of the series whilst pushing forward the action decisively. There are huge battles, several key storylines are closed off and the destinies of Alain and Liath (who has a lot less screen-time than in previous volumes) take them to some very strange places.

Child of Flame (****) is the strongest novel of the first four in the series, featuring some unexpected plot developments and forcing some serious reconsidering of what came before.

UK, USA.

The Gathering Storm (2003) was originally supposed to be the penultimate volume of the series, but the final book was split in half due to its size. As such, the reader may be taken aback that the major climax of the series comes two volumes before its conclusion. The purpose of this novel is to take all of the developments of the past two volumes (and some from before that) and tie them all together into a massive convergence of plotlines, characters and events. This works very well, and the purposes of secondary storylines and characters who previously didn't seem to be contributing much to the overriding narrative is made clearer, sometimes surprisingly so. Again, the Eika storyline (now revealed to be much more closely tied to the central narrative than previously thought) is very strong in this novel, although some of the key characters do get a little lost in the middle of the book (Sanglant in particular, who has major roles in the opening and closing chapters but is otherwise off-stage for a significant chunk of the novel). There's also some curious and slightly baffling plot decisions which at first glance don't seem to make much sense, particularly a number of coincidences and happenstances in Alain's storyline that verge on the ludicrous. That said, it's certainly a relief that the major events foreseen and talked about (at times interminably) for the last several volumes finally come to pass in an explosive and apocalyptic finale.

The Gathering Storm (***½) is a highly significant step forward in the series and Elliott handles the major sweeping events of the book quite well, although a number of weaknesses in the plotting detract from the enjoyment of the book. As the novel concludes the reader is left feeling slightly dazed and asking, "Now what?"

UK, USA.

The final two volumes in the series are In the Ruins and Crown of Stars, which I hope to have finished next week.

King's Dragon & Prince of Dogs by Kate Elliott

These days, trilogies are so 1980s. To be a big-hitter in the fantasy league it seems you have to write a series of at least seven massive volumes, if not considerably more. However, writing a story that extends to many thousands of pages is an immense, complicated undertaking, and it seem very few writers who attempt it succeed in either maintaining quality all the way throughout, or if they do then usually it's with a few detours along the way and delays adding many years onto the release cycle of the series.

As a result, few of the 'long series' began back in the 1990s are as yet complete: The Malazan Book of the Fallen and A Song of Ice and Fire still have more installments to come, whilst both Harry Potter and The Wheel of Time's final volumes are finally in sight, but still not available yet. The only series from this period that comes to mind that is already complete, and thus ripe for assessement of the long-series-form as a way of telling a fantasy story, is Kate Elliott's Crown of Stars series, which consists of seven books starting with King's Dragon, originally published in 1997.

Elliott (the pen-name of American writer Alis A. Ramussen) sensibly starts things off on a small scale with the opening book in the series. The setting is the continent of Novaria, a fantasised version of Europe in the early medieval period. The opening volume takes place in the unified kingdoms of Wendar and Varre (Germanic states by other names), which through dynastic marriage are now ruled jointly by King Henry. However, his elder half-sister Sabella plots rebellion against him and mobilises the Varren nobles to war. At the same time, the savage nonhuman Eika are heavily raiding the northern coast of the kingdom and besieging the city of Gent, and King Henry's court is involved in intrigue as Henry plots to make his bastard son Sanglant (the result of a union between Henry and an Aoi or elf woman in his youth), his heir, to the displeasure of his eldest legitimate daughter Sapentia.

This opening novel follows three principal characters. Alain is a foundling, raised by his foster-family and promised to the Church. However, the destruction of the local monastary by Eika raiders sets Alain on a new path as his destiny intersects with that of Count Lavastine, who coincidentally once had a bastard son sent to be raised by freeholding family, a decision he now regrets. Readers may groan at this cliche and it is rather predictable in this opening volume. However, Elliott cleverly subverts this expectation in later volumes in the series.

The second POV character is Liath, a beautiful young woman who has spent much of her life on the run with her father, fleeing from unseen, unknown enemies who desire her father's immense knowledge of astrological magic. Unfortunately, whilst they evade their shadowy pursuers they run into the unwelcome attentions of Frater Hugh, a churchman with a hunger for knowledge, and for Liath.

The third POV, and the most interesting, is that of Rosvita, a churchwoman constructing an elaborate history of the Wendish peoples for the King's aged mother. Her role in the storyline is initially merely to give us a look at the inner workings of King Henry's court, but later she assumes a more proactive role.

This is a busy opening novel, with Alain and Liath both having quite active lives and the plotline twists and turns unexpectedly around them, whilst dynastic struggles ensure elsewhere. The general feeling of the book is a lighter, somewhat less accomplished (but not unenjoyably so) version of A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin. The political intrigue is simplistic by comparison to GRRM's masterpiece, but still more interesting than a lot of other fantasy writers attempt in their novels.

