Children of the Shaman | |||||
Jessica Rydill | |||||
Roc Books, 368 pages | |||||
A review by Steven H Silver
Rydill has clearly spent a considerable amount of time creating her
world-that-isn't quite ours, and she just as clearly is cognizant of
much more information than she is allowing the reader to share. While
some authors tend to overload the reader, Rydill could be more generous
is allotting her background, although as she has future plans for this
realm, it may be that she will provide the desired information in an
upcoming book.
Children of the Shaman gets underway at a leisurely pace, not unlike a
locomotive trying to pick up steam. Unfortunately, this may cause
readers to question whether it is a book worth reading to the end of the
line or if they should get off at one of the intervening stations. Like
a railroad, Rydill's story passes through a seeming unending panoply of
exotic towns, beginning as a story of two children being reunited with
their estranged father before moving on to a murder mystery, a coming-of-age
story, a fantastic quest among others. In fact, there are so many motifs
at play that the novel seems to have become a runaway train, the author
unable or unwilling to keep it on the tracks.
Rydill's protagonist is Annat, a Wanderer adolescent whose ailing aunt
has dropped her and her brother, Malchik, off with their long-missing
father, Yuda. Although currently employed as a guard for the railway,
Yuda is about to take a job in a frontier village as an healer, using
his skills as a shaman. At the same time, he will coach Annat in her own
abilities as a Shaman. Although Annat and Yuda can communicate
telepathically, and their relationship is closer than Yuda's
relationship with Malchik, Rydill doesn't fully use this ability to
build their relationship.
The plot eventually kicks off when Malchik disappears in the wake of
numerous murders and disappearances, nearly a third of the way through
the novel. Annat and Yuda, accompanied by Yuda's longtime friend Govorin
and his wife, Casildis, enter the faerie realm of La Souterraine to try
to retrieve the boy and learn the cause behind the various deaths. Rydill's prose is strong and she's able to build a wonderfully tactile
world of color, sound and temperature. The train moving through the
wilderness is depicted with love in an almost cinematic manner. Her
characters food and drink almost come to life in her descriptions of
their flavor, look and aroma. Although different from ours, Rydill's
world has a sense of reality and presence.
Children of the Shaman is a welcome first novel. Not without its faults,
it presents indications of an innovative voice in fantastic fiction who
can combine seemingly disparate elements into what one hopes will
eventually become a seamless whole. Readers who discover Rydill with
Children of the Shaman will have the pleasure of watching her grow as an
author in subsequent books as well as enjoying a novel similar to the
standard fantasy novel, but different enough to make one question the
familiarity.
Steven H Silver is a four-time Hugo Nominee for Best Fan Writer and the editor of the anthologies Wondrous Beginnings, Magical Beginnings, and Horrible Beginnings (DAW Books, January, February and March, 2003). In addition to maintaining several bibliographies and the Harry Turtledove website, Steven is heavily involved in convention running and publishes the fanzine Argentus. |
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