Elliott's biggest success is in her worldbuilding. Like GRRM, she has constructed a fantasy version that is so close to real medieval history at times you ponder why she didn't just write a historical novel, but the changes to real history are nevertheless interesting, such as the equally male-and-female-controlled Church. Like Robert Jordan before her, Elliott has gone to some difficulties to create an equal-opportunities fantasy world where men and women are equals and, like Jordan, she broadly succeeds, although you can poke holes in some of her reasoning as to how this came about. She also captures the fact that in the early Medieval period (the setting seems comparable to the 8th-10th centuries or so) battles were won and lost by small armies consisting of just a couple of thousand troops, and also that society was built on rising hierarchal tiers that were extremely difficult to bypass. Elliott also builds interesting characters and makes you care about them, particularly Alain, Rosvita and some of the secondary characters like Margrave Villam and Prince Sanglant.

There are some substantial flaws, however. It's incredibly difficult to like Liath because she spends pretty much every chapter moaning and whining about her circumstances, but is utterly unable to take action to change those circumstances. Her chronic inability to trust anyone and her inabilty to tell her few friends about the secrets that haunt her makes her a wearying character to read, and her cruel tormenting by Hugh inspires only pity, not respect or true sympathy. The fact that she has to be rescued from every situation by someone else eventually makes her an even more tedious character. Similarly, there are some irritating repetitions of phrase and a certain blandness in some parts of the writing that let the overall story down.

That said, Elliott manages to intrigue you with events in this first volume and the cliffhanger ending does make you want to pick up the second book, which I suppose was the main objective all along

King's Dragon (***) is published by Orbit in the UK and DAW in the USA.

Please note that the review for the second book entails spoiling certain plot elements from the first book.


Prince of Dogs picks up shortly after the first book ends. The Battle of Kassel has seen the defeat of Sabella's rebellion. Alain has been proclaimed heir to Count Lavastine, and now learns the way of rulership. Liath is now a King's Eagle, a trusted messenger, but her heart is torn by the death of Prince Sanglant in the Fall of Gent to the Eika. With King Henry's army badly mauled at Kassel, he has to entrust another to create a force and retake Gent. However, Prince Sanglant yet lives as the captive and plaything of the Eika warlord, Bloodheart, and Bloodheart's fifth son, who has forged an unusual connection with Alain, must return to the Eika homeland to raise a new force, but plots against his father along the way. Finally, rumblings come from the east that after a lengthy period of quiet, the Quman tribes of the marchlands are once again raiding and causing trouble.

Prince of Dogs sees the smaller story that was contained within King's Dragon explode outwards in all directions, with the addition of several new POV characters including the captive Prince Sanglant and Anna, a young girl who escapes the Fall of Gent with her brother to face an uncertain future in a refugee camp, whilst Biscop Antonia, a key villain in the first book, also has a few POV cameos. The political intrigue of the book is ramped up following the events of the first volume, as is the action quotient as the Eika's ravaging of the countryside around Gent is described, along with the campaign to retake the city. There is also a nice convergence of plotlines, as Alain and Liath meet for the first time and Rosvita moves more towards opposing the villainous and increasingly influential Hugh. Mercifully, although there are some more Liath/Hugh scenes, these are not as irritating as in the first volume as events conspire to seperate Liath from Hugh for most of the book. However, the fact that once again she is powerless to help herself and relies on others to protect her makes her a difficult character to admire.

Elliott's writing is stronger and more confident in this second novel, and the worldbuilding deepens (although the fact that half the locations mentioned in the book aren't on the accompanying map is irritating). It's still impossible to see what the overall plotline of the series is meant to be, however. The metaphysical aspects of the story, such as the role of astrology, magic and the Aoi in the narrative, is still very unclear, which makes it all the more irritating when these elements are referred to without explanation. Nevertheless, those explanations do come in time, and these sequences are more satisfying on a re-read.

Prince of Dogs (***½) continues the narrative begun in the first book and expands upon it, introducing new characters and situations whilst thankfully reducing those elements which weakened the opening volume. The book is again available from Orbit in the UK and DAW in the USA. Incidentally, the US edition has one of the most spectacularly awful covers I've ever seen grace a fantasy novel.

The author has a webpage here. Orson Scott Card has an interesting and highly enthusiastic overview of the series here, although beware that he does spoil one of the overriding mysteries of the series.

The subsequent volumes in the series are entitled The Burning Stone, Child of Flame, The Gathering Storm, In the Ruins and Crown of Stars, and I will be reading and reviewing them all over the forthcoming weeks, although I will take a break to tackle Ian Cameron Esslemont's Night of Knives along the way